False Narrative: Trump Administration and MAGA Push Altered Account of Deadly Minneapolis ICE Shooting

Top officials in the Trump administration and prominent voices across the MAGA movement are working to rewrite the official story of a fatal shooting that unfolded in Minneapolis earlier this week.

The incident took place early Wednesday morning, when a group of masked officers—later identified as personnel from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin—approached a civilian vehicle. Bystander footage circulated on social media appears to capture one masked officer ordering the driver to exit the vehicle before reaching for the driver’s side door handle. In the moments after, the driver is seen reversing the car, then pulling forward and turning to maneuver away. A second masked federal officer standing near the front of the vehicle drew his weapon and fired into the car, killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, the vehicle’s driver.

The officer who fired the fatal shots has been named as ICE agent Jonathan Ross in a report from the Minnesota Star Tribune. McLaughlin has not yet responded to a request for comment to confirm the outlet’s reporting.

Within hours of Good’s death, top federal officials moved to frame the victim as the sole aggressor in the encounter. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good’s actions an act of “domestic terrorism,” claiming she had “weaponized her vehicle” and that the involved officer only “followed his training.” Later that Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social claiming Good had “viciously” run over an agent, while blaming the “radical left” for the confrontation. During a Thursday morning press conference, Noem doubled down on her claims, once again calling Good a “domestic terrorist” and falsely asserting that the ICE team had been “surrounded and assaulted and blocked in by protesters.” Vice President JD Vance echoed the administration’s line Thursday, arguing Good was “a victim of left-wing ideology” who “[threw] their car in front of ICE officers,” adding, “You've got to be a little brainwashed.”

The current administration’s pattern of immediately spinning high-stakes incidents to shift blame away from the federal agents Trump has empowered to target vulnerable communities across the country is well-documented. Even by that standard, this case stands as one of the most egregious examples to date: the official government narrative deviates wildly from the clear sequence of events captured in publicly shared video of the encounter.

MAGA influencers were quick to fall in line with the administration’s framing. Trump’s decision to blame the “radical left” was repeated by his most high-profile supporters online, many of whom have warned of impending mass violence from left-wing groups tied to the incident.

“She was trying to stage an illegal blockade of the road to interfere with ICE agents and then rammed her car into one of them when they attempted to apprehend her,” conservative podcaster Matt Walsh wrote on X in a post that has been viewed nearly 700,000 times. “This isn’t even a close call. Entirely justified. She is 100 percent to blame for her own death.”

Publicly available footage of the incident directly contradicts Walsh’s claim that Good “rammed her car” into the officer, who fired through the vehicle’s windshield and driver’s side window. Local leaders have also rejected the false narrative: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the administration’s account “bullshit” and a “garbage narrative,” and said ICE should “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also pushed back on the official story, instead blaming Trump’s policy agenda, which he said is “designed to generate fear, headlines, and conflict … Today that recklessness cost someone their life.”

That public pushback has not deterred other right-wing influencers from repeating the false claims. “The Minneapolis ICE shooting can now be 100% confirmed to be self defense from this new video,” Robby Starbuck, a visiting fellow at the influential conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote on X. “The deceased anti-ICE driver clearly HIT the ICE agent that opened fire with her car. This is textbook self defense.”

Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who maintains close ties to the Trump administration, amplified inflammatory rhetoric around the shooting, writing on X: “These Bolsheviks will come for ICE agents and their families next. And then they will come for anyone who supports ICE, too. Understand the situation we are in. Pray and prepare your homes for what is coming.”

Extremism researchers point out that by repeating the administration’s talking points, MAGA influencers help spread false narratives to far wider audiences than official government communications can reach alone.

“When it comes to influencers spreading these narratives, they're simply the more popular mouthpieces for high-ranking officials, helping reach those who might not have the time to watch every press conference or read every press release,” Luke Baumgartner, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told WIRED. “It's a cyclic trend that happens with a lot of major events, where an inaccurate or outright false interpretation becomes the dominant narrative and trickles down from the top to some of the average news consumers.”

When Trump was asked to provide evidence to back up his claim that Good had “viciously” run over an agent, he showed New York Times reporters a clip of the incident that did not depict any agent being run over. After reporters pointed out the discrepancy, the Times reported Trump trailed off mid-response before saying, “Well, I … the way I look at it. It’s a terrible scene. I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”

Some MAGA influencers have also blamed Walz and Frey for inflaming tensions after the shooting, calling for both leaders to be removed from office immediately. Others, including Katie Miller—wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and a former special government employee with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—have shifted blame to mainstream news outlets.

“The Legacy Media is complicit in violence against ICE officers,” Miller wrote on X. Vance echoed that claim Thursday morning, saying, “The reporting over this has been one of the biggest scandals I've ever seen in media. I've never seen a case so misrepresented and misreported.”

As MAGA voices across platforms continue to amplify the altered account of Wednesday’s shooting, the Trump administration has shown no sign of backing away from its false narrative.