“I have instructed Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, that under no circumstances,” Trump posted on Truth Social, “are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help.”
“Later Saturday night, Trump said to reporters as he flew to Florida for the weekend,” explains the Associated Press, “that he felt Democratic cities are ‘always complaining.’
“‘If they want help, they have to ask for it. Because if we go in, all they do is complain,’ Trump said.”
But that doesn’t mean federal property won’t be protected. “We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”
But does that include vehicles? A video of a man who looked like Alex Pretti — who was shot on the 24th of January by Border Patrol agents — surfaced last week, showing the protester kicking the right-rear lights of an ICE vehicle. Though many suspected the video to be AI, it has been confirmed by Pretti’s parents as of their son. The video-recorded event took place on the 13th, according to The Epoch Times.
Trump addressed this video directly in a Truth Social post, where he claimed that Pretti’s “stock has gone way down” due to the footage of him “screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces.” Trump called Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.”
The post has been widely reported in major legacy media stories.