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| - On Jan. 27, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to comment on whether protesters should carry guns in response to a question about federal agents fatally shooting Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti several days earlier.
According to posts shared on Reddit, X and Threads, Trump reportedly said, "You know, you can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns. Can't walk into this. You can't do that."
Trump genuinely said the above words. As such, we've rated this claim as a correct attribution.
Footage from C-SPAN shows Trump was responding to a question about Pretti's killing when he said, "You can't have guns."
The exchange took place on Jan. 27, 2026, as Trump was leaving the White House for a trip to Iowa. Quoting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who called Pretti a "would-be assassin," a reporter asked Trump whether he agreed with that statement. Trump said he did not "think so" and followed up with the comments that circulated online.
We reproduced that exchange below (emphasis ours):
REPORTER: Sir, was Mr. Pretti acting as an assassin? Do you think he was acting as an assassin in Minneapolis?
TRUMP: Who is that?
REPORTER: Mr. Pretti. Your deputy chief of staff said that. You don't think so?
TRUMP: No, I don't think so.
[UNINTELLIGIBLE]
TRUMP: With that being said, you know, you can't have guns, you can't walk in with guns, you just can't. And you can't — listen, you can't walk in with guns. You can't do that, but, uh, it's just a very unfortunate incident.
Footage of Trump saying those words is available at the 6:12 mark on C-SPAN and in the video below:
We reached out to the White House for comment on Trump's statement and to clarify whom he was referring to when he said, "You can't have guns."
The White House did not respond to our specific questions, directing us instead to an X post featuring a video of press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking at a press conference the day before Trump made the comment.
The X post reads: "[The President] supports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens — absolutely... while Americans have a constitutional right to bear Arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations."
On Jan. 27, Trump made similar comments to a reporter, saying Pretti "shouldn't have been carrying a gun." That exchange is below (emphasis ours):
REPORTER: Do you agree with the assessment from some of your own officials that Alex Pretti is a domestic terrorist or an assassin?
TRUMP: Well, I haven't heard that but certainly he shouldn't have been carrying a gun. […] We view that as a very unfortunate incident, OK? […] Unless you're a stupid person. Very very unfortunate incident. I don't like that he had a gun. I don't like that he had two fully loaded magazines, that's a lot of bad stuff. Despite that, I say that's a very unfortunate […].
Trump's comments came after federal agents shot Pretti, who had been participating in protests after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in early January 2026. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Pretti approached federal officers with a handgun. Bystander videos show he was holding only a phone, and news analysis of the videos showed agents had already secured the handgun Pretti was carrying before shooting him. Pretti's family told The Associated Press that he had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota.
Snopes has previously covered claims that DHS shared a stock photo instead of a real image of Pretti's gun and that a video authentically showed a federal agent searching Pretti's body for his gun.
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