JD Vance Won’t Apologize For Amplifying Smears Against Alex Pretti

Vice President JD Vance gave a frosty, two-word answer when a reporter asked him if he should apologize to the family of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse killed by Border Patrol agents during a protest in Minneapolis less than two weeks ago.

“For what?” the vice president replied to The Daily Mail’s Phillip Nieto.

“For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent,” Nieto replied, referring to Vance sharing a post on X from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that, just hours after Pretti’s death, baselessly slammed the nurse as an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”

Miller has since admitted that Border Patrol agents “may not have been following” proper protocol around Pretti’s shooting. Amid the blowback, President Donald Trump also said he didn’t believe Pretti to be an “assassin.” But Vance refused to apologize for amplifying the remarks and continued to smear Pretti in The Daily Mail interview.

“I just described to you what I said about Alex Pretti, which is that he’s a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest,” he continued.

“But if it’s determined that his civil rights were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize?” Nieto pressed him, referring to the Justice Department’s announcement last Friday that it would lead a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death ― marking a major course reversal in how the Trump administration was handling the shooting.

Vance bristled at the idea of thinking that far ahead.

“If this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to another hypothetical, will I do a thing?” the vice president asked as Nieto reminded him that “it’s a real case that’s open.”

Vance, despite his jumping to conclusions about Pretti, said an investigation into the shooting needs to play out before he’ll comment.

“We’re gonna let the investigation determine ― we’re gonna let the actual law come to the surface and figure out what happened, and then if something is determined that the guy who shot Alex Pretti did something bad, then a lot of consequences are gonna flow from that,” Vance said.

“We’ll let that happen, but I don’t think it’s smart to prejudge the investigation,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s fair to those ICE officers.”