Trump rejects 'assassin' label for Alex Pretti, breaking with Stephen Miller's claim

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 27, publicly diverged from his own senior aides, saying that he did not believe Alex Pretti was acting as an “assassin” when he was killed in Minneapolis. The remarks marked the president’s clearest break from the language used by top administration officials in the hours after the shooting.

Trump addressed the issue while speaking with reporters at the White House before departing for a speech in Iowa. He was asked directly about comments from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who had described Pretti as a “would-be assassin” following the incident.

Trump rejects the assassin label directly

When asked whether he agreed with Miller’s description, Trump answered plainly. “No,” he said, pausing before repeating himself. “Not as an — no.”

The response cut against the tone set by several senior figures in the administration. By declining to adopt the “assassin” framing, Trump signaled a different view of Pretti’s intent than that advanced by his aides after the shooting.

Pretti, an ICU nurse, was shot and killed by federal agents during a confrontation over the weekend.

President says 'you can't walk in with guns'

After answering the question, Trump turned back to reporters to add a qualifier focused on firearms. “With that being said, you can’t have guns,” he said. “You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t. You can’t walk in with guns, you can’t do that.”

Trump stopped short of characterizing the event as an attempted attack, instead describing it as tragic. “But it’s a very unfortunate incident,” he concluded.

Stephen Miller calls Alex Pretti a 'would-be assassin'

The president’s comments directly contradicted statements made by Stephen Miller in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Miller wrote on social media that Pretti was “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”

That framing was echoed across the administration, including by Vice President JD Vance, who reposted the claim. The “assassin” label became a central argument used to justify the agents’ use of lethal force.

Despite Trump’s public rejection of that language, Miller remained alongside the president on Tuesday and boarded Marine One with him for the trip to Iowa.

White House seeks distance from Stephen Miller

Signs of a messaging split surfaced a day earlier. During Monday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that she had not heard Trump “characterize Mr Pretti in that way.”

Trump’s comments on Tuesday confirmed that position, placing a clear distance between the president and his deputy chief of staff’s rhetoric. The exchange underscored a rare moment of public discord within the administration over how to describe the fatal encounter.