Bulwark Takes - Sam Stein: The Government is Telling You Not to Believe Your Eyes

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

Sam Stein, The Bulwark's managing editor, takes on Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino’s Orwellian inversion of reality in the aftermath of the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse. Sam digs into Bovino’s Sunday interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, where Bovino reframes the victim as the aggressor and dismisses what videos of the killing show.

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Lose more weight. Make it last. Get started today for as low as $25 at Weight Watchers.com. Hey, everybody to me, Sam Stein, managing at the Bullwork. It is Sunday morning. We are one day removed now from the shooting of Alexander Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse in Minneapolis. You almost undoubtedly have seen coverage of this. Ice agents firing multiple rounds into him, and then you probably have seen the aftermath of it. But this morning, Bovina went on CNN with Dana Bash to talk about the incident.

And it was honestly one of the more Orwellian interviews I've seen in a long time on a Sunday show. It basically, he asked you to just ignore your own eyes. And he basically defied fact and truth and presented a narrative around the shooting that you would more or less have to have never seen the video and have no functioning thought, ability for rational, thought, an independent rational thought at that, to understand or to believe what Bovino was saying. Let's start. We could start with any of these clips. I have four that I want to play. So just bear with me. But I think it's worth watching all of these clips. With respect, it feels as though in some ways you're blaming the victim here. The victims are the Board of Patrol agents. I'm not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victim are the Border Patrol agents. The suspect put himself

in that situation, the victims are the Border Patrol agents there. Okay, the reason to start with that one is it just sets the tone for everything. In his recollection and his telling, it's not the person who was shot and killed who's the victim. It's the person who shot and killed the person. It is a galling way to look at this. One thing Bovina could have done is just said, we are letting this investigation proceed. We're not going to comment on it. Our sympathies are to the family, to everyone involved.

Law enforcement is put in a tough position. We never want to see people die, of course. We need to get to the bottom of this before we talk about it. That's not what he did. The victims, he said, are the ICE agents who shot and killed Preddy. It's just remarkable. Now, if you had watched the video, you would know that that's not exactly at all how it went. Preddy was coming to the aid of a woman who had been pushed by ICE agents.

Those ice agents then pepper sprayed Prattie in the, face, this is all on video, they knocked him down, they pushed him down, they had four or five agents on him, they took his gun, which he was legally allowed to have, and then they shot him. I'm sorry, but that is not, that doesn't make the ICE agents the victim. Of course, it's stupid. It's stupid. He thinks you're dumb. Okay? Let's go on. There's no evidence that he was perpetrating violence. And there's no evidence, unless you have it, and we'd love to see it if there is, that he was in. intending to massacre law enforcement other than the fact that he was there and he had a gun lawfully.

He meant to be there beforehand. Again, Dana, he meant he came there beforehand for a reason. How do you know that? Because he was there. But all he was doing was filming and documenting it, which is legal. He was carrying a gun, which in Minneapolis is legal. I didn't say it wasn't. And I didn't say it wasn't legal.

So then what did he do that was illegal? So then what did he do? That's a federal law enforcement when he does that. That's an active law enforcement crime scene that he decided to enter into. Where do you see in the video that he was assaulting law enforcement? Because from everything we have seen, law enforcement was assaulting him when he was there trying to help another individual. Dana, law enforcement doesn't assault anyone. Follow directions of law enforcement.

Follow directions of law enforcement in an active crime scene. It's very evident he didn't want to do that. very evident that the other individuals didn't want to do that. And, you know, it's too bad the consequences had to be paid because he injected himself into that crime scene. I can't say that enough. He made the decision to go there. We didn't make the decision to talk to him.

We didn't even know that individual was in existence until he came into that crime scene. So there you have, Bovino, basically saying that Predi decided to be there. and therefore he is what, you know, it's right that he was shot. He meant to be there beforehand was the quote. Yeah, no shit. Who gives a shit? He was there to protest. Who gives a shit?

