Internal doubts are quietly swirling inside the Trump White House following the fatal shooting of a woman by an ICE officer in Minneapolis – an incident that some in the administration worry officials moved too quickly to frame as “domestic terrorism.”
That’s according to Politico, which reported Friday that the unease centers around public remarks made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who told reporters in a Wednesday visit to South Texas that 37-year-old Renee Good, the woman killed in the encounter, had committed an act of “domestic terrorism.” She further alleged that Good had attempted to “ram them with her vehicle.”
But even supporters of President Donald Trump are showing cracks with the MAGA administration’s official story. Some worry that labeling the shooting within hours “risks undermining public confidence in the ongoing investigation and expanding the credibility gap between the public and the immigration agency patrolling dozens of American cities,” Politico reported.
“Do I think it’s domestic terrorism? Yeah, I do,” said a person close to the White House, speaking anonymously. “But it might not have been wise to say that at the outset, how [Noem] said it.”
Those concerns grew deeper within 48 hours when a second shooting – this time involving a Customs and Border Protection officer in Portland, Oregon – further inflamed outrage and spurred protests across the country.
“I don’t know how we recover from this,” one administration official told the outlet. “This is highly problematic and not a good look and not something our government should be remotely engaged in,” the official added of the Minneapolis shooting.
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill) was more blunt: “This pattern of ‘shoot first, then lie, lie, deny’ has to stop,” she said Friday. “The videos don’t lie.”
John Sandweg, a former ICE acting director under Barack Obama, warned the administration’s automatic defense of agents could backfire.
“You’re not doing the agency or the agents any justice when you rush out and reflexively defend them,” he said, according to Politico. “No one at ICE goes to work saying, ‘I want to shoot someone,’ absolutely not. But the aggression is being rewarded, and I think sometimes you’re better off to just stop and think a little bit.”
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