Pivot - Is Alex Pretti Shooting a Turning Point?

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Kara and Scott jump on for an emergency episode in the aftermath of the Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis. They break down how cellphone video from the scene contradicts the narrative pushed by the Trump administration, the political reaction in Washington, and why a national economic strike — not just protests — may be the most effective response. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. This is an emergency pod. We do these from time to time with news, especially if it's breaking, and obviously what's happened over the weekend in Minnesota has been heinous in many ways, in all ways, actually. So we had to jump on here to talk about the situation. Tensions are exploding in reaction to federal agents shooting and killing. 37-year-old ICU nurse, Alex Predi, in Minneapolis on Saturday. This is the second fatal shooting by federal agents this month with Governor Tim Walls, calling for Trump to halt ICE operations in the state. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to cast blame on the victim and local Democratic lawmakers. Border Control Command Gregory Bovino appeared on CNN's State of the Union with Dana Bash earlier,

and here's what that tiny, horrible man had to say. All of the video that we have seen shows him documenting it with his cell phone, which is a lawful thing to do. And the only time he seemed to interact with law enforcement is when they went after him when he was trying to help an individual who law enforcement pushed down. So where do you have the evidence to show that he was trying to impede that law enforcement operation? Sure. Dan, at first, he was there in the scene. He was in the scene actively impeded. and assaulting law enforcement to the point. But that's not illegal. He wasn't, he wasn't impeding it. He was filming it, which is a legal thing to do in the United States of America. Let's don't freeze frame adjudicate this now. Let's freeze frame adjudicate it. Everyone saw it from

a hundred different angles. There was video everywhere. And this small little Himmler, Wandae, doesn't seem to understand that. Attorney General Pambani gave Tim Wal's three conditions to quote, restore the rule of law. She wants them to hand over the info about the state's welfare programs, grant access to state voter rolls and repeal sanctuary policies. Let's focus on the middle one, which we will. They want these voter rolls because of the midterm elections. Let's talk about the Democratic response. Democrats are obviously in an uproar and AOC and others calling for Senate Democrats to block ICE fending this week. Democrats would have to shut down a large portion of the government in order to do that. They seem willing to do so. Representative Robin Kelly

of Illinois is asking colleagues to sign onto her article's impeachment against DHS Secretary Christy Gnome. Meanwhile, Megan Kelly appeared to agree that ICE should get out of Minnesota, but she was just being awful. She tweeted, at Real Don, and Trump should pull ICE out of Minnesota Day and announced there would be no more immigration enforcement in Minnesota at all. All illegals in the U.S. are encouraged to move there. If any illegal is found outside of Minnesota and gets deported, they will never reply for reentry. She is a cruel and tireless termagant. Hours after this young man was killed, Trump and Melania went ahead with a previously scheduled screening of her new documentary, Melania at the White House. Guests included Tim Cook,

along with AMD CEO Lisa Sue, the CEO of Zoom, and Mike Tyson and Tony Robbins, a strange group of people, but a lot of tech CEOs. Also, Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon. In any case, a really terrible day for the United States of America. Scott, your thoughts? Well, typically you'd have some, you'd want to de-escalate and say, let's wait until there's a full investigation, but unfortunately, the institutions conducting these investigations now are no longer trusted. And with good reason, the American public doesn't believe that these investigations will be fair investigations. So you have to turn to the, you know, kind of the frame adjudication. And what the frame shows is that, one, this individual was clearly exercising just free speech.

All free speech is not exempt. You know, if you incite violence, that's not free speech. But It's difficult to see how in any way this individual wasn't sighting violence. He was just filming what was happening. He moved to help protect somebody or comfort them after they had been knocked down. So his First Amendment rights were clearly violated. Two, the Second Amendment is the right to bear arms. He was carrying a weapon, which he had a legal license for carry for. The gun was removed from him.

He did not take out the de gum. He did not wave it at anybody. It was in his waistband. It was taken out. And then so his first and second amendment rights were violated in about 15 seconds. And then a couple of things that I noticed that were even more disturbing, where one, when a gunshot goes off, these quote-unquote trained federal agents scattered. When your gun goes off, you're supposed to make sure the person you think is firing the gun.

