Column: The facts about Alex Pretti's death are undeniable. The White House denies them anyway.

The murder of Alex Pretti was unjust and unjustified. While protesting (also known as “observing” or “interfering with”) deportation operations, the ICU nurse at the VA hospital came to the aid of two protesters, one of whom had been thrown to the ground by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. With a phone in one hand, Pretti used the other, in vain, to shield his eyes as he was sprayed with pepper spray. Knocked to the ground, Pretti was repeatedly hit in the face with the aerosol can, punched by multiple officers, disarmed of his holstered legal firearm and then shot nine or 10 times.

Note the sequence. It was disarmed and so They shot him.

That is why murder is undeniably unjust and unjustified. Unfair because Pretti didn't deserve to die, even if he had been completely “obstructing” federal agents, death is not a fair price for that. But he wasn't stopping an agent from deporting an illegal immigrant. He was stopping an officer from attacking a woman on the street.

The murder was unjustified because a gang of officers did not need to shoot Pretti after they disarmed him. If you want to argue that simply bringing a gun to any protest justifies being shot by the police, even after being disarmedyou are going to sound as politically foolish, hypocritical, or authoritarian as an entire group of administration officials and GOP advocates undoubtedly did over the weekend.

I keep using that word: “undeniable.” Unfortunately, it doesn't really mean what it used to mean anymore. “Undeniable” describes something that is so evident and clearly true that no one can refute or question it. With this administration the truth has nothing to do with anything.

Immediately after Pretti's murder, members of the Trump administration took to television and social media to describe Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and a “murderer.” CBP Chief Gregory Bovino saying “This seems like a situation where an individual wanted to cause maximum damage and massacre the authorities.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed the same talking points. Pretti's motive, he claimed, was to “inflict maximum harm on people and kill law enforcement” because he was a “internal terrorist.” Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff stated that Pretti was a “murderer” who tried to “murder federal agents.”

The administration is making all this up. But that's not necessarily It means they are lying. They just don't care what the truth is.

In his seminal book “On Bulls…” (the actual title is uncensored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for and knowledge of the truth. “It is impossible for someone to lie unless they believe they know the truth. Producing bulls requires no such conviction.” What this administration does is worse than lying because they don't care if something is true or false, only if it will be believed.

The Trump White House is a distribution center of values ​​that connects the entire media landscape through tubes, channels and floodgates. Like a huge Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel that powers everything is a president who spent his life saying whatever he had to say at any time to reach an agreement, get out of the problem, whatever.

Raised in “the power of positive thinking”and the prosperity gospelDonald J. Trump has always believed he could conjure the reality he desires through sheer will and endless repetition of what he wants people to believe. He makes claims about what “they” are “saying” and tells stories about what people have told him, some of which are probably made up, while others of which are probably true but not sincere, since everyone knows that the president believes every flattery he hears.

Trump also sprayed bovine excrement during his first term. But he also had personnel in protective suits, containment and cleaning equipment ready.

Now, in his second term, everyone grabs a hose, but that's not water in those tanks. Terminally online and obsessed with cable news narratives, this White House is full of people who have learned at the (kissed) feet of the master. Truth and lies are simply different types of tools for the job that matters: constructing a narrative that the president wants to hear, primarily about himself or for his benefit.

That's why the administration's Sunday show handlers are so bad at their jobs. The mission is not primarily to reassure, much less inform, the publicbut to assure the president that the public is being adequately told how great the president is. Because they know you're watching.

Trump is said to be “reviewing” the policies that left Pretti dead in the street. That's good. But Trump's motive is not to prevent more unnecessary deaths, just the unnecessary deaths that don't make him look good.

UNKNOWN: @JonahDispatch