White House backtracks initial claims about Alex Pretti after intense backlash

White House officials sought to rapidly distance Donald Trump and top officials from their initial portrayals of the man fatally shot by federal officials in Minnesota as a gunman, as they faced a deepening backlash after video footage was widely seen to undercut their assertions.

The move came as Trump advisers appeared to realize that the caustic portrayals of the man, Alex Pretti, who was reportedly licensed to carry a gun, had turned the killing into an even larger political liability for the president.

Over the weekend, senior administration officials including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, called the victim “a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate law enforcement”, while Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused him of perpetrating “the definition of domestic terrorism”.

The characterizations were undercut by video footage that showed Pretti was shot in the back roughly 10 times after being tackled to the ground by a group of US border patrol agents whom he had been filming, and disarmed of his gun.

At a briefing on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, sidestepped questions about the remarks against Pretti and insisted the administration would not comment pending the outcome of multiple investigations into the shooting.

“I have not heard the president characterize Mr Pretti in that way,” Leavitt said. “However, I have heard the president say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.”

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, separately tried to backpedal on behalf of the administration, telling Fox News: “I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism.”

The evolving positions at the White House were notable for how quickly they were changing and how reactive the administration was to a sudden free fall in support of ICE and US border patrol tactics across Washington, most notably among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Trump also appeared to seek an off-ramp of his own following earlier posts on Truth Social blaming Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, and Democrats for Pretti’s death, including one Truth Social post that suggested Pretti had intended to use his gun against federal agents.

In a new announcement on Monday, Trump said he had a “very good call” with Walz and that they were on the “same wavelength” about how to proceed with immigration enforcement in the state.

Walz’s office said in a statement that Trump had agreed to look at pulling federal agents out of Minnesota and committed to ensuring state investigators could launch their own investigations – instead of relying solely on internal inquiries by the Department of Homeland Security.

“The president agreed that he would talk to his Department of Homeland Security about ensuring the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA) is able to conduct an independent investigation, as would ordinarily be the case,” it said.

“The president also agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.”

Walz’s push for a state investigation comes after the BCA complained over the weekend that they were blocked by federal agents to access the scene of the shooting and unable to gather evidence, even after they went back and obtained a court order to do so.

Greg Bovino, the US border patrol in charge. Photograph: Seth Herald/Reuters

Trump also announced that he would send Tom Homan, his “border czar” to oversee the operation in Minneapolis and replace the US border patrol official in charge, Gregory Bovino. The move suggested a repudiation of Noem, to whom Bovino reports, who has been at odds with Homan for months.

Still, Leavitt was careful not to directly contradict the likes of Miller and Noem at her briefing, and maintained that the blame for Pretti’s shooting rested with Walz and Democrats.

“This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders for weeks,” Leavitt said.

The tightrope being walked by Leavitt comes as administration officials privately said they see the shooting as an unintentional error by agents who got spooked by a possible unintentional discharge of Pretti’s gun after it was taken from him.

But it underscored the peril of rushing to blame the victim and defend the agents before an investigation had played out.

The administration’s initial response to Pretti’s shooting mirrored that of the killing of another Minneapolis resident by federal agents, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old protester who was shot in the front seat of her car as she swerved past an agent.

After initially doubling down on the accusation that Good was trying to run over the agent, Trump said last week it was a tragedy after learning Good’s father was a Trump supporter. “You know, when the woman was shot, I felt terribly about it,” he said.