You look for their hands. You look for the gun. And they did none of that. They scattered. And Representative Seth Moulton, who's a veteran and I believe a Marine who served in, I believe it was Iraq, said that if this had happened in the middle of a combat zone and a combatant, an enemy combatant who had been disarmed was treated this way. The officers and the enlisted men involved in that murder would be court-martialed. So the rules of engagement are now more reckless and more violent in the suburbs of men. Minneapolis and they are in Mogadishu during a war. So this has gone so far. And this notion that this has anything to do with the Constitution, everyone is now ignoring the Constitution. The other word that comes to my mind is cowardice, and that is Trump and Secretary

Nome are perpetrating violence under the auspices that it has something to do with immigration. they want a third party that will take the blame or be the shock absorber for this depravity and that is an agency full of massed secret police. I mean, they're not even taking responsibility for this violence. They're trying to keep it in arms. No, they said the victims were the ICE officers. That's what Gregor Vino said to Dana Bash, who did a terrific job trying to explain to him why. He was lying, essentially.

What are your thoughts on this, Carol? I just, Scott, this is repulsive in every way, on every aspect of it, what would it happen there? I mean, one point I called these people incompetent. Everyone's like, no, they're evil. Evil is incompetent. They're both evil and incompetent. And I don't throw around those things. I don't throw around Nazi terms very easily.

But that's what it looks, that's what it is. And especially even the outfit, as Greg, as Governor Newsom pointed out with Greg Babino, who is completely incompetent and also evil. And I don't use those terms lightly. I really don't. And I find when you throw them a bow, but this man was using a phone, a phone, to take pictures. And that's what he's allowed to do. He was peaceful. He was leaning down to help a woman who was shoved down by police who was doing nothing but exercising a right. They kept calling it today, Todd Blanche, another terrible person in the administration and a pedophile protector. Let's just note that. was saying that he was, it was a riot. It wasn't by any means a riot. They were blaming the police of Minnesota, and I just interviewed the mayor of Minneapolis. They have 600 officers.

There's 3,000 ICE members. They can't protect them, especially when they're behaving like thugs and attacking the citizens. They're there to protect the citizens, not the ice force, which is enormous, and you can't do that, and they are trying to create violence.

It's very obvious what they're trying to do. And then laying the blame on, there's literally there's nothing. I don't believe we were even arguing that this guy did anything. He didn't. And everyone can see it. And what was really astonishing to me was all the angles. And the people and the citizens there putting themselves in harm's way to take these pictures, right? This woman in the pink jacket.

There's a woman in a car. There's every angle of this thing. There's a woman in a car straight on. There's one across the street. there's one in front of him, there's one on the other side. These people don't understand. We see you. We see what you're doing.

It is not, and to try to look at it any other way, and especially because he was on the ground, you can absolutely see what happened. And then the guy pulls out the gun and shoots him for no reason. And one of the things, which was astonishing, one of the people taking the pictures, said, what did you just do? What did you just do? And that is the question, what in the, why in the, the world would you do that? There were six, seven people on this guy. And it's, I have to tell you one thing,

the power of digital is really strong. You see, people see it. Like, I don't understand why these people don't think cell phones exist in this world. The second part is the silence from our business community, the silence from these people. They went to the White House last night. Could they just beg off, like to go to the Melania screening, which nobody wants to see? Could they say something publicly? Like, I just, the silence of our business people, especially the tech people, and then many people, like Bill Ackman, as usual, because he can't shut his diarrhea mouth, could not help, but blame everybody but who shot this man, which were these officers. Obviously, Minnesota has moved this time because they learned from the first, and I call, this is a murder is what this is. They learned for the first one that they tried to take evidence. They scattered, as you said.

you can't leave the scene of a shooting like that, a fatal shooting. And then the last thing I would say is the citizens of Minnesota, I'm wearing a Minnesota Star Tribune. I have to say the press is doing a great job there, the Minnesota Star Tribune and others. These are citizens that are not going to take this shit. And I know you call for leaders, but we are the leaders, right? Citizens are the leaders, not our politicians. I will say the Democrats had especially AOC, especially, you know, all of them. were very strong about what was going on.

