Name: How Alex Pretti's possession of a firearm divides Trump's gun-loving MAGA base | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-28T17:15:51.000Z
Duration: 5 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Pressure is growing on Republican President Donald Trump from an unusual direction.

Adverbs of manner

The National Rifle association is traditionally a close ally of the Republican Party, but

it has come out at odds with the Trump administration over its response to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretty by ICE agents during a protest in Minneapolis.

In a statement, the group said, the NRA unequivocally believes that all law abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere where they have a legal right to be.

Now, senior government officials had publicly tried to justify the shooting of Pretty because he was carrying a gun at a protest, a right guaranteed to him by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Let's talk about this with David Dunn, professor for International politics at the University of Birmingham in the UK and an expert on US Domestic policy.

So, as we've been reporting, the Trump administration using the facts that Pretty was in possession of a firearm, using that as a justification for his killing.

Now, that right now is not going down well with gun groups and with many Republicans, is it?

Well, as I said, the US Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms as a way of protecting citizens against an illegitimate government.

And that right is really enshrined in the beliefs of many conservatives, many of whom have been a core voting block for Donald Trump and for him and other members of his administration.

To say that it's illegitimate and provocative for people to carry a weapon at a protest is to fly in the face of that.

So what he's managed to do by making these comments is to unite liberals who've always been opponents of Trump, with actually a core section of the conservative base that he relies upon, who are now literally up in arms, pardon the expression, at the way in which they have sought to actually play down or justify the illegal killing of a peaceful protester just because he happened to be legally carrying a firearm.

There's no suggestion that he actually either brandished the weapon or even went for the weapon.

But what they're saying is the very fact that he turned up at a protest with a concealed weapon, that that's in some ways justified his killing, and

that has outraged huge sections of American society.

So are we actually seeing cracks in Trump's MAGA base over this gun issue, or do you that Trump sort of core followers will end up siding with him, you know, even if this does go against Second Amendment principles?

Well, what we see is that there are a section of his population, no matter what he does, in contradiction to what he said previously they stick by him.

That's true on his muscular foreign policy, as your last report talked about.

It's true on the Epstein files, and it's true on this.

But there's also a large section of conservative opinion who were supporters of Trump who actually are horrified at what's happening there.

So I think what we're seeing is a fracturing of that coalition, and

that's reflected in record low opinion polls on a whole variety of issues.

And in particular, overall, in terms of actually the way in which his unpopularity is unprecedented and unparalleled.

Democrats in Congress are now calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to step down or face impeachment.

How big is the political fallout of all of these events?

I think this fallout is huge because these members of the administration are clearly out of step with public opinion, whereby the whole country is horrified at what is an obviously unjust killing of this peaceful protester.

And to have members of the administration trying to grasp justifications for something that is clearly unjustifiable shows them to be out of step with public opinion.

And of course, it's much easier to get support in Congress for the impeachment of an official than it is for the president.

And therefore there will be attempts to actually impeach Kirsten, um, and

indeed thereafter, if the House changes hands in November at the midterm elections, this will run and run these issues and the demands for prosecution of the people who killed both the peaceful protesters in Minnesota will continue.

This isn't an issue that's going to go away, and

this is an issue that's litten up the interview Internet and lit up and united American public opinion against the horrors of what's happening on American streets by ICE and other federal agencies.

David Dunn, professor for International Politics at the University of Birmingham.

We've run out of time, but thank you so much for your time.