Kristi Noem was confronted by CNN’s Jake Tapper during a heated interview Sunday morning about how she rushed to put out her version of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
The State of the Union anchor pressed the Department of Homeland Security head about why she rushed to conclusions just two hours after Good was killed at the hands of an ICE officer Wednesday.
“Why did you not wait for an investigation before making your comments?” the CNN host asked.
Noem replied, “Well, everything that I’ve said has been proven to be factual, and the truth. This administration wants to operate in transparency. I have the responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to know this information as soon as possible.”
“I had just been in Minneapolis the day before, had already had conversations with officers on the ground and supervisors, and knew the facts and decided that the department and the people of this country deserve to know the truth of the situation, of what had unfolded in Minneapolis.”
Tapper, however, pressed Noem directly by reading back her own early statement on the death of Good, who died when ICE agent Jonathan Ross, fired three shots into her vehicle.
“With all due respect, secretary, the first thing you said was, quote, ‘What happened was our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis.
“They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.’”
Tapper then took sharp aim at Noem, saying, “That’s not what happened. We all saw what happened.”
Noem stuck by her words, arguing: “It absolutely is. What happened? Those officers had been out an enforcement action. A vehicle had been stuck. They had come to help get that vehicle out. That‘s when this individual started blocking traffic for minutes and minutes.”
But Tapper interjected, saying, “You said that the woman attacked them and surrounded them and attempted to run them over and ram them with their vehicle.”
Footage of the shooting shows ICE agents shouting at Good—who was reportedly coming from dropping her six-year-old son at school—through the window of her SUV while it remained stationary on a Minneapolis street, blocking one lane of traffic.
After Noem stated that Ross, was simply using his training, Tapper asked: “You said within hours of her being killed, you said that she was a domestic terrorist. How do you define domestic terrorist?”
“She weaponized her vehicle to conduct an act of violence against a law enforcement officer and the public,” Noem said.
Tapper again asked how such claims could be made prior to an investigation. “How can you assert with certainty that she was trying to hurt the officer, as opposed to she was trying to flee the scene?” he questioned.
Noem repeated that Ross was defending himself and others, with Tapper later asking about the veracity of her claims once again.
“Some people say that it clearly showed that she was trying to hit him and did some people say ‘No, she was clearly trying to move her car and flee and get away.’ I don’t know; what I’m saying is, how do you know? How can you assert for a fact within hours before any investigation, this is what happened?”
Noem echoed her assertion that Ross was acting in defense, telling the host: “You don’t get to change the facts just because you don’t like them.”
Noem vowed that the “motivations” of Good would be investigated before insisting again that the videos backed up her version of events.
“And as you see on the videos, and they’ve proven out that this law enforcement officer took the action that his training prepared him for, and he worked to make sure that he could save his own life and those around him,” she said.
Tapper was unpersuaded by the reasoning, asking for a final time: “How can you assert that there‘s no ambiguity in this before any investigation has taken place?”