The Minnesota people were actually quite under control over what's happening. Governor Walls, I thought, conducted himself really well. The police officers of the state in Minnesota are horrified. You can see that. And they conducted themselves really. And the only people conducting themselves, like the thugs and fascists they are or the Trump administration, and they will not outlive. The shame will outlive them of what they've done.

And they don't care. So that's the only problem here. Yeah, and especially when last week, there was a lot of talk about, I thought, how can I take my time here and make it effective? So I spent a lot of time when I was on these panels talking about how the Islamic Republic is executing people on the street. And my colleague, Catherine Dillon, reminded me, she said, Scott, you realize that our government is executing people on the streets of Minneapolis right now, which was a very puncturing point. Yeah. And just to, if it's okay with you, move to potential ideas around how to counter ice.

Timothy Snyder, I was go to his feed and to Heather Cox Richardson to try and find some clarity around this. And Timothy said something really powerfully said, if you're waiting, and this is my thought, I'm always kind of waiting for a Democratic Jesus to pop up and leave us like a Mandela to the Promised Land. And typically, real movement doesn't happen from political parties. It happens from people. Absolutely. Or citizens. And protest is really powerful. It's very symbolic. But in this instance, I think it's actually quite, I don't want to say it's not effective, but I don't think the administration cares. I don't think that's going to move the needle in the short run. A man the medium in the long run. I think what Governor Walls and some politicians have said is more powerful. And that is start making a list, quite frankly. and very publicly saying that the statute of limitations on murder is never. And in exactly two years and 11 months, we're coming for you.

I think we have to create new incentives here. And then something I'm spending a lot of time thinking about and trying to get some politicians on board with and some public figures is the following. If you want to look at the fastest political movement in history, it was actually about exactly six years ago, and that was 2020. When the GDP went down 31% because of COVID, we had the greatest political movement in history in terms of actual move to action. And my fear is that every few years we protest, we make signs, we chant, we gather, it feels good, it looks great on CNN, and then nothing happens.

If you want to understand real power and the difference between being right and being effective, stop watching protests and start watching gross domestic products, specifically GDP. Trump does not respond to outrage. He responds to markets. And that's not cynicism. It's mechanics. I'm not talking about a labor strike. This isn't unions, picket lines, or collective bargaining. I'm talking about something quieter, far more unsettling to the system.

and that is an economic strike. A short-term coordinated withdrawal from spending and maybe work. No marching, no slogans, just less. And something we forget. They did that in Minnesota. They had a day. The business is closed for it. It can't be a day.

A day is annoyance. It needs to be a week or a month. And it needs to be national. The U.S. economy is $27 trillion. That's $74 billion a day. And here's our power, Kara. Our economy is 70% consumer-driven. Consumers actually have more power.

not in signs or in guns or even in their vote right now, they have it in the power of the purse, in that a very small change in behavior could have an enormous effect, and that is nothing in modern American history moves policy faster. And on March is not speech, is just math. And then if you think about what you could do here, if wealthy households start their spending down 10 percent, a middle class and lower income households, which have a a difficult time reducing their spend took it down 5%. You would take GDP negative almost overnight. And then it's hard because it requires coordination. It's risky, especially for people living paycheck to paycheck. But that's exactly why it works. And that is power fears withdraw more

than resistance because resistance is noisy, but withdrawal is expensive. And it's a question around what actually works, and the history and the data, I believe, are not ambiguous. When nothing moves, everyone listens. And that's not ideology, it's economics, and that you don't need permission to opt out. And in a system, capitalism built entirely on participation, the most radical act in capitalism isn't protest. It's not participation. If you wanted the fastest this blue line path, and there might even be a simpler way, I believe, if you could convince America, the entire economy now is built on AI. If you could convince a bunch of Americans to cancel their chat GPT or open AI accounts, and all of a sudden, Open AI had to announce that their subscriptions

had fallen off a cliff, that would ripple into Nvidia, that would ripple into Microsoft. And these are the people that Trump cares about, and this is what the S&P, this is what the economy cares about. I see this point. I don't agree with you about protests. I think they do. It's all part of the same package. It's aggressive media who follows this and reports on things. It is these protests. Because I do think people putting their lives on the line in the street matters. I think it does. I don't mean to diminish it. I worry it's more cinematic than effective because I don't think the Trump administration cares. I think it's different in this new environment of video everywhere. I do think. it is effective. And I do think it... Definitely from a policing and an accountability. Correct. And it changes people's minds because

people are, I mean, people are, it's horrifying. And everyone, we can see you. We see you is a really powerful thing. They think the media has to step up. And everyone, folks, there's a reason these billionaires, right-wingers need to own this stuff because they're trying to control the message.

