'Bloodthirsty' MAGA commentators 'revolt' over Trump backing down in Minnesota: report

Far-right media figures are in open "revolt" after President Donald Trump signaled he would "de-escalate a little bit" in Minneapolis, Minnesota after the deadly shooting of 37 year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti last weekend.

That's according to The Bulwark's Sam Stein and Will Sommer, who reported Tuesday that several MAGA commentators are viewing Trump's winding down of federal operations in the Twin Cities area as a white flag to the political left. Sommer said there was noticeable division between people who "really like this very cruel way" the administration is conducting immigration enforcement, and another camp asking: "Do we really want to sink everything else we want to get done over this?"

Stein commented that politics for many in the MAGA media realm is a "zero-sum game" in which acknowledging a "misstep" is effectively "handing a victory to the opposition."

"Some of the reactions have been – I struggle to find the right adjective – shockingly bloodthirsty or indifferent or devoid of empathy," Stein said, before playing a clip of SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly saying she doesn't "feel sorry for Alex Pretti."

"Do you know why I wasn't shot by Border Patrol this weekend? Because I kept my a—— inside and out of their operations," Kelly said. "It's very simple."

"Look, just to openly say you don't feel sorry that someone was shot to death is, you've got to have a little bit of absence of something in your core for you to say something like that," Stein observed.

The Bulwark reporters then played a clip of far-right Newsmax host Greg Kelly (son of former New York Police Department commissioner Raymond Kelly), who justified Pretti's shooting by arguing that the phone he was holding to film federal agents resembled a gun. They also highlighted remarks by conservative pundit Allie Beth Stuckey, who suggested that Pretti was responsible for his own death because he was impeding traffic.

"I feel like these people are not really thinking through the steps here, because I think with a lot of things in this administration, it's assumed that they'll just kind of always be in power, or that Democrats would never turn this on them," Sommer said. "And so it's this idea ... if you'rein the way, if you're obstructing our policy — even by shouting or whistling — the government can feel free to shoot you."

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