Jake Tapper pressed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday to explain how the administration was going to guarantee a fair investigation into Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent who was seen on video shooting a woman in her car in Minneapolis last week.
The shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, prompted hundreds of thousands of Americans to protest across the country this weekend.
Ross can be heard on his own cell phone video calling Good a “f***ing b****” before firing into the vehicle as it appears to turn away from his direction. Whether the officer was struck by the side of the car is unclear.
The secretary attempted to blame Democrats and the media for prejudging the officer’s guilt, but had no response when the State of the Union host questioned whether the administration’s stalwart defense of the officer’s actions would harm future investigations.
Noem instead spent the interview attempting to draw Tapper away from his own questions and insisting that it was, in fact, the media that was making Americans less safe.
After she insisted once again that the officer fired his weapon “to protect himself,” even as Good’s vehicle was clearly turning away from him, Tapper asked her whether those comments did the officer a “disservice” by complicating or tainting the investigation.
“I'm wondering if you're not doing a disservice to the officer by reaching a conclusion before the investigation takes place,” he suggested.
“I haven’t heard you say once what a disservice it’s done for Mayor Frey to get up, and say ‘get ICE to get the F out of my city’, and [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] to stand up before she had any of the facts and called this officer a murderer,” Noem replied. Tapper shot back that Frey was literally his next guest on the show.
The back-and-forth between the two continued for several minutes, with Noem deflecting and dodging every question Tapper asked.
“The question is: What was she doing when she was moving her car?” Tapper said, referring to the central issue of whether Good was intending to strike any ICE agents with her car.
Noem deflected: “The question is, why are we arguing with a president who is working to keep people safe?”
Her interview comes as public sentiment seems to be coalescing against the administration.
Vice President JD Vance, who mounted his response on X, has both called Good’s death a tragedy while also accusing her of engaging in domestic terrorism. The DHS account warned on Saturday that anyone who laid “a finger” on a member of federal law enforcement would be dealt with harshly.
A poll first reported by Axios found ICE’s reputation cratering, even before the shooting. Support for abolishing the agency entirely is closing in on the share of Americans who oppose it.
Democrats have loudly condemned the shooting of Good and accused the administration of packing ICE’s ranks with untrained novices as part of the White House fervor to meet mass deportation goals set by the president and his close adviser, Stephen Miller.
In return, the White House and associated federal agencies have accused the media of “failing” Americans by reporting the story under a supposedly dishonest lens. Vance has led the charge on that push, something Noem echoed on CNN.
“I think a lot of people, and even you yourself, called this situation something very different and untruthful about what it was,” she insisted to Tapper.
As Noem insisted that Tapper was wrong to say she was lying about what was seen on the video of the shooting, Noem told Tapper that her remarks were “factual” before immediately being caught changing her story.
The secretary said in her initial statement about the shooting that officers were “attempting to push out their vehicle” when it was stuck in the snow, and Good supposedly “attacked” the agents. As she responded to Tapper, Noem changed her language slightly: “They were there, pushing out a vehicle earlier-”
“But that’s not what you said,” a frustrated Tapper responded.
Internally, the administration is reported to be wrestling with its public image as the video of the shooting spread worldwide.
Multiple nights of protest in cities including but not limited to Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles reflect a level of anger that hasn’t been witnessed in a similar widespread fashion since the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, which sparked massive demonstrations in dozens of cities throughout that summer.
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