GOP Senator Suggests Dems Wanted ICE to Kill Protesters Like Renee Good, Alex Pretti: ‘They Got Their Martyrs’

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has implied his Democratic colleagues wanted ICE to kill protesters so they could be elevated as “martyrs” for their cause.

Johnson joined CNBC on Tuesday morning for a conversation largely focused on Congress’s struggles to pass a new funding bill. Democrats have opposed Republican proposals over funding for the Department of Homeland Security — and more specifically, ICE.

During the interview, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Johnson if he believed ICE agents had the proper training to deal with both illegal immigrants and protesters. Johnson argued that agents “haven’t been training to deal with trained activists.” He continued:

They’re showing up with semi-automatic pistols with additional ammunition clips. So again, you have to understand, Democrats are trying to neuter ICE’s ability to enforce our immigration laws. That is the Democrat position here. They wanted open borders. They threw the borders wide open. We’ve got millions of people flooding in here, including 650,000 immigrants convicted of crimes including murder and homicide, and I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody trying to clean up that mess.

The conversation came weeks after the death of Alex Pretti, who was shot multiple times and killed by ICE agents during a scuffle that started when he tried helping a woman who was pushed to the ground. Pretti was legally armed with a handgun on his holster, and footage of the shooting appeared to show an agent disarming him before he was shot. The incident followed the shooting death of Renee Good days earlier.

Johnson called Pretti’s death “horrific” before blaming Democrats for “encouraging” him to “put himself in harm’s way.” He added:

So, what ended up happening is they, the people who organized this, the elected officials who are encouraging this, they encouraged Alex Pretti to put himself into harm’s way. So they knew that those people were in danger, and they got their martyrs, didn’t they? They got their martyrs. No, it’s a tragedy. I think it’s sick. I think it’s sick the elected officials would encourage their supporters, their trained activists, to put themselves into harm’s way to impede and obstruct legal law enforcement actions. That is exactly what’s happening. You have to face that reality. It’s a sick reality.

Watch above via CNBC

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