Analysis: Trump’s team almost never backs down from its false claims. This past week has been different

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — From the start, this has been a say-anything presidential administration.

A White House led by President Donald Trump, who lies frequently and brazenly, has rarely appeared concerned about factual accuracy. And guided by Trump’s no-apologies ethos and penchant for dogged repetition, the administration has almost never retreated from even the most outlandish of its falsehoods even after they have been thoroughly debunked.

This past week has been different.

Both Trump himself and his administration more broadly have backed off when faced with blowback to their inaccurate rhetoric — first the president’s minimization of NATO countries’ military contributions in Afghanistan, then top administration officials’ groundless accusations about Alex Pretti, the registered nurse killed by Border Patrol in Minneapolis.

Trump insults NATO members, draws condemnation, then retreats

In an interview that aired last week on Fox Business, Trump claimed of NATO countries: “We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

But the US has certainly asked for things from NATO countries, notably a request to help fight a war in Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. And while there was a kernel of truth behind Trump’s claim that NATO members “stayed a little back,” since some coalition countries placed restrictions on their troops’ Afghanistan activities, Trump’s assertion was incorrectly and insultingly broad.

Various NATO countries — including the United Kingdom, Denmark and Canada, all of which Trump has criticized in recent weeks — deployed troops to fight in Afghanistan’s most volatile provinces, such as Helmand and Kandahar, and suffered considerable losses. On the whole, more than 1,000 troops from non-US NATO members died in the war, according to tracking by iCasualties.org.

Afghanistan veterans and political figures from NATO countries, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, expressed outrage at Trump’s remarks. And while the White House initially offered its usual comment that Trump was “absolutely right,” the president then tried something unusually conciliatory. He posted on social media on Saturday to praise the sacrifices of British troops, noting, “In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors.”

This wasn’t an explicit apology, of course, and it didn’t mention other NATO countries’ losses in Afghanistan. But it was widely, and correctly, seen as a Trump retreat.

Trump’s team immediately attacks Alex Pretti, then backs off

Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse admired by patients and colleagues at the Veterans Affairs facility where he worked, was shot dead by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday morning after he intervened when an agent shoved a woman to the ground. Within hours, top Trump administration officials were baselessly depicting him as a thwarted would-be mass murderer.

In a Saturday social media post amplified by Vice President JD Vance, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called Pretti “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents”; in another post, Miller called Pretti “a domestic terrorist.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Saturday: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino used near-identical language Saturday.

The administration has previously smeared people caught up in its immigration enforcement efforts. This time, it appears the story was too big and the incendiary claims about Pretti too obviously contradicted by viral video footage for even a no-apologies administration to try to sustain.

By Sunday morning, Trump officials who appeared in television interviews were conspicuously refusing to repeat their most sensational Saturday claims about Pretti, deferring instead to the ongoing investigation. When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the “domestic terrorist” claim at a briefing on Monday, she said, “I have not heard the president characterize Mr. Pretti in that way.” And on Tuesday, when Trump was asked whether he thinks Pretti was acting as an assassin, he said, “No.”

There were, again, limits to the administration’s retreat. Leavitt dodged Monday when asked whether Miller would apologize to Pretti’s family. Trump said Tuesday that Noem is “doing a very good job,” and after rejecting the “assassin” claim, he went on to say, “With that being said, you know, you can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns, you just can’t.”

Pretti had a permit to carry a firearm, and the Minneapolis police chief said Sunday that he was allowed to have the gun on him on the public street where he was killed. Even with Trump’s unexplained suggestion that Pretti’s concealed weapon was improper, though, there was no mistaking that the president was taking part in a rare rhetorical climb-down.

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