What difference does it fucking make? He was there to protest. That's a right. He has it. But in fact, he wasn't really just there to protest. He was there to help people who were being, you know, intimidated, assaulted, pushed around by ice. We know this because it's on video.

And even if he was. there to protest, it doesn't matter. That is a right. So, Vivino makes no sense. He's got nothing there. He's got nothing there. And if the idea is that you are, you know, law enforcement's allowed to assault you and even shoot you because you had, I don't know, what is he even saying? You had the intention to be there and watch law enforcement. Are we not allowed to watch law enforcement? It's really Orwellian stuff here. It's basically, So you cannot protest the state or the state can shoot you is what he's saying if you take it to its logical conclusion. It's wild stuff.

All right. Let's keep going. Again, we're asked to believe stuff that we can see is not true. I want to go back to the gun, sir, because I think this is really, really critical. You can see an agent. And I just want to go to, let's see here, video. You can see a screenshot of an agent in a green jacket approach Preddy, and then he appeared to take a gun away. When the agent took the gun away, which it seems as though it was Preddy's gun, that happened before

Preddy was shot. Why was an unarmed man shot multiple times by law enforcement, by your Border Patrol agents? Dana, you don't know he was unarmed. I don't know he was unarmed. That's freeze frame adjudication of a crime scene via a photo. That's why we have investigators. That's why we have an investigation that is going to answer those questions. How many shots were fired?

Who fired shots? Where was the guns? Where were the guns located? All those questions are going to be answered in the investigation. We're not going to adjudicate that here on TV in one freeze frame there. Okay. It's not a freeze frame. we're showing a video of one of your agents taking the gun away,

and that happened before Preddy was shot. We don't know that agent was taking any gun away. That could have been the agents, because we don't know that. The facts are going to come to light. So you're disputing the video. That's what happened. That's why we investigate. Well, with respect, you say that's why we investigate,

but you're also drawing other conclusions that sort of fly in the face of waiting for. an investigation. Thank you. Thank you, Dana Bash. Just so we have this straight. Greg Bovino can say that this dude, Alexander Pready, came to the scene in order to confront law enforcement agents and prevent them from doing their job and to, I don't know, assault them. I mean, they called him an assassin, right? That's what it's the admitted. That he can conclude all that without any investigation and that therefore it's justified to shoot him. But he won't adjudicate a freeze frame, from a video? I mean, give me a break. Also, it's obvious that they took the gun from the guy. It's right there. It's on multiple videos. They themselves rushed to get out a picture of that gun on a car seat

to their favorite news outlets. They themselves kept talking about how this man had a gun and therefore who would go down to a scene with a gun armed like that. I mean, that's the whole talking point. But now that you point out that he was unarmed, disarmed prior to being shot, oh, we don't talk about the gun. Can't talk about the gun. Why would we talk about the gun? Who knows? It could have multiple guns. If he had multiple guns, they would have told Fox News he would have multiple guns. I mean, give me a break. These people, they're just very comfortable, very comfortable lying. And that's it. All right. Last one. Well, you said yesterday that this looks like a situation where the individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement. What evidence do you have that he wanted to

massacre law enforcement because all the videos that we have, and I do want to, we just have this still shut up now, but I do control room want to play one of the other videos. Let's play video number one again. It doesn't look anything like he's trying to massacre law enforcement. In fact, he was filming, and then it looked like he was trying to help another individual there who was pushed down by law enforcement, and then they went after him. In fact, I believe that the fantastic training that our law enforcement partners have, the fact that they're highly trained, prevented any specific shootings of law enforcement. So good job for our law enforcement in taking him down before he was able to do that.

And again, Dana, let's look at why he was there in the first place. Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic and stand in the middle of the road and then assault, delay, and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for a reason? Did he fall victim to that violent and heated rhetoric by a Mayor Frye, Governor Waltz? Look, Dana, they're trying to portray border patrol agents and ICE agents as Gestapo, Nazi, and many other. other words, did this individual fall victim as many others have to that type of heated rhetoric? It's hard to describe what's happening here. Kudos to the Border Patrol agents, the ICE agents, he says, for preventing a massacre. And then within the same, you know, graph, he's like, we don't know if this guy who had been just, his brain had been fried by anti-ice rhetoric and ideology.