Absolutely no question. They're trying to even hand it. I was told by someone at CBS, they're like, you could watch this, and if you were pro-Maga, you'd like it, and if you were anti-Magga, you'd like it, and that's how we want it to be. That's a terrible thing to try to do. There is truthful, not neutral is the way the press should be acting right now. I think a lot of them have been woken up into this and I'm much more instead of a, well, what is your thoughts here, Scott fucking Jennings? Like, that's enough. That's enough of that. Seriously. There's no thoughts here about shooting someone, and there's no, I was listening, I often listen to comics during times like this, because I think they have, they get to the heart of it

in a really effective way. And Josh Johnson, who have interviewed, is an amazing young comic. And he said, I sent this to you. It was, this is an argument about legality versus morality. And if you, if, the idea that Todd Blanche was sitting there saying, well, it was a riot, well, he, you know, he was resisting. If we get into arguments with these people about what we can see with our eyes, it is, we lose, right? Because they're going to find some reason that this young man deserved to get shot or the, or Renee Good deserved it because she was mouthy, like, because she wouldn't move her car. They try to twist everything. And so you're not going to win in a face-to-face argument with these people.

You're going to win by marching. I agree. And economic resistance is critical here. The problem was with a lot of people with Tim Cook being at the White House. And by the way, Tim, I like you very much. But Steve Jobs would be ashamed of you. I know he would be ashamed of you. It's a grotesque way to end what has been a very successful career as a CEO.

You could have walked away. You could have walked away. Shareholders are not everything. The Apple brand stands for more. So a lot of people wanted to give up their iPhones. Like, I'm going to give up. Let me just tell you, the founder of Google is dating a MAGA influencer and is quite right wing now. So there's nowhere to go, unfortunately.

And that's the problem is we have been held captive by these men boys who are now deciding they want to dabble in fascism or at least turn a blind eye to it. And so part of me is like what do you do here, right? What do you? What I'm suggesting is, and again, I've struggled with this my whole life, the difference between being right and being effective. And we're angry. And I get it. Protesting is powerful. Promising them that there will be an accountability.

And I've said this. I think there should be something equivalent to the Nuremberg trials after this is all over. And to make it clear that once we're back in power, which we will be, this is going to happen. And the statute of limitations on murder is never. However, it's the boring shit that moves the needle. And here's something really boring that would stop this. If we could convince half of Americans who are planning to buy an iPhone in the next 60 days to not buy it, just put it off, and we could get 10% of existing chat GPT subscribers to cancel their subscribers.

description, this ends. These are the people that he cares about, and this is about the market. Look at the only time he's blinked. When the Japanese bond market started taking our 10-year yields up, and when tariffs took the markets down, this is how he responds. It's not cinematic. It's not romantic. It's not going to be written up in great history novels. But if you could figure out a way to basically kick a small number of companies related to the tech economy that account for 40% of the S&P right now and who are the people he cares about, if all of a sudden, if you took all of your money out of any JP Morgan affiliated bank and transferred it to a local regional bank, if you canceled all of your streaming media platforms, if you canceled OpenAI and Anthropic, and you said, I am not upgrading my Apple phone. And there was a real movement. They're registered, and they had to disclose it in their earnings calls, this show would come to an end pronto. Yeah, yeah, it's an injury. They have played along with this Trump stuff for a very long time, much farther. Because you're right. They're all about sharehold. We can't shame them. You cannot shame them.

