Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche You probably weren’t expecting this level of heat from a “News & Friends” host.

On Monday’s episode of the News show, co-host Griff Jenkins had a direct exchange with Blanche about statements from Department of Homeland Security officials after a 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Photo of Alex Pretti, the man who was shot by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 24, 2026.
Photo of Alex Pretti, the man who was shot by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 24, 2026.

via AP

Pretti was knocked to the ground by at least six masked federal agents and fatally wounded after 10 shots. DHS later alleged in a statement that Pretti had “violently resisted” the officers, despite eyewitnesses video showing the opposite.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller Both baselessly labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and claimed that he had set out to kill law enforcement officers.

Jenkins began his interrogation of Blanche by citing reports from his colleague, Bill Melugin, who published in X that “half a dozen federal sources involved [in] “Immigration authorities” have become “increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated” with the department’s messaging since the shooting.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference Saturday, saying Alex Pretti committed an act of “domestic terrorism.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference Saturday, saying Alex Pretti committed an act of “domestic terrorism.”

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Jenkins quoted at length from Melugin’s post, which said: “There is extreme internal frustration with DHS officials going on television and releasing statements to describe Alex Pretti as a domestic terrorist who was there to inflict maximum harm on federal agents or carry out a massacre, even after multiple videos emerged, to show that these claims appeared to be inaccurate.”

Jenkins then cited a Melugin source who reportedly said the DHS response was a “case study in how not to do public relations in crises.”

The host then asked Blanche a simple question: “Todd, I ask you, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, do Alex Pretti’s actions amount to domestic terrorism?”

“It’s an investigation, so I’m not going to prejudge what his actions were or weren’t,” Blanche said before launching an attack on the political leadership in Minnesota.

But Jenkins disagreed and finally interrupted Blanche.

“With all due respect, sir, my question is more specific,” Jenkins interjected.

“You’re a lawyer,” he said before citing the “legal definition of domestic terrorism” and adding that “it doesn’t appear to the majority of the country that has seen the available video… it doesn’t appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorism. So I wonder how you guys at the Justice Department view whether your colleagues may have gone too far.”

A screenshot of Griff Jenkins questioning Todd Blanche on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
A screenshot of Griff Jenkins questioning Todd Blanche on “News & Friends” on Monday.

Screenshot from News via Snapstream

“Look, I don’t think anyone thinks they were comparing what happened Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism,” Blanche said.

He added: “What we saw was a very violent altercation. And I’m not going to prejudge the facts. You’re right, there’s a ton of video that’s out there. There’s a ton of video that we haven’t seen yet in the minutes leading up to what happened and what happened afterward. And you’re right, to the extent that there are body cameras or other videos that witnesses are still giving us. So I’m not describing it as anything other than a tragedy.”

He then criticized Minneapolis and its leaders.

Watch the full exchange below.

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Peter Doocy took on the Secretary of Homeland Security on several fronts.

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The DHS secretary also argued to the journalist that she does not know “any peaceful protester who shows up with a gun and ammunition instead of a sign.””

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Blanche made the comment a day after federal agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in broad daylight.

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“All of the agents who were involved in that scene are working, not in Minneapolis, but in other locations,” according to Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino.

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“I don’t know why they shot him. He was just helping,” A Minneapolis resident who recorded the incident testified in an affidavit.

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