January 25, 2026

January 25th, 2026.

It's the nation mourned the killing of VA ICU nurse Alex Prety yesterday at the hands

of federal officials in Minneapolis.

President Donald J. Trump spent last night at the White House at a black tie private screening

of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump.

Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to the film just weeks after executive chair Jeff

Bezos dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the former president's reelection and is

spending another $35 million to promote the film.

Then, this morning, Trump's social media account posted a 450 words social media

screed, complaining about the lawsuit against his addition of a massive ballroom to the White

House.

Following the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a radical left organization, the account

claimed that the addition is being done with the design, consent, and approval of the highest

levels of the United States military and secret service.

The mere bringing of this ridiculous lawsuit has already, unfortunately, exposed this

here-to-four-top secret fact.

The package of construction at this late date, when so much has already been ordered and

done, would be devastating to the White House, our country, and all concerned.

This morning, administration officials doubled down on their insistence that the killing

had been justified.

On CNN's State of the Union this morning, U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bavino

claimed that the true victims of yesterday's shooting were federal agents.

He confirmed that the agents who killed Freddie yesterday remain on the streets today, though

they have been reassigned elsewhere.

FBI Director Cash Patel claimed on the Fox News channel that the fact Freddie was carrying

a weapon proved that he was planning trouble, although because he was part of a community-led

first-responder network carrying the weapon for which he had a permit made sense.

But Americans are not buying it.

They're coalescing around the idea of the American people versus an out-of-control government.

As conservative lawyer George Conway put it, I just checked.

It turns out that Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, does

not say the executive power shall be vested in a bunch of sociopaths who think they can

do whatever the f*** they want and make f*** it up as they go along.

Reports out of Minnesota say that in the face of the terror inflicted on it by federal

agents, the people there are even more closely linked together in community solidarity.

They are patrolling the streets, donating food, delivering groceries, helping with legal

services, organizing to look out for each other in a demonstration of community solidarity,

so foreign to administration figures that Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday suggested

that there was something nefarious about how well organized they are as they protect

their neighbors.

In Minneapolis today, the Minnesota prison system took the extraordinary step of launching

its own website to combat lies from the Department of Homeland Security or DHS.

Its first major announcement suggested that Bovino had lied about the Border Patrol

operation that was underway when agents killed Alex Prety.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections expressed its condolences to the family and loved

ones of Alex Prety and said that although Bovino claimed that the operation was targeting

a man with a significant criminal history, that information was false.

In fact, the individual Bovino identified had never been in custody in Minnesota and

records showed only traffic related offenses for him.

Records did show though that he had been in federal immigration custody during Trump's

first administration and had been released.

Chief Brian O'Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department told Margaret Brennan of face

the nation, people have had enough.

This is the third shooting now in less than three weeks.

The Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year, recovering about 900

guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't

shoot anyone.

And now this is the second American citizen that's been killed.

It's the third shooting within three weeks.

This is not sustainable.

The Police Department has only 600 police officers.

We are stretched incredibly thin.

This is taking an enormous toll, trying to manage all of this chaos on top of having to

be the police department for a major city.

It's too much.

The Minnesota National Guard made it clear which side they were on, wearing neon vests

to distinguish themselves from federal agents.

They handed out donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ice protesters.

The National Basketball Players Association said it could no longer remain silent.

Now more than ever, it said, we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in

solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice.

The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by

its global citizens.

And we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant

to protect us all.

The NBA and its members extend our deepest condolences to the families of Alex Prety and

Renee Good.

Just as our thoughts remain focused on the safety and well-being of all members of our community.

The newest killing has opened up a rift in Republican ranks.

Administration officials not allied with Secretary of Homeland Security Christy Nome and her cronies

are complaining to reporters, including Bill Mellusion of the Fox News Channel, that they

are frustrated with DHS official statements that Prety was intending a massacre of federal

agents in the face of videos that disproved such absurd claims.

They have told Mellusion such comments are catastrophic.

We are losing this war, sources say.

We are losing the base and the narrative.

Indeed, at the base level of politics, mega supporters who support gun ownership are

appalled by statements like that of FBI director Cash Patel, who told the Fox News Channel's

Maria Barteromo, you cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any

sort of protest that you want.

It's that simple.

You don't have the right to break the law and incite violence.

But Prety had a license to carry a weapon and he did not brandish it.

President Rob Dore of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center noted that Prety had the right

to carry a gun in that situation and that it shouldn't be necessary to choose between

exercising your first amendment rights or your second amendment rights.

He expressed concern that our government and agents of our government are not engaging

in good faith with what we're seeing with our own eyes.

Lawyer John Mittnik, who served as Deputy Council of the Homeland Security Council from

its inception during the George W. Bush administration and then served as General Council of the

United States Department of Homeland Security from 2018 to 2019 when he clashed with Steven

Miller.

Wrote on social media, I helped to establish DHS in 2002 and 2003 and later had the Homeland

Security portfolio as a White House Council and served as General Council of the Department.

I am enraged and embarrassed by DHS's lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty in peach and removed

Trump now.

Aside from a few strong mega voices, elected Republicans appeared reluctant to defend the

killing.

Neither Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, nor House Speaker

Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, commented on it.

Vermont's Republican Governor Phil Scott did, though, leading the way for other Republicans

in districts that are sliding away from MAGA.

In a statement, he said, enough.

It's not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising

their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government.

At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of

acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership.

At worst, it's a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that's

resulting in the murder of Americans.

The President should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal

government's focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants.

In the absence of presidential action, Congress and the courts must step up to restore constitutionality.

G. Eliot Morris of Strength and Numbers noted today that even the Republican-leaning

Rasmussen polls have shown that 59% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration,

while only 39% approve.

In Strength and Numbers today, he reported that Trump's 2024 coalition has come undone.

He explained that young voters, non-white voters, and low turnout voters, who swung to

Trump from 2020 to 2024, have swung back against him in force.

In many cases, these groups are even more anti-Trump now than they were ahead of the 2020 election.

Morris also noted that Trump's approval rating is not under water in 10 of the states he

won in 2024 as I wrote last night.

It's under water in 15.

Today the editorial boards of both Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and his New York Post

urged the administration to pause its ICE operations in Minneapolis after the killing

of Alex Prety.

The Wall Street Journal's famously right-wing editorial board warned that the Trump administration

spin on this simply isn't believable.

It continued, Misnome and Mr. Miller aren't credible spokesmen.

Their social media and cable TV strategy is to own the Libs rather than to persuade Americans.

This is backfiring against Republicans.

Mr. Miller's mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned

in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026.

Republicans don't want law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old

boys.

Tonight the editorial board of the New York Post warned that Trump's ICE actions in Minneapolis

are backfiring.

Swing voters see US citizens dying at federal agents' hands and recoil in horror.

It concluded, Mr. President, the American people didn't vote for these scenes and you

can't continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.

Trump's social media account turned defensive tonight.

After repeating Trump's false claim that he had one election in a historic landslide,

in reality he won less than 50% of the vote.

It blamed Democrats for the chaos ICE and CBP agents have caused in Democratic-led

cities.

It demanded that every Democratic mayor and governor cooperate with the administration

to make America great again.

Yesterday, after Alex Prattie's death, the son of a man Prattie had cared for at the

VA hospital, published a video of Prattie speaking at his father's deathbed.

Today, we remember that freedom is not free, Prattie said.

We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it.

May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so

that we may enjoy the gift of freedom.

So, in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service

to our nation in the cause of our freedom.

In this solemn hour, we give them our honor and our gratitude.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music

composed by Michael Moss.