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Floor Speech

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise on behalf of the thousands of Wisconsinites I have heard from in the last few days. My constituents are not only saddened by what they see happening in Minneapolis, they are angry. This weekend, we watched masked agents kill a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in just 3 weeks. Alex Pretti, just like Renee Good, should still be with us.

We also watched the Trump administration's reaction to this tragedy. Instead of turning down the temperature, the Trump administration threw gasoline on the fire and lied to the American people.

In the hours after Alex Pretti was shot 10 times by Federal agents, the Trump administration, without knowing the facts, said that Alex was a ``domestic terrorist'' and an ``assassin,'' and somebody who ``tried to murder'' ICE agents. Those are despicable lies.

Fortunately, Alex's community and loved ones are setting the record straight, and so am I. That is why I am here on the Senate floor this evening. We have to remember Alex Pretti for who he was, not for who the Trump administration wanted him to be to fit into their narrative.

Alex Pretti grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from Preble High School in Green Bay. In recent days, his classmates have reached out to me and his friends and his teachers to share with me and the world who Alex really was.

Jose from Green Bay met Alex in the ninth grade. They became fast friends, participating in theater and show choir together. Jose shared about Alex that, ``even as a fellow student, I saw him as a role model.''

JD, who also knew Alex in high school, wrote to me:

Everyone I knew looked up to him as a role model-- effortlessly cool and unfailingly kind. Everything I know about his life since those days and even his final act aligns completely with the person I knew--a genuinely good person who sincerely wanted to serve his community.

Another classmate, Michael, described Alex as ``generous with his time, welcoming by nature, and the kind of person who made you feel included without trying. He deserved to grow older, to keep showing up for people the way he did for me.''

And Alex did show up for people. He went on to become a nurse, serving veterans at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. His coworkers, friends, and patients described him as a good man--someone who cared about others in his community. We all saw Alex's last act was an act of service, putting himself between a group of masked agents and a woman who had been shoved into a snowbank.

He was not a threat. He was not an assassin. He was not a domestic terrorist. This administration is asking Americans not to believe their own eyes.

As his parents wrote:

The sickening lies being told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.

They implored all of us:

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.

Well, I, for one, plan to do just that. I will not allow the Trump administration to lie and smear Alex. But I also plan on doing everything I can to ensure that Alex and his family get justice. We must get some accountability for what happened. No other American should lose their lives because the Trump administration thinks that ICE can operate with ``absolute immunity.''

Congress has a choice this week. My Republican colleagues can sign over another blank check to Kristi Noem and ICE and endorse this chaos and lawlessness, or Congress can do our job and stop these lawless, masked, armed agents from terrorizing another community.

People want action. Alex deserves action. I intend to take that action, and I call on my Republican colleagues to join me.

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