Did Van Drew go into full Trump toady mode on ICE?
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... When the Trump Team doubled down into a defensive crouch, it can always count on the Republican congressman from South Jersey, Representative Jeff Van Drew.
.....
As Trump made snap conclusions that Alex Pretti was a gun-toting terrorist intent on inflicting a massacre on federal immigration agents, the Cape May county [NJ] dentist was on Fox News, with a cozy glowing fireplace in the background, stoking the flames of a volatile moment in America.
..... "And by the way, don't let the left kid you on this, that this is just a normal protest, where people are peacefully protesting," Said Van Drew, who represents New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District in south Jersey. "NO, it's not. Peaceful protesters don't have 9-millimeter weapons with two extra magazines."
..... Van Drew certainly didn't go as far as, say, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who posthumously smeared Pretti as an "assassin" who "tried to murder federal agents," or U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who asserted that Pretti was "wishing to inflect harm" on federal officers by "brandishing" a gun. Video evidence would suggest that Pretti was a paragon of restraint compared with Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino's assessment of him; Bovino claimed that Pretti want to "massacre law enforcement." FBI Director Kash Patel said Pretti intended to "attack" officers and had no right to carry a gun at a protest.
..... but Van Drew, who pledged his "undying support" to Trump when he switched parties in 2019, was clearly haling down a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion before an investigation was underway. They circled the wagons - just as public outcry on social media started to drag down poll numbers and sow doubts about the administration deeper int more Republicans and independents.
.....
But no aggressive spin counteroffensive could blunt the facts tumbled into the public consciousness. these facts were bolstered by multiple video analyses of the incident that showed Pretti holding his phone - not a gun - at the protest as agents confronted him, and that they seized his firearm before shooting him.
..... He was licensed to carry a gun, which gun rights groups defended - after all, they spent decades successfully crusading for "conceal and carry" laws for legal owners. They complained: Why should Pretti's death be used to discredit those laws?
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And then we learned that Pretti, 37, was an intensive care unit nurse who solemnly saluted veterans who died in the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital where he worked. It hardly fit the portrait of him as a crazed, left-wing radical determined to massacre immigration agents.
'I never called anyone a domestic terrorist,' Van Drew says
..... Van Drew, though a spokesman, vehemently denied he was joining the Trump Team's knee-jerk rush to defame Pretti.
..... "I never called anyone a domestic terrorist. I never said anyone was guilty of anything. In this country, people are innocent utile proven guilty, and I believe deeply in that principle,: the congressman said. But he said it was "unusual" for someone to carry multiple round sf ammunition "unless they believe they may been entering a situation were a large number of rounds could be needed."
..... "That does not make it illegal or criminal, but it does raise legitimate questions, and pretending otherwise is not honest," Van Drew added, noting that he is "pro-Second Amendment."
..... No one yet has been able say what prompted Pretti to show up at the protest packing a licensed firearm, but it's not beyond the realm of reasonable speculation that he may have brought it to protect himself, especially after an agent shot and killed Renee Nicole good on January 7. [2026]
Tensions have only escalated since then.
..... In his Fox interview, Van Drew also suggested it was peculiar that so many protesters had "gas masks." It's not "normal," he said.
..... "I don't have professional-grade gas masks ready to go, in case tear gas is thrown in a normal neighborhood," he said. "What happened in a normal situation is they cooperate, they try to help, or they just stay out of it. This is not normal. This is
again, individuals who are trying to change the fabric of America."
..... Van Drew's implication was that there was an insidious, organized and anarchic force on the streets, not organic protester outraged over the enormity and the aggressive force that has turned the peaceful, liberal redoubt of the Upper Midwest into Fallujjah. The "not normal" remark is a not-so-faint echo of the right wing's conspiratorial nonsense theory that the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol was fomented by "antifa" agitators seeking to make Trump look bad.
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Nothing about Minneapolis looks good o5r is normal. The Trump administration has already deployed 3,000 agents into Minneapolis to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, a force that's five times the size of the city's police department. That federal cohort has been seizing immigrants and asylum seekers from their homes, their workplaces and their neighborhoods, accusing them of being violent criminals - even as several analyses of the arrest statistics show that most of those begin seized for deportation do not have a violent criminal background.
Public opinion on ICE continues to slide
..... It's the swarming, armed raids that are changing the fabric of America - and voters increasingly don't like what they see.
..... A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that nearly half of the public supports Trump's handling of the border with Mexico and deportation policies, but a sizable majority - 61% - believe Immigration and Customs enforcement has gone to far. On January 26, [2026] Trump officials appear to have gotten the memo and sidestepped any characterizations of Pretti as a "domestic terrorist." They insisted, like Van drew, that they will seek a full, fair and objective investigation.
..... But will the public ever believe that the Trump administration will truly be objective? How can officials be seen as impartial when they leaped out so early with their predetermined conclusions? And will they really be free to produce a report that contradicts those conclusions? Are they willing to discredit the Trump administration?
..... Whatever the outcome, they know Van Drew can be counted on to be the team player of undying support.