US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday claimed that the woman fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis a day earlier was “brainwashed,” suggesting without evidence that she was tied to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Vance took questions in the White House briefing room, also spoke to the media for its coverage of the incident while offering few details to back up his version of events, NBC News reported.
“I’m not happy that this woman lost her life,” he said of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was fatally shot during a confrontation with ICE agents Wednesday.
“I’m not happy that this woman was there at a protest violating the law by interfering with the law enforcement action,” Vance added.
“I think that we can all recognize that the best way to turn down the temperature is to tell people to take their concerns about immigration policy to the ballot box. Stop assaulting and stop inciting violence against our law enforcement officers. That’s the best way to take down the temperature … We’re not going to give in to terrorism on this and that’s exactly what’s happened.”
Also Read | ‘It was always about the oil’: Venezuela’s acting president lashes out at US ‘energy greed’
Vance on ICE shooting a woman
Vance joined White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to discuss their administration’s response to the shooting and to an ongoing fraud investigation involving the alleged misuse of welfare funds in the state.
Vance was critical of Walz, his Democratic opponent for vice president in 2024.
.The ICE officer who shot Good, he said, nearly died six months ago after being “dragged by a car” and requiring dozens of stitches in his leg.
“So you think maybe he’s a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile?” Vance said.
Vance also asserted that the media has failed to cover that Good was “part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.”
“If the media wants to tell the truth,” he added, “they ought to tell the truth that a group of left-wing radicals have been 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, which is enforce our immigration laws.”