A seething Vice President JD Vance blamed the media and the Democratic Party for stoking anger against ICE agents across the country as he insisted without any evidence that a woman shot to death by an agent in Minneapolis was part of a “left wing network” and was attempting to strike officials at the time of her death.
Who didn’t take any Vance’s blame? The White House or the man who pulled the trigger.
Though Vance claimed he appeared before reporters Thursday to tone down the temperature of American politics after Wednesday’s shooting, he did the opposite. All while accusing his political opponents of unjustly demonizing ICE agents and the president’s mass deportation effort, Vance proved that the administration was more interested in attacking Democrats and casting blame than seeking any sort of unity or bridge-mending.
“I think the media pre-judging and talking about this guy as if he’s a murderer, is one of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever seen,” Vance said.
"That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation," he said of Renee Nicole Good, the woman authorities identified as the person shot to death by ICE officer Jonathan Ross while moving her vehicle during a deportation operation. At no point is Good’s car seen accelerating towards officers in a manner that would constitute an immediate threat.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” the vice president, incensed, lectured the assembled journalists at the White House. In a statement that could not possibly be true, Vance claimed that “nobody” disputed that Good was aiming her vehicle at agents and attempting to run them down, when video from the incident does not appear to show Good placing anyone in any imminent danger.
"You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that. I can believe her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making,” Vance insisted.
He also claimed that Democrats were “working tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques to try to make it impossible for the President of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do.”
"I'm sorry, guys. What is going on here? You are meant to report the truth,” he complained to reporters in the room. “How have you let yourselves become agents of propaganda of a radical fringe that is making it harder for us to enforce our laws?”
The rant would hardly be surprising to hear from anyone in Donald Trump’s score-settling, vengeance-obsessed second administration were it not for Vance’s appeals to “take down the temperature” during the remarks. He repeatedly insisted it was the media and the Democratic Party’s job to do this: When asked directly what responsibility the White House had in that regard, he said only that their job was to protect members of law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Vance couldn’t answer why he was certain that Good was a member of a vast left-wing conspiracy or provide any evidence to prove it. He also dodged why he was prejudging the case and declaring Good guilty of a crime before any investigation was carried out, save for analyses done in the media.
Vance was eager to assume the roles of judge and jury both, as long as the media couldn’t.
The vice president didn’t let a lack of evidence stop him from assuming that left-leaning groups were manufacturing inauthentic responses to the shooting in cities around the country where marches and vigils were held in Good’s honor, either.
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“When somebody throws a brick at an ice agent, or somebody tries to run over an ICE agent, who paid for the brick — and who told protesters to show up and engage in violent activity against our law enforcement officers?” Vance asked. His remarks harkened to an assertion that sprang up during the George Floyd protests in 2020 which insisted that popular revulsion and anger against the right must be manufactured, the result of “paid protesters” or other explanations which generally sought to deny the idea of grassroots support for progressive ideas. The “brick” comment referred specifically to a bizarre claim that left-leaning networks left supplies of bricks strategically around the city of Minneapolis in 2020 as ammunition for protesters.
On social media his remarks were rejected as calls to ignore the video evidence of the situation by his detractors.
“JD Vance is the most appalling person in public life since segregation[,] this is a truly despicable performance,” wrote The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, former communications director for the Republican National Committee.
The shooting of Good, a 37-year-old mother, dominated platforms such as X and Reddit on Wednesday as shocked Americans reacted to the video, which spread quickly.
State and city officials stopped short of calling the shooting murder, as many on social media were, but called it a “reckless” use of force by the agent.
“Get the f*** out of Minneapolis,” the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, raged at a press conference.
Altogether the shooting comes as the administration is under fire from its own base for an insufficient focus on the affordability crisis gripping Americans and increasingly militant tactics used by immigration enforcement authorities around the U.S. that have shocked communities and stoked tensions among residents.
The president’s party is increasingly projected to lose the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections and White House officials have doubled down on the deportation effort in order to satisfy hardline immigration hawks in the GOP’s coalition.
The latest incident involving those efforts could backfire as fury is growing over Wednesday’s shooting, and could turn some against the administration.
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