‘How Was He Threatening Border Patrol?!’ Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Pushes Back On FBI Director Kash Patel’s Claims About Shooting of Alex Pretti

‘How Was He Threatening Border Patrol?!’ Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Pushes Back On FBI Director Kash Patel’s Claims About Shooting of Alex Pretti

Joe DePaolo

Sun, January 25, 2026 at 4:28 PM UTC

2 min read

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.

Powered by Yahoo Scout. Yahoo is using AI to generate key points from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Generate Key Takeaways

Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo pushed back on the narrative being advanced by FBI Director Kash Patel about Saturday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti at the hands of a border patrol agent in Minneapolis.

In an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Patel defended the border patrol’s tactics and questioned Pretti’s motives.

“Secretary [Kristi] Noem stated perfectly, you do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions,” Patel said. “You do get to do that in Minnesota, L.A., or anywhere else.”

Patel added, “No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines. That is not a peaceful protest, and you do not get to touch law enforcement. You do that anywhere, this FBI is going to be following — leading the charge to arrest those.”

Bartiromo, though, was skeptical of Patel’s argument.

“But how was he threatening Border Patrol?!” Bartiromo asked. “You’ve collected the evidence, you said, right? You have the handgun in your possession. And how was he using that handgun in terms of threatening Border Patrol? What was the threat? He had his camera, right? He was filming it.”

Patel — following the pushback — grew much more cautious in his assessment.

“That’s something that I let the DHS and the prosecutors — because they are the ones investigating that case, I don’t want to stylize that evidence,” Patel said. “But I trust the men and women on the ground who are trained professionals to only use it when it’s absolutely necessary. And I trust Secretary Noem’s leadership and DHS, and HSI to do the right thing, as they’ve always done in these scenarios.”

Bartiromo then questioned when Border Patrol agents spotted a weapon on Pretti.

“Kristi Noem said that the individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun,” Bartiromo said. “Was the gun visible, or did Border Patrol see the gun after they shot him?”

“Again, all those pieces of the investigation are being led by DHS and HSI, and I don’t wanna comment on their ongoing investigation,” Patel said, demurring.

“I understand,” Bartiromo replied. “But you have the evidence. What can you tell us about the evidence you collected?”

The answer, it turned out, was precious little.

“It’s sent to our FBI laboratory, where it’ll be finger-pristed,” Patel said. “We’ll use ballistics examination toolkits to see if any casings were fired. And we’ll examine all the casings that were found on the scene.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

The post ‘How Was He Threatening Border Patrol?!’ Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Pushes Back On FBI Director Kash Patel’s Claims About Shooting of Alex Pretti first appeared on Mediaite.

About Our Ads

Source