Anderson Cooper Brings Receipts Showing Trump’s Double Standard on Guns: ‘He Supports the 2nd Amendment – Just Not All the Time’ 

CNN’s Anderson Cooper exposed the double standard applied by President Donald Trump when it comes to gun rights.

On Saturday, Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, who had been filming them. At one point, one agent shoved a woman to the ground. Video shows Pretti attempting to help her before being swarmed by agents, who took his holstered firearm, for which Pretti had a permit. After disarming him, agents shot him 10 times, killing him.

On Monday’s AC360, Cooper reported live from Minneapolis, where he noted that the Trump administration’s claims about Pretti – particularly ones made immediately after the killing – were contradicted by multiple videos of Pretti’s death. The host also played a clip of FBI Director Kash Patel saying, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you wanted.”

Notably, Minnesota allows open carry for handguns, provided a permit is obtained. There is no law against carrying a firearm while protesting, which Pretti was not doing. Instead, he was filming agents.

Cooper aired a 2021 clip of Patel soliciting donations for Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two people at a protest in 2020. Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder after saying he acted in self-defense. The host noted that Rittenhouse had met with Trump, who called Rittenhouse “a nice young man.”

The host went on to read from a Truth Social post in which Trump posted a photo of Pretti’s firearm and said, “This is the gunman’s gun (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go – What is that all about?”

“Now, again, this is from a president who, until this weekend, hardly stopped talking about his love for the Second Amendment,” Cooper said, before playing clips of Trump talking about the Second Amendment:

TRUMP: I’m gonna save your Second Amendment.

TRUMP: The Second Amendment is under siege. Believe me.

TRUMP: We’ll ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror. I will be always defending the Second Amendment.

TRUMP: We are going to be so strong with our Second Amendment. We’re not letting our Second Amendment go.

TRUMP: If the left gains power, they will demolish the suburbs, confiscate your guns, and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment and other constitutional freedoms.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: The president has also made it clear he’s always going to protect the constitutional right, Second Amendment, constitutional right of Americans to own guns.

COOPER: Now, he supports the Second Amendment – just not all the time, depending on who’s carrying the gun and who gets killed. Alex Pretti was apparently not his kind of gun owner.

Watch above via CNN.

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