WSJ What’s News - Pretti Shooting Escalates Standoff Between Federal Agents, Minnesota Officials

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

A.M. Edition for Jan. 26. Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti marks the second time federal agents killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in two weeks. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump declined to say whether the officer who shot Pretti acted appropriately and said his administration was investigating. Plus, we’ll bring you a massive scandal at the very top of China's military leadership. And WSJ’s Joe Wallace explains why gold just can’t seem to lose its lustre. Luke Vargas hosts.  Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Correction: The National Rifle Association is a U.S. gun advocacy group. An earlier version of this podcast called it the National Rifle Administration. (Corrected on Jan. 26) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Minneapolis reels after federal agents kill another U.S. citizen. They shot a man. They have shot a man. They have shot a legal observer. We'll get reaction from around the country, plus the rest of the day's news, including a massive scandal at the very top of China's military leadership. It's Monday, January 26th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. President Trump says his administration is investigating the killing of intensive care nurse Alex Preddy by federal agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.

Speaking to the journal yesterday, Trump repeatedly declined to say whether the officer who shot Preddy had acted appropriately, though he also criticized Preddy for carrying a gun during protest activity, calling his 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun, quote, very dangerous and unpredictable. Those comments come after the Department of Homeland Security alleged that Preti violently resisted officers trying to disarm him, leading them to fire, quote, defensive shots. However, bystander footage contradicts that version of events as visual investigations reporter Brenna Smith explains. The Wall Street Journal reviewed numerous bystander footage of Prettie's and Kinsey's, with DHS agents, including before, during, and after the shooting.

What these videos show is before the shooting, Pretti was seemingly with two other civilians in filming DHS agents with his phone. Eventually, after filming the agents, Prattie and two other civilians walk away, and one of the agents follows them, and then shoves one of the people that Pretti seems to be with, and Prattie immediately puts himself between the fallen person. and the officer, who then sprays a chemical agent on all three of them. And that's when things really start to kick off. And a crowd of DHS agents then swarms the civilians.

They separate Preddy from the other two civilians that he was with. And bystander footage then shows one officer seemingly withdrawing a gun from Pretti. and soon after another officer begins to fire at him. We spoke with one expert who confirmed that there were at least 10 shots within five seconds based on the available audio and that they all seem to come from a single semi-automatic firearm. After the shooting, Beistered footage also shows officers, then shouting, Where is the gun as they're applying first aid to Preddy? Following Preddy's killing, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara ordered that his officer

not leave the crime scene, despite being told that they weren't needed. The state of Minnesota's top criminal investigators then took on the case only for them to be blocked by federal officers, including after they obtained a signed search warrant. Speaking to CBS's Face the Nation, O'Hara described federal operations in the city as having gotten out of hand. We understand that for as long as there has been ICE, there has been immigration enforcement in Minnesota. The problem is not that enforcement is happening.

It's clearly the manner in which these things are happening. These tactics are very obviously not safe, and it is generating a lot of outrage and fear in the community. A hearing is scheduled for today in Minnesota federal court in a suit brought by the state's Attorney General that seeks to bar Homeland Security and Justice Department officials from destroying or concealing evidence related to Saturday's shooting. A Homeland Security spokeswoman defended the action. of immigration agents and described claims that evidence was destroyed as, quote, in attempt to divide the American people. When pressed on how the investigation is being managed, Secretary Christy Noem told Fox News that more details would be provided in due course. I think that information is consistently coming out when it's appropriate, when investigators

deem that it is something that they can release that will give answers to people. That's exactly what President Trump and his administration want. In addition to widening a rift between divisions of law enforcement, Saturday's killing is spurring gun rights advocates to issue rare criticism of the Trump administration following comments like this from FBI director Cash Patel on Fox News's Sunday morning futures. You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law and incite violence. The Minnesota gun owners caucus called Patel's statement completely incorrect on Minnesota law,

while the National Rifle Association said that officials shouldn't be demonizing law-abiding citizens. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Senate Democrats angry over events in Minnesota say they won't vote for a government funding package unless it includes major changes to its homeland security provisions, including constraints on DHS's immigration enforcement activities and more oversight. That's teeing up a potential government shutdown this coming weekend, something that many Senate Democrats had initially sought to avoid after last year's record-setting funding lapse. Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar criticized the behavior of ICE and U.S.