Yeah. The ghost of Steve Jobs is not going to shame them. The only thing these people care about, the only thing these people care about is whether or not their stock goes down. That's it. And if their stock goes down, they're going to stop. They're only going to stop showing up to Melania documentaries and giving him inscribed hard disk drives. They're going to finally find their testicles and come out and speak out against this. guy and call him and say, you need to call this shit off and the S&P is going to go down, and then everyone's going to have their hair on fire. Well, one of the things I've noticed is really interesting. This is the last thing I'm talking about. The polling is disastrous on this for Trump. His polling is disastrous. Why haven't Republicans found their, like, from a numbers point of view, right?

Like, away from all of it, if you want to argue, whatever you want to do, and to shame yourself and your children, by the way. By the way, there were several children of some of these people that are like, call me. I know all about my fucking asshole dad. And I will talk to the press, by the way, which I think is delicious. But what, the polling is so obvious here. What, why? It's so like in the direction that is not the way these Republicans want to go.

But there's, I mean, if you really wanted to distill it down and you bring, the cowardice here, there are 47 Democratic senators if 20 individuals, 20 20 Republican senators marched up to his office and said, you either stop this shit now or we vote yes on the impeachment that they will propose.

They could do it behind the scenes. It takes 20 of them, 20 of the 53. And they've decided that those 20 of 355 million Americans, the vast majority who are really rattled by this, can't find the backbone to get together and march up to the White House behind the scenes and say, stop this now. Stop it now. And one of the most disappointing things about all of this is that clearly these senators, quite frankly, feel they have public support for not doing

anything. Because all you would need, all you would need is 20 of them to go to the White House and said, if this isn't handled in 72 hours, there's not real movement or real, withdrawal here. And the Democrats bring up impeachment hearings, we're going to be a yes. Yeah. Now. And that we need 20, we need 20 people here, 20, to represent the 345 million Americans, and they're nowhere to be found. And the disappointing thing is they have done the calculus and have decided they have enough to support in their districts, the silent majority, that they don't feel they need to do it. Yeah. I think one of the things, the last thing I would say is we're playing on their field. They want this to be about chaos, not about affordability, about the worst life,

about their incredible corruption and money grab, including the tech CEOs. They want it to be about a poor man getting shot on the streets. And I would last like to call out Stephen Miller, who is in the center of this. We always focus on Trump, as we often focus on the top people. But Stephen Miller, like a man named Bendetson, he was the one who created the internment cancer Japanese, Heinrich Himmler in the Nazi regime, this is what he is. And he, of course, Trump gets most of the blame being at the top. But people like Stephen Miller will go down in history as evil, had the blood on his hands, and should be jailed at the very end of this.

And you're absolutely right. I do want to make one more point, and I think Saturday Live did this really well. These are white people getting killed, and this is something the African-American communities talked about, the brutality. They get in the things, and I thought if you want to look at anything, there was a terrific skit on it about that, which I thought was quite effective. Let's not forget to note that. In any case, before we go, Alex Pretti's parents said in a statement, it was the most dignified thing. I wouldn't know what to do if this had happened to any of my children. Please get the truth out about our son.

He was a good man. And with that in mind, I want to play a clip of Alex in his role as an ICU nurse. He was serving veterans honoring a deceased veteran. Let's watch. Today we remember that freedom is not free. You have to work at it. You're a jury, protected, and even sacrifice for him. 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 read tomorrow honored and our gratitude. Yeah, I think that just about says that freedom is not free. Yeah, I hope. You're right. This is just so rattling on so many levels. But Heather Cox Richardson has also said we face darker times.

I'd be shocked if at some point there isn't a future president that gives us. gives Alex the same type of dignified send-off that he gave that veteran. I do think this is a turning point. Incredibly upsetting. And this isn't about, I can already see what's going to happen. They're going to come out and acknowledge a tiny bit. They'll say, yes, we've had to scale up ice because of the massive wave invasion, and they do need more training. And that's like saying that the guards at Dachau needed more training. This is a systemic structure. structural depravity straight from the president and a sycophants who are unqualified and also seem to wade in this type of cruel and strained behavior. And to the citizens of Minnesota, we thank you.

You have done, keep doing it, and we thank you. You are fighting the fight that's critical, including the sacrifices you make. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back with a full show on Tuesday. And Scott, thank you very much. Thank you, Carol.