‘The View’ Cohosts Spend 30+ Minutes Reacting to Alex Pretti Killing by ICE: ‘Straight-Up Murder’

The cohosts of The View were visibly shaken on Monday’s (January 26) show. It wasn’t just the fact that the studio was empty of its usual live audience due to the extreme winter weather hitting New York City over the weekend; it was also that they joined millions across the nation in grappling with yet another fatal shooting of an American citizen in Minneapolis — this time, Veteran Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot in the back multiple times after attempting to assist a fellow protestor who’d been shoved to the ground.

The cohosts were, like many across the country, horrified by footage of the incident and what it means that such executions are happening on order of the U.S. federal government. They were equally as disturbed and enraged by the reaction from Donald Trump‘s administration officials like DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — who argued that Pretti intended to harm ICE since he had a concealed weapon, despite the fact that it had not been brandished during the encounter and was disarmed before being shot — and FBI Director Kash Patel — who argued that protestors should not be armed, despite supporting the Second Amendment for other protestors, like Kyle Rittenhouse.

The cohosts spent three full segments talking about the Pretti killing, with Whoopi Goldberg labeling it “straight-up murder,” Sara Haines blaming ICE’s violent recruitment rhetoric, Sunny Hostin admitting she was experiencing a “fragile” mental state as a result of the chaos, Ana Navarro insisting upon reading Pretti’s family’s statement aloud, and Alyssa Farah Griffin condemning those in her own party who refused to acknowledge the truth of the incident.

“So people on both sides of the aisle are saying the account from Noem and [Border Patrol’s Greg Bovino] does not seem to match what they watched with their own two eyes. So the question is: How long can they continue this? They murder a man. He is standing, he has his phone, and he has a bottle of water. He has his phone and a bottle of water, and they shot him 10 times!” Goldberg exclaimed to open the segment. “What the…” After self-censoring from what would’ve presumably been a four-letter word, she invited her cohosts to react.

“I think this is why these people are showing up as ICE watchers and protesting to make sure we have video because they’re not allowing local law enforcement to investigate these moments. So without these videos of bystanders, we wouldn’t have seen what happened,” Sara Haines. “I found it interesting that Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino were saying, ‘This man clearly wanted to do maximum damage. He’s a domestic terrorist.’ People that seem to be bringing the violence are the ICE agents themselves. And I know there are good ICE agents, but the problem is they’re currently recruiting people using imagery from single-shooter games, giving them this vibe that they’re coming to get rid of vermin, and then they’re also telling them, ‘You have immunity.'”

Ana Navarro then piggybacked on Haines’ point, saying, “What you just referenced Stephen Miller and JD Vance saying that ICE agents have absolute immunity that came after the death of Renee Good. So the ICE agents are told they have immunity, and they go out, and they do it again. They are emboldening and empowering the lawlessness and the abuses of power that are going on by some of these federal agents.” She went on to say that the current government “lies to its citizens, so for them a camera is just as dangerous as a gun.”

‘THE VIEW’ CO-HOSTS REACT TO FATAL ICE SHOOTING OF ALEX PRETTI: The co-hosts react to the graphic footage capturing the shooting death in Minneapolis of an ICU nurse by federal agents that has sparked outrage. pic.twitter.com/XbXOqUERA2

— The View (@TheView) January 26, 2026

“They don’t want people to see the 5-year-old Liam Ramos, who was detained and used as bait. They don’t want people to see little Chloe, a 2-year-old who was detained and sent to a center in Texas. They don’t want people to see the 70-year-old, elderly U.S. citizen man, Mr. [ChongLy “Scott”] Thao, who was dragged out of his shower practically naked into the snow. They don’t want people to see the cruelty that they are inflicting on women, on children,” Navarro continued. “They want you to believe that they are taking murderers and rapists and serious criminals off the streets. If that, in fact, was true, they would be showing us evidence, and we would all be clapping. But that is not what they are doing. What they are doing is lying to the American people, and they are lying about Alex Pretti.” She then went on to read Pretti’s family’s full statement live on-air before adding, “I am begging you to do what these parents are asking us to do, to amplify the truth, amplify these videos, amplify this message so that this government cannot get away with gaslighting the American people.”

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Hostin was the next to speak and said, “My mental state today, after spending the weekend watching these videos over and over and over again, is fragile. Just because I always believed in the rule of law. I dedicated my life to enforcing the rule of law, studying the law. When I was a prosecutor, I pledged to uphold the Constitution, and to see the lawlessness by the United States government is something that is deeply disturbing. Not only did we see two unjustified killings, two unlawful killings, of two American citizens who were, by the way, watching out for their neighbor. The bedrock of our democracy is to watch out for thy neighbor, watch out for the community. And we see this happen in front of us and the government, as you said, lied to us. But there are also killings that ICE is committing, that we don’t get to see.” Hostin then said she was glad to see the “groundswell” of reaction to Pretti’s killing across the country.

Griffin then joined the chorus and said, “I also woke up angry, and I’m like, ‘This is the world I’m bringing a child into?’ It’s an America I don’t recognize today. And I’m so sick of my party saying to people, ‘If you care about border security and you care about getting criminal undocumented migrants out of this country, you have to tolerate this.’ That’s not true. This is incompetence by law enforcement, and it’s cruelty by law enforcement.” She then said that the gist of the government’s argument at this point, in the wake of multiple citizens killed by ICE agents, is, “You basically have to give up your First Amendment right to peaceably assemble, to film, to show up at a protest, your Second Amendment right to lawfully carry a firearm, which, by the way, was taken off of his person before he was shot 10 times, and you have to give up your Fourth Amendment right to not be unlawfully searched or seized. Now they’re saying that they can go to your door, they can drag you out in the snow, and if you’re a U.S. citizen, they can search your home, and they don’t need a warrant to do it. Do we stand for anything, if not for basically half of the Bill of Rights at this point?”

She also issued a word of caution to the administration over their treatment of the Pretti killing, saying, “I’ll remind you of this: 140 million people are snowed in right now, and they’re glued to their TVs. The administration can say whatever the hell it wants. We have our eyes and we have our ears and we know what we saw.”

To close out the first part of the discussion, Goldberg questioned what Republicans are going to do, saying, “I don’t know what you’re investigating if you’re not investigating the straight-up murder, the straight up murder — this is the second one… of an American citizen who is doing what they have… You haven’t gotten rid of the Bill of Rights yet, so people don’t know that we’re not supposed to go out and do this. ” She then issued a direct message to Noem and Bovino, saying, “You can’t justify this… We all see it, and we see you for who you are. You all have blood on your hands.”

In the second, shorter segment, the cohosts shared similar takes about how administration officials have issued contradictory statements about the Second Amendment in relation to Pretti, as opposed to Rittenhouse in the past, and when the music played to bring the conversation to another pause, Goldberg groaned before calling a break.

In the third segment of the discussion, Goldberg had another message, this time to ICE: “ICE, you need to get out of there. You just need to get out of there. Let’s figure out a different way to deal with all of this. You are not helping. Get out of Minnesota right now.”

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