Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel had choice words Monday night—including one in particular—to characterize those defending the latest fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents.
Federal Border Patrol agents on Saturday morning shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Veterans Administration. The Minneapolis incident marked the latest in a string of controversial federal use-of-force episodes in the Twin Cities this month, coming less than three weeks after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a 37-year-old mother-of-three.
Colbert and Kimmel in their monologues both demonstrated, with damning montages of news coverage and press conferences, how the U.S. government’s response to this latest tragedy was to unabashedly lie about the circumstances.
DHS boss Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino (who is reportedly being relieved of his post), were joined by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and others as they flooded the weekend airwaves with the narrative that Pretti threatened Border Patrol agents with the gun that was on his person, even though bystander video shows that the pistol stayed in Pretti’s back waistband until an officer yanked it out. It was then that Pretti was shot dead, at close range, multiple times.
Coming out of The Late Show‘s montage of victim-blaming, which ended with Bovino arguing that his officers were in fact the victims, Colbert cried out, “Bullsh*t!”
He then asserted, ‘”Masked secret police shooting innocent people with impunity in the streets are not victims. The only way they could ever be considered in any way victims is that they are, at best, weak-minded individuals, full of anger, who have been led to the darkness by Donald Trump and are now participating in an evil system that will stick to them like hot black tar for the rest of their lives.”
Kimmel’s montage—which was comprised exclusively of Fox News coverage—was arguably even more contemptuous.
“Let’s cut the bullsh*t already,” Kimmel demanded. “Because this? It may be Fox, but it isn’t news.”
“Where are the reasonable voices on the right?” asked Kimmel. “We don’t have to agree on everything, but come on! If that was a group of trans-swimmers shooting a guy for making a cell phone video, you’d be heating up the electric chairs right now. Admit it.”
Kimmel ended his fiery monologue by proffering an alternate video of Pretti for people to watch, where as a VA nurse he said kind, heartfelt words over the body of a deceased veteran.
“The man Stephen Miller referred to as a ‘would-be assassin,’ Alex Pretti, was an ICU nurse who treated veterans, which is about as patriotic as it gets,” Kimmel said, choking up with emotion.
Coming out of the video, Kimmel added, “Alex Pretti, may he rest in peace.” And then went on with Monday’s show.
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Meanwhile, Fallon avoided addressing it altogether, choosing instead to make jokes about the winter weather in NYC.