A Fake Donald Trump Post About Alex Pretti Has Started Circulating on Social Media

In the aftermath of Alex Pretti's killing in Minneapolis, Donald Trump and those in his administration have worked to suggest that Pretti's killing was in some way justified. Many Trump supporters have coalesced around the fact that Pretti had brought a gun out to observe ICE, even though video evidence shows that ICE agents took his weapon before any shots were fired.

President Trump has been among those arguing that Pretti's weapon complicates the story of his death, and many are now pointing to a statement that is supposedly from Trump's Truth Social account in which he makes that argument again. Here's what we know about whether that post is real.

The alleged post from the president said, "HE HAD A GUN, ONLY CRIMINALS CARRY GUNS ON OUR STREETS, WE NEED LAW AND ORDER," followed by the messages that Trump typically ends his posts with: "Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald Trump."

While some people thought Trump really posted this in response to Pretti's death, there is no evidence that the president actually posted this message.

While Trump didn't post that message, he has weighed in on the shooting of Pretti.

"This is the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go – What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers? The Mayor and the Governor called them off? It is stated that many of these Police were not allowed to do their job, that ICE had to protect themselves," he wrote after the shooting of Pretti.

His Truth Social post also included an image of Pretti's gun, and the fact that Pretti was armed became one of the chief justifications for his death. Trump then invoked a fraud investigation happening in the state, which was the reason ICE was deployed there in such numbers to begin with. Trump suggested that billions of dollars had been stolen both from the people of Minnesota and from the U.S. in general.

"LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB! 12,000 Illegal Alien Criminals, many of them violent, have been arrested and taken out of Minnesota. If they were still there, you would see something far worse than you are witnessing today!" he concluded his message.

So, while the president might not have posted the explicit message that has been circulating online, it's fair to say that he has weighed in on Pretti's death in support of the ICE officers.

Trump and those in his administration have argued that the deployments are necessary to prevent other kinds of violence and chaos in Minneapolis. They have also suggested that Democrats are to blame for the chaos now happening in the streets of the city. Whether that argument will pass muster with the general public after ICE killed another civilian in the streets remains to be seen.