And he could have just shot up anybody. He could have been a huge massacre. So kudos to our guys for taking out the threat before it presented itself, before it manifested. I mean, again, I've used it a couple times, but it's Orwellian. People know what they see. This guy, Alexander Pretti, he was an ICU nurse at a VA. He was literally a choir boy, a Boy Scout, by all recollections from people who have known him, who have talked to him, who have worked with him. He was a decent human being who was compelled to go there, compelled to go there because he was shocked at what was

happening with ice. And he wanted to help people. And in that video, in the run-up, it's all on video. He runs to help a woman who's pushed by ice. He throws himself in between ice and this woman. And then ice latches onto him, beats the hell out of him, takes his gun away from him, shoots him dead. And then they don't bother doing CPR. They're according to an affidavit of counting the bullet wounds.

And Greg Bovino wants to sit there and say, oh, this guy was trying to, who knows, probably massacre all these people, if not for, not for those ICE agents. We would have had blood on the streets. Give me a fucking break. It's just backwards. To this point about Alex Pretti, our colleague, got a comment from Mack Randolph, who posted

the video of Pretti reading the final honors to his father. His father was a veteran. Alex was an ICU nurse, and his father died. Alex Pretti read the final honors. Today we remember that freedom is not free. 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 render our honor and our gratitude. And the video is just, it goes to show you that this wasn't some insane deranged anti-ice lunatic. It was just a normal guy upset with what was happening in his community who went and demonstrated, practiced his First Amendment rights, alongside with the Second Amendment rights, and was killed. Mack Randolph writes, we are tired of being lied to.

When does this end? Alex was the best of us. ICE and this administration has proven time and time again to be the worst of us. Alex was an example of brimming human compassion doing one of the hardest and most honorable jobs you can do, caring for veterans in their time of need, easing their pain and answering their pain and answering their questions even when those answers are hard to absorb. The real heroes are the nurses and the doctors that work at the VA hospital, not the untrained thugs, murdering our heroes in our would-be peaceful streets.

This is not left or right. This is common sense human compassion. So yeah, Greg Bovino can go on TV and spout his bullshit. It's lies. You don't have to treat it journalistically, as he said, she said, I thought Dana Bash did a good job. But, you know, it's incumbent upon people who work in this industry to just call a lie, and not worry about feeling like, oh, you know, I might cross as impartial.

No. The correct journalistic instinct right now is to say, I see video in my own eyes. You are lying. That's our obligation is to be honest and straightforward with the public about what happened here. Alex Pready's done. He's gone. He's dead. He's killed. We have an obligation to tell his story truthfully. But I'm left with one other comment from Bovino on CNN, which we're not going to play the video for. But it does relate to these ICE agents. He was asked by Dana Bash. Well, what's going to happen with them? Are they going to go back out onto the field? Are they still employed by ICE? And the answer is, yeah, they're still employed by ICE. Bevino says they're now on administrative jobs in Minneapolis, which you might think, okay, At least there's that. They're not back out on the street. But then he added an addendum.

They will be sent to another city when ice moves or operations to another city inevitably. And they will be back on the street. So Alex Pready is dead for having exercised his constitutional rights. These ICE agents will be back on the street because Greg Bovino, frankly, doesn't care. Pretty bleak morning, honestly. But we will be monitoring this. and trying to bring as much of it as we can to you. We appreciate your support.

There's a separate conversation this morning that I had with Bill and Adrian. Adrian was in Minnesota, in Minneapolis for a number of days. You should read his newsletter about the heroes there. It's really worth it. You should subscribe to the Borg if you can so that you can support our mission here. We're trying our best to be honest, direct, and to really properly understand. score the moral stakes happening in stories like these. And we appreciate your support.

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Expert support. Lose more weight. Make it last. Get started today for as low as $25 at weightwatchers.com.