President Donald Trump seemingly betrayed a major building piece of his base with his comments on Alex Pretti's killing.
Federal agents gunned down the 37-year-old nurse last weekend during an immigration surge in Minneapolis, and the 79-year-old president and some of his top administration officials have blamed Pretti for his own death because he was legally carrying a firearm at the time.
“With that being said, you can’t have guns,” Trump said Tuesday. “You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t.”
Trump disagreed with his top adviser Stephen Miller, who characterized Pretti as a "would-be assassin," but he reiterated those remarks hours later, saying “I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines," and CNN's Zachary Wolf commented on what that means to the GOP base.
"I mean, I think there are a lot of people who would like to see fewer people carry guns in the in the country," Wolf told "CNN This Morning." "A lot of them are not Republican voters. So when he says that kind of thing, when you go after somebody who was legally carrying a gun, something that's allowed in this country under the Second Amendment, very controversially, for a lot of people."
Gun rights groups have already spoken out against Pretti's fatal shooting, as host Audie Cornish pointed out, but Wolf doubted the president's remarks would cleave off his base supporters.
"He basically ripped the rip the rug out from underneath your base," Wolf said. "So you know, that seems to be a gaffe on his part. But let's look at the larger issue here. You know, guns are a problem in the in the country and, you know, maybe this will people have people talk about it. Probably not."
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