The cable-comedy mob ran straight from their punchlines to the protest line this week, with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel turning a tragic Minneapolis shooting into another late-night indictment of law enforcement. Colbert’s on-air exclamation and Kimmel’s tearful monologue were cheered by audiences who see only one side of a complicated, chaotic scene.
What actually happened on January 24, 2026, is far from the tidy narrative the late-night circuit sold: a Border Patrol operation in Minneapolis ended with 37-year-old Alex Pretti dead after agents fired during an encounter on Nicollet Avenue. Federal officials say the shooting is under multiple investigations, and the situation unfolded amid an aggressive enforcement push the administration calls Operation Metro Surge.
Independent video reviewed by outside organizations raises serious questions about the official timeline, showing Pretti with a phone and being pepper-sprayed and shoved before shots were fired. Human Rights Watch and other outlets note discrepancies between bystander footage and the initial federal claim that Pretti “approached” agents with a firearm, fueling public outrage and skepticism.
None of that complexity stopped late-night hosts from delivering simplistic, enraged verdicts that fit their worldview: law enforcement bad, federal policy worse, and the usual calls to defund or purge. It’s a predictable performance from coastal elites who treat visceral outrage as moral authority while ignoring how their commentary stokes division on the ground. Theiratrics aren’t investigations; they’re partisan theater.
Conservatives shouldn’t reflexively defend every agent either, but neither should we permit a runaway media narrative that discounts context, omits verified facts, or cheers on disorder. The involved Border Patrol officers are employees of a dangerous federal mission, and officials say one of the shooters is an eight-year veteran whose actions are now the subject of internal and federal review. The country deserves transparency, not cable-driven verdicts.
The administration’s decision to flood Minneapolis with federal enforcement teams has predictably escalated tension rather than calming it, turning ordinary neighborhoods into battlegrounds with tragic results. Operation Metro Surge has already led to mass arrests and heightened confrontations, and yet the public is often given only a one-sided, activist-friendly narrative about the fallout. This heavy-handed approach was avoidable and now demands scrutiny.
If we are to be a nation of laws and not two competing sets of truth, every level of government must cooperate in a transparent inquiry and release the body-cam footage and forensic evidence without political filters. State and local leaders, who are being sidelined by federal control of the probe, are right to demand access — Americans will not accept a closed-door whitewash while cable hosts wag their fingers and declare justice served.
Patriots who love law, order, and liberty should demand three things: a full public accounting of the facts, accountability if officers violated the law, and an end to the performative outrage industry that profits from division. Late-night scolding won’t replace due process, and neither will partisan grandstanding heal the community or make anyone safer. The nation needs sober investigation and honest reporting, not virtue-signaling monologues.
