Kristi Noem looked shaken after a tense exchange with Jake Tapper over the shooting death of Renee Good, a Minneapolis mother of three who was killed by an ICE agent earlier this month.
The confrontation unfolded in the closing moments of CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. Tapper played video from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and drew a comparison between the violence against police that day and what happened the day Good was killed.
“Those are law enforcement officers being physically attacked,” he said. “By this standard, would any of those officers be justified in shooting and killing the people causing them physical harm?”
Noem appeared to suggest that Capitol police would have been within their rights to use deadly force against rioters on January 6.
“Every single situation is going to rely on the situation those officers are in,” she answered. “But they know that when people are putting hands on them, when they are using weapons against them, when they’re physically harming them, that they have the authority to arrest those individuals.”
When Tapper noted that Donald Trump later pardoned many of the rioters, Noem seemed to struggle to find her footing. “And every single one of these investigations comes in the full context of the situation on the ground,” she said.
She went on to defend Trump’s approach to law enforcement. “And that’s one thing that President Trump has been so focused on is making sure that when we’re out there, we don’t pick and choose which situations are in which laws are enforced and which ones aren’t. Every single one is being enforced under the Trump administration, and the clarity of the law stands. And if people don’t like it, these members of Congress and elected officials should go change the law and make sure they have that debate and policy.”
Tapper pushed back hard. “I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers,” he said. “Undisputed proof, undisputed evidence. And I just said President Trump pardoned all of them. And you said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. It’s just not true. There’s a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters. We just saw that.”
Noem did not directly address that point. Instead, she said, “This individual, and these instances, and these investigations all have to be taken and done correctly in context of every situation that is happening on the ground … The Department of Homeland Security is out there with our law enforcement officers, making sure that we’re targeting the worst of the worst and that we are talking factually about each situation and making sure we are bringing those perpetrators of violence back to justice, bringing them to justice and making sure they face consequences for their crimes.”
Outside the interview, the White House weighed in. “I am hereby calling on the New York Times to update their reporting on the ICE Agent’s self defense in Minnesota,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an X post Friday. “President Trump was right again.”
Leavitt also posted a screenshot from a New York Times interview with Trump that ran Thursday, where the president watched a video of the shooting. The Times later reported that its analysis of footage from three camera angles showed the motorist was driving away from, not toward, a federal officer when he opened fire.
The Times report added that Trump had held to his version of events despite questions about inconsistencies. “But on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump stuck to his position even as we pointed out the inconsistencies in his account and the lack of clarity in videos circulating on social media. We asked if, in his mind, firing into a vehicle like that was acceptable.
“’She behaved horribly,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.’”
Newly released footage, filmed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on his own cellphone, shows Ross stepping out of his vehicle and walking toward Good while she sat in her car. He approached the driver’s side, where Good told him, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you,” referring to him recording her. The video, first obtained by Alpha News, later shows Ross filming Good’s license plate as Good’s wife, Becca Good, recorded him in return.
At one point, Becca Good said to Ross, “You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead.”
Moments later, another agent came up to the driver’s side and pulled on the door handle while telling Good to “get out of the f–king car.” Video shows Good backing up and turning right, appearing to try to maneuver around Ross. As she drove forward, Ross shouted in surprise and fired three shots.