On Wednesday, Morning Joe reacted to an ABC Good Morning America interview with the family of Alex Pretti and continued to decry ICE in the lead-up to the midterms. In the show’s return to the Minneapolis unrest discussion, host Joe Scarborough decided to make a historical comparison and compared the shooting’s aftermath to “what happened in the Jim Crow South when a Black man would be shot.”
Scabrorough began: “There are a lot of people in Minneapolis, a lot of people across America, a lot of people across the world who saw what happened on that videotape and believe he was murdered, believe he was shot for no reason, execution style.”
He added that Pretti did “what we would want our children to do” because “He was trying to help a woman up, pick a woman up who had been knocked down by these thugs, these untrained thugs, knocked down in the snow.”
On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough compared the aftermath of the Alex Pretti shooting amid the unrest against ICE in Minnesota to “what happened in the Jim Crow South when a Black man would be shot.” pic.twitter.com/IWs9T0gRA8
— Nick (@nspin310) August 26, 2026
Scarborough then showed his desire for criminal prosecutions: “Why are these men that shot him execution style not in prison today?”
Co-host Willie Geist, who was one of the rare employees after the Versant divorce to still work for both NBC and MS NOW, then stated the ICE agents were “being protected by the Trump Administration.”
He added, “ICE can’t run from this. We saw what he did. He raced like we would hope our sons would do, Joe, to step in to a woman who was being pushed down and said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't push somebody down like that.’ And for that, he was on his knees and shot in the head. And after that, he was called a domestic terrorist without evidence.”
Scabrorough jumped in to make his own historical comparison to the events, and compared it to coverups in the Jim Crow South:
You know, Willie, this is what happened in Jim Crow South when a Black man would be shot. Like in another lifetime, justice would not be served. You know, we saw this happen to civil rights workers. We saw this happen to Black men. We saw this happen time and again where somebody would be shot dead, and no justice would follow, or a jury would acquit.
That's now happening in 2026? That's now happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because the Trump Administration is trying to protect people that gunned down an American citizen in the streets of America.
Scarborough continued as he posed a question to Geist: “Willie, this is a perverse throwback to an uglier, horrible time in this country where certain people can be gunned down and shot, killed, and no justice follows. Justice has to follow here, Willie, doesn't it?”
Geist responded and said, “And the difference is, back then they could do those things under the cover of darkness. Today we have video.”
Then, Geist worried about a potential uptick in immigration enforcement: “There is an ongoing and maybe enhanced push for ICE to be more aggressive, to get the numbers up, to meet the quotas, to get people out of this country. Hopefully not to the point where they're shooting peaceful protesters in the head. But this has maybe restrained ICE to some degree for a while, but it's clear that the mission continues.”
The Morning Joe crew, especially Scarborough, have really liked to make historical comparisons of ICE actions and many Trump Administration-related events to the KKK, Nazis, and the Soviet Union.
The transcript is below. Click "expand":
MS NOW’s Morning Joe
August 26, 2026
6:11:27 AM Eastern
(...)
JOE SCARBOROUGH: There are a lot of people in Minneapolis, a lot of people across America, a lot of people across the world who saw what happened on that videotape and believe he was murdered, believe he was shot for no reason, execution style.
And Alex Pretti’s mom asks, what did my son do? What did he do? Well, Willie, what he was doing was doing what we would want our children to do. He was trying to help a woman up, pick a woman up who had been knocked down by these thugs, these untrained thugs, knocked down in the snow. And he went away from the police officers toward the woman to pick her up after she had been brutally knocked down in the snow. And for that, he's pulled back out, and he is shot in what looks like execution style in America, in the streets of America, and still no justice for those who shot him, who the mother said murdered him, who a lot of us look and say, looks like got shot execution style for helping a woman out of the snow.
Why are these men that shot him execution style not in prison today?
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah. These masked men, who are masked for a reason so that they can't be identified, and in a case like this, they're not - they're being protected by the federal government. They're being protected by the Trump administration.
The FBI finally did share information with Hennepin County. Keith Ellison, the attorney general in Minnesota, says that's a good development. At least we're beginning to get the evidence we need to pursue this case.
But as Miss Pretti said in those heartbreaking words, it's been seven months, and they're not getting any comfort from the government when their son was shot in the head in the streets by a federal agent. They're not getting any information from the government after that happened. And I'm glad you pointed out the full video. We've all seen it. ICE can't run from this. We saw what he did. He raced like we would hope our sons would do, Joe, to step in to a woman who was being pushed down and said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't push somebody down like that.’ And for that, he was on his knees and shot in the head. And after that, he was called a domestic terrorist without evidence.
The attorney general now, Todd Blanche, has backed off that, saying there's no evidence he was a domestic terrorist. But just think the first reflex to watching a man shot in the head by federal agents in a video, the whole world saw, is to say it was his fault. He was a domestic terrorist, which he clearly was not.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, Willie, this is what happened in Jim Crow South when a black man would be shot. Like in another lifetime, justice would not be served. You know, we saw this happen to civil rights workers. We saw this happen to Black men. We saw this happen time and again where somebody would be shot dead and no justice would follow, or a jury would acquit. That's now happening in 2026? That's now happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because the Trump Administration is trying to protect people that gunned down an American citizen in the streets of America.
Willie, this is a perverse throwback to an uglier, horrible time in this country where certain people can be gunned down and shot, killed, and no justice follows. Justice has to follow here, Willie, doesn't it?
GEIST: Yeah. And the difference is, back then they could do those things under the cover of darkness. Today we have video.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
We watched Renee Good get shot in the face. We watched Alex get shot in the head. And, Jonathan Lemire, there's got to be justice for Alex Pretti as his family is now publicly asking. But, as you've been reporting, there is an ongoing and maybe enhanced push for ICE to be more aggressive, to get the numbers up, to meet the quotas, to get people out of this country. Hopefully not to the point where they're shooting peaceful protesters in the head. But this has maybe restrained ICE to some degree for a while, but it's clear that the mission continues.
(...)
