Even CBS News’ new, controversial editor-in-chief couldn’t look away from the killing of yet another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.
Bari Weiss’s anti-woke Substack, The Free Press, broke ranks with the Trump administration in a blistering editorial that slammed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s defense of a border patrol agent who fatally shot VA nurse Alex Pretti, 37. Weiss, 41, continues to helm The Free Press while also overseeing CBS News—an appointment many critics have viewed as an effort to appease the Trump administration.
Titled “Kristi Noem’s Reckless Lies,” the editorial—penned by “The Editors”—dismantles Noem’s assertion that Pretti’s killing was an act of self-defense, as well as her portrayal of him as a “domestic terrorist” intent on harming law enforcement.
“The aggression against Petti began as he placed himself between them and a fellow protester who had been violently pushed to the ground by another agent,” the editorial, published Monday, reads. “The problem for [Noem] and the president she serves is that there are multiple videos of the attack that show something different.”
Footage of the incident appears to show Pretti placing his body between federal agents and a woman who was being pepper-sprayed after she was shoved to the ground. He was then thrown to the ground, beaten, and ultimately shot dead in a chilling scene captured on video.
“So why is Noem lying? It’s not very hard for a senior official like Noem to simply say that the facts will be uncovered after an investigation,” the editorial continues. “And then she could express remorse that an American citizen had been killed.”
The editors—potentially among them, Weiss’s wife and Free Press Chief of Content Strategy Nellie Bowles—go further, accusing not just Noem but the Trump administration as a whole of repeatedly misleading the American public. Referencing Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s X post labeling Pretti an “assassin,” the editors say there was “no evidence” to support the claim, while calling for a federal investigation “at the very least.”
“Assassin? Pretti was a nurse with a concealed carry permit. He was exercising his Second Amendment rights. There is no evidence he was trying to kill federal officers; he was pinned down at the time of his killing,” the editorial reads.
The piece goes on to accuse Trump of continuous lying, referencing the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent this month. Federal officers have killed more U.S. citizens (two) in Minneapolis this year than thecity has homicides that do not involve federal law enforcement (one).
Then, the editors slam the president and his administration for writing off their supporters as “easy to fool.”
“How else to explain the messaging this weekend from his administration that asks loyal Republicans to disbelieve their lying eyes?” it concludes.
Weiss co-founded the anti-woke outlet in 2021, which has since published pieces such as “I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute Is Back” and “I Used to Hate Trump. Now I’m a MAGA Lefty.”
In October, she was tapped by nepo-billionaire media baron and Trump ally David Ellison to lead CBS News. Her lack of experience in journalism and broadcasting fueled speculation that her appointment was a bid for Trump’s approval as Ellison pursues a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
Weiss has since been plagued by controversies, including the eleventh-hour shelving of a segment detailing the alleged abuse of Venezuelan men deported by Trump to an El Salvador megaprison, as well as her installation of the MAGA-coded—and widely criticized—Tony Dokoupil as anchor of CBS Evening News.
Privately, however, Weiss has “expressed alarm at many of the [Trump Administration’s] actions,” a source close to the Columbia University alum told the New Yorker earlier this month.
“But, in her role as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, her main concern is being able to book [Trump’s] main players on her network’s shows,” the source told the magazine.
The Daily Beast has reached out to The Free Press for comment.
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