The president appears to have changed his tune when it comes to his stance on Alex Pretti and Renee Good’s deaths after they were both branded as ‘agitators’.
Both Good and Pretti were fatally shot by federal agents in two separate incidents last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Good was shot on January 7 while behind the wheel of her car as she drove away from ICE officers who were carrying out raids in her neighborhood, while Pretti was taking part in an ICE protest on January 24 when he was tackled to the ground by officers and shot. His death has since been ruled as a homicide by a medical examiner.
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Donald Trump has addressed both matters and appeared to place blame on both Pretti and Good for the violence that broke out — but now, Trump seemingly developed a more sympathetic point of view.
Speaking with NBC News, the president said he was ‘not happy’ about what happened.
« [Pretti] was not an angel and [Good] was not an angel, » Trump said. « You know, you look at some tapes from back, but still, I’m not happy with what happened there. Nobody could be happy and ICE wasn’t happy either. »
The POTUS went on to share his thoughts on who ‘feels worse than anybody’ about the shootings, with his comments marking a contrast on what he’s said previously.
In a Truth Social post shared the day after Good’s passing, he said of the footage of the moments leading up to the 37-year-old mother being shot: « The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing, and resisting, who then violently, wilfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense. »
« We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate, » he added.
What Trump previously said about Alex Pretti
Speaking after Pretti’s shooting, Trump alleged that he’d been brandishing a gun; something which has since been refuted by witnesses.
He wrote online: « This is the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go – What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers? The Mayor and the Governor called them off?
« It is stated that many of these Police were not allowed to do their job, that ICE had to protect themselves — Not an easy thing to do! »
In a separate comment, he hailed Pretti as an ‘agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist’.
Trump went on to say of the footage that emerged of Pretti involved in an altercation with ICE in the days leading up to his death: « Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the tail light broke off in pieces. »
Trump now claims it ‘should not have happened’
The POTUS continued: « It should have not happened. It was very sad to me, a very sad incident. I think they were both sad.
« And you know who feels worse about it than anybody? The people of ICE. »
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The Governor of California has accused Trump of having ‘something deeply wrong’ with him after the president’s comparisons between Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
President Donald Trump has spoken out about the deaths of 37-year-old mom-of-three Renee Good and 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.
Good was fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross on January 7, and Pretti was fatally shot by federal immigration agents on January 24. Both were killed in Minnesota, Minneapolis.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump reflected on the killings, starting with Pretti’s fatal shooting.
Despite footage of the incident showing Pretti not holding a gun, but a phone, alongside eye witness accounts corroborating this, Trump said: « I think the whole thing is terrible.
« I don’t like the fact that he was carrying a gun, that was fully loaded, and he had two magazines with him.
« It’s pretty unusual. But nobody knows when they saw the gun, how they saw the gun. Bottom line is that it was terrible. »
Moving on to address the fatal shooting of Good, Trump decided to compare not just Pretti and Good, but their parents too.
He voiced: « Both of them were terrible. The other was terrible too. I’m not sure about his parents, but I know her parents were big Trump fans.
« Makes me feel bad anyway, but I guess you could say even worse – they were tremendous Trump people, Trump fans. And their daughter was, I don’t know if you can say radicalized, maybe radicalized, maybe not, I don’t know.
« But I hate to see it, I hate to see it. »
And it’s not taken long for social media users to rain in, including 40th Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, who said: « Something is deeply wrong with this man. »
Although, another slightly disagreed.
« A lot of things… » They voiced.
Indeed, Trump is a man who was closely associated with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a man who’s attempts to cling to power incited the Capitol Riots which left people dead, and a man who has profited an alleged $1.4 billion off his presidency.
A man who is also president of the United States, for a second time.
A third echoed: « There is, I don’t think the bulk of us realise just how serious a scenario we’ve landed ourselves in re Donald Trump.
« These next half dozen years, we’ll be lucky if Donald doesn’t take us to a place that we don’t want to be as I dwell on our worldly concerns. »
Published 12:38 28 Jan 2026 GMT
National Rifle Association issues blunt statement after Donald Trump says he didn’t like Alex Pretti having a gun
Although footage and eye witness reports stated Alex Pretti was carrying a mobile phone, not gun.
US President Donald Trump declared Alex Pretti ‘certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun’, but the National Rifle Association has since weighed in to clarify the ‘right to bear arms’.
On January 24, a federal immigration agent fatally shot Alex Pretti in the streets of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
The Department of Homeland Security said the federal agent shot the 37-year-old intensive care nurse in an act of self-defense, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun at the time. Footage around the time of the incident shows Pretti holding not a gun, but a mobile phone, and eyewitness accounts also contradict officials’ claims he was brandishing such a weapon.
President of the United States Donald Trump also spoke out in an interview with Fox News, stating he doesn’t ‘like’ that Pretti ‘was carrying a gun’ and that there was something ‘unusual’ about Pretti ‘ha[ving] a gun that was fully loaded’ alongside ‘two magazines’.
While the investigation into the incident continues, Trump’s voicing that ‘[Pretti] certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun’ has sparked backlash, given the nurse was a licensed concealed-weapons holder.
And while not making direct reference to anyone, the National Rifle Association took to X on January 28 to share a statement.
The statement reads: « The NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be. »
This follows gun rights lobbying group Gun Owners of America also having spoken out.
A spokesperson for the organization, named Luis Valdes, told Reuters: « You absolutely can walk around with a gun, and you absolutely can peacefully protest while armed.
« It’s an American historical tradition that dates all the way back to the Boston Tea Party. »
This was echoed by Minneapolis police chief who told Face the Nation: « You have a Second Amendment right in the United States to possess a firearm. And there are some restrictions around that in Minnesota.
« And everything that we see, that we’re aware of, shows that he did not violate any of those restrictions. He is not a convicted felon and he is someone that did have a permit for the handgun to carry it. »
However, other officials have also defended the agent responsible for shooting Pretti, and have supported Trump’s statement that Pretti shouldn’t have been carrying a gun, such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel.
During a press conference just hours after Pretti’s killing, Noem said: « I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign. »
Patel told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures: « As Kristi said, you cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. »
In response to Pretti’s fatal shooting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a reporter, as quoted by Reuters: « Any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms, and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you, and that’s unfortunately what took place on Saturday. »
