CNN anchor Jake Tapper clashed with a Republican former Trump administration official on Tuesday in a fiery back-and-forth over the killing of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration agents.
Chad Mizelle, who previously served as the chief of staff to the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi and general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, was asked by Tapper his thoughts on the killing of Pretti. When he tried to defend the immigration agents and blame Pretti for his own death, Tapper pointed to the removal of Border Patrol enforcer Greg Bovino and the Trump administration's growing blame of him behind the scenes.
"Jake, I very much don't agree with that... If you want to lay blame at somebody's feet, it is squarely on Tim Walz in the Minnesota officials who have called ICE the modern day Gestapo, who have told ICE to get the f out of our city, who have encouraged their citizens to protest against ICE, to blow whistles against ICE, to organize Signal chats against ICE," Mizelle said. "You know, not the Signal chats thing directly, but all of that type of agitation has been heavily encouraged. And it's exactly that type of agitation that leads to unfortunate circumstances, like we saw with Alex Pretti."
That's when Tapper unleashed on Mizelle — who at several points appeared to be tongue-tied and surprised by the fiery response.
"So you have an issue with the First Amendment?" Tapper shot back. "You don't think that people should be exercising their First Amendment rights to speak about policies that they don't like. You have more of a problem with that than you have with people killing American citizens. Did I get that right?"
Mizelle attempted to argue that people protesting were disobeying law enforcement and blowing whistles in their ears — and Tapper pushed back again on the claim.
"So you think that he should have been killed? It was all his fault?" Tapper asked.
"I didn't say that at all, Jake, but what you are trying to..." Mizelle said.
Tapper interjected and pointed out Mizelle's comments.
"You don't think that they have a First Amendment right to blow a whistle," Tapper responded. "And just FYI, in terms of not having your ID on you, that's like a negligible misdemeanor in Minnesota. That's not some major crime."
Tapper continued to challenge Mizelle, specifically over what Americans saw in the video footage compared to what the Trump administration and its DHS officials have claimed. Tapper called him out over the hypocrisy of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and how Republicans responded to that compared to the public response to ICE killings and aggressive tactics in Minnesota.
"That it seems to be that people in the Trump administration, and I guess that includes you, even though you're former member, think that there's one set of rules for Trump supporters and another set of rules for people who are not Trump supporters, like people who assault law enforcement, people who assault law enforcement," Tapper said. "On January 6th, that's fine. They should be given pardons. But people who assault law enforcement and I don't think Alex Pretti that describes him, that's not allowed. People who are MAGA supporters and carry guns with them to protests. That's fine. But Alex Pretti should not have had a gun on him even though he was a concealed weapon holder. And it's just like it doesn't make any sense to most Americans, because it's really just supposed to be one set of laws and one set of rules."