Some White House insiders are privately stunned by how quickly the Trump administration moved to characterize the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent, warning that the rush to judgment could seriously undermine public confidence in the investigation, according to a new report from Politico.
Just hours after Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicly accused Good of committing an act of “domestic terrorism.” The comments, delivered at a press conference shortly after the shooting, immediately set off alarm bells both inside the administration and among current and former ICE officials, Politico reported.
A neigbhor who saw what happened told local MPR news: “She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in — like, his midriff was on her bumper — and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times” / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
According to the report, some insiders fear Noem’s remarks risk “undermining public confidence in the ongoing investigation” and widening what one source described as a growing credibility gap between the public and federal immigration authorities.
“Do I think it’s domestic terrorism? Yeah, I do,” a source close to the White House told Politico. “But it might not have been wise to say that at the outset, how [Noem] said it.”
At the press conference, Noem claimed Good had “weaponized her vehicle” against ICE agents and framed the shooting as a clear-cut case of domestic terrorism — a characterization that Democrats and local officials swiftly rejected.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted the administration’s account in a post on X, calling the terrorism label an expletive and accusing federal officials of spinning the incident before all the facts were known.
As video footage of the encounter emerged, the political divide only deepened. The Department of Homeland Security released its own video Saturday, showing the moments leading up to the shooting, and claimed in an accompanying social media post that Good was “STALKING and IMPEDING a law enforcement operation.” Democrats and civil rights advocates offered starkly different interpretations of the footage.
One administration official told Politico that the conflicting narratives were pouring gasoline on an already volatile situation. “I don’t know how we recover from this,” the official said, warning that trust in the eventual findings may be irreparably damaged.
That concern was compounded by another shooting involving federal agents Thursday in Portland, Oregon, where Border Patrol officers shot two people. While the official said the Portland incident occurred during a targeted operation and was easier to justify, they conceded the public is likely to link the two cases anyway.
“This is highly problematic and not a good look and not something our government should be remotely engaged in,” the official said of the Minneapolis shooting. “Whatever outcome this investigation produces, I don’t see how anyone’s gonna believe it when the secretary already is firmly — and doubled down on — a conclusion without knowing all the facts.”
That sentiment was echoed by John Sandweg, who served as ICE director under President Barack Obama. Sandweg told Politico that Noem’s comments risk poisoning the process from the start.
The same White House source contrasted Noem’s approach with that of border czar Tom Homan, who declined to comment on the shooting during an interview on CBS Evenings, citing the ongoing investigation. “Homan had a very mature response, and a thoughtful, professional way of dealing with it,” the source said.
Asked about the internal criticism, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin defended Noem’s remarks, pointing Politico to videos of the incident shared by Trump administration officials.
“If you weaponize a vehicle, a deadly weapon to kill or cause bodily harm to a federal law enforcement officer, that is an act of domestic terrorism and will be prosecuted as such,” McLaughlin said.
As the investigation continues, insiders fear the administration’s early, forceful framing of the Minneapolis shooting may have already done lasting damage — not just to the case itself, but to public trust in the institutions now tasked with judging it.