Border Patrol and called on her colleagues across the aisle to work with Democrats. Our Republican colleagues have to stand up and stop this. And no, I am not voting for this funding. Klobuchar stopped short of joining other Democrats in calling for abolishing ICE. Voting against the DHS funding measure would do little to rein in, immigration enforcement in the short term, given that last year's tax and spending package set aside more than $4 billion to hire and train more Border Patrol agents. For more on ice and how it's operating, check out Sundays' What's News episode in your podcast feed now.

Coming up, the U.S. digs out after a major winter storm and a vaccine showdown as pediatricians take issue with the CDC's paired back shot recommendations for kids. Those stories and more after the break. Large swaths of the U.S. remain covered in snow and ice this morning after a winter storm wreaked havoc from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England. More than 800,000 Americans are currently without power, according to power outage.U.S., with Tennessee and Mississippi, hit especially hard. The Northeast, Great Lakes, and Central Plains are all expected to get more snow today, adding to pressure on power grids. The harsh weather has also forced to make major oil and natural gas-producing regions to shut up shop further stressing grids.

According to analysts at J.P. Morgan, about 250,000 barrels of daily crude production has been lost due to closures in Oklahoma and parts of Texas. Travelers are also bearing the brunt of the storm, with tens of thousands of flights canceled yesterday and more than 4,000 canceled so far today. Pediatricians are pushing back against the CDC's new and slimmed-down childhood vaccine schedule. In its guidance out today, the American Academy of Pediatrics continues to recommend that children be vaccinated against 18 diseases, including hepatitis A&B, COVID-19, influenza, rotavirus, and the disease that causes meningitis and other infections. Those six immunizations were dropped from the CDC's schedule for children earlier this month, with the agency now recommending children get vaccinated against 11 diseases. hitting out at the CDC's paired-back vaccination schedule, the AAP's Dr. Sean O'Leary said the recommendations aren't grounded in science, but rather in ideology. A purge of the Chinese military has now reached the country's senior most general, and we can exclusively report that he's being accused of leaking information about China's nuclear weapons program to the U.S.

and accepting bribes for official acts. General John Yosia was once considered Shi'Its'iq's. Jinping's most trusted military ally and is a descendant of revolutionary elders who helped Mao Zedong's communist forces seize power in 1949. Analysts say the opacity of China's political system makes it hard to ascertain Xi's motivations for targeting John. A spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington said the party's decision to investigate John underscores that China's leadership maintains, quote, a full coverage, zero tolerance approach to combating corruption.

We've left link to our reporting in our show notes. And gold has surged past $5,000 for the first time ever, adding to its historic rally. We're less than a month into 2026, and gold prices have risen 17% so far this year. That's nothing, though, compared to the silver market, which is up 8% this morning, and 55% for the year so far. So this is a really historic rally in both precious metals. That's markets reporter Joe Wallace, who said that political uncertainty regarding Greenland in Venezuela, coupled with President Trump's latest threat of 100% tariffs on Canada, is pushing safe havens like gold and silver to new highs. There's also some concern among investors about the independence of the Federal Reserve after the DOJ investigation into Chair Jerome Powell became public earlier this year.

There are a couple more things going on that the Fed has been lowering rates and gold prices typically do well on rates. lower. That's because gold doesn't pay any dividends or coupons. So the opportunity cost of holding what essentially is a shiny piece of metal falls when interest rates are themselves lower. And then central banks around the world just keep on buying gold in their droves. It's been going on for years, but it really picked up speed after 2022 when the West put sanctions on the Russian central bank reserves and central banks and other countries that aren't aligned with the West, started thinking, hang on, do I really want to hold quite so many dollars? Maybe I should own some gold in my foreign exchange reserves in case my dollar holdings get weaponized in the same way.

And before we go, a quick correction. An earlier version of this episode incorrectly called the U.S. Gun Advocacy Group, the National Rifle Administration, when it is, in fact, the National Rifle Association. And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.