JD Vance sat down with The Daily Mail’s Phillip Nieto for an interview that covered quite a bit of ground, though one exchange stood out — in large part because Nieto asked the vice president a question that’s been on the minds of many.
“Have you apologized, did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti?” the reporter asked.
“For what?” the Ohio Republican replied, as if the question were somehow foolish.
“For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent,” Nieto explained.
Vance again described the intensive care unit nurse who was shot and killed by federal immigration officers as “a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest,” despite the fact that there was no such protest and that the vice president isn’t in a position to tell the public what Pretti was thinking.
Nieto pressed further, asking, “But if it’s determined that his civil rights were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize?”
Vance dismissed the line of inquiry as “hypothetical,” before concluding, “Like I said, we’re gonna let the investigation determine. … I don’t think it’s smart to prejudge the investigation.”
The comments came moments after he had already prejudged Pretti’s intent without the benefit of an investigation.
Let’s not forget that it was literally just hours after Pretti was killed when Donald Trump’s political operation kicked into high gear. The White House’s Stephen Miller, for example, said the ICU nurse was a “domestic terrorist” and a “would-be assassin.” Gregory Bovino, who helped lead Border Patrol operations, told the public that Pretti intended to “massacre” law enforcement personnel.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem peddled a variety of absurd lies, including her bizarre insistence that the victim was “brandishing” a weapon.
The falsehoods weren’t just at odds with eyewitness accounts, they were also plainly contradicted by unambiguous video evidence that documented exactly what happened. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told The Washington Post that the Republican administration’s claims were “flat-out insane.”
Vance was part of that operation. After Miller falsely claimed via social media that Pretti was “an assassin who tried to murder federal agents,” it was the vice president who decided to amplify the smear online.
That’s precisely why “for what?” was such an offensive answer to a good question about the apology owed to the victim’s family.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
