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Trump Responds to Minnesota ICE Shooting—and Makes It Way Worse

4 39
08.01.2026

President Donald Trump was desperate Wednesday to justify a federal immigration officer shooting a U.S. citizen multiple times—but video footage of the incident showed just how indefensible it really was.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared a “horrible” news clip that showed a federal immigration officer shooting a driver who’d blocked traffic on a suburban street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The video, taken from a distance, was slowed down to isolate the sound of three gunshots, audible above a witness screaming, “No!”

“The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” Trump wrote.

“Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” he wrote, referring to the officer. The video Trump shared, however, does not appear to show anyone being hit by the victim’s car, and the federal officers are not visible.

Another video taken from a closer angle showed the officer who fired his weapon standing, seemingly completely unharmed as the car initially drove away. A photograph of the officer showed him feet away from the car when he fired. It is not hard to believe that the officer is still alive; it’s not entirely clear that he was ever in danger. The driver, however, a U.S. citizen and apparent legal observer, is reportedly deceased, though the president did not bother to mention it.

“The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis,” Trump wrote. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”

Members of the Trump administration have already leapt to declare the shooting as a thwarted attempt at “domestic terrorism.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had a baffling excuse Wednesday for a federal agent shooting a U.S. citizen protesting an ICE operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Speaking from Brownsville, Texas, Noem claimed that the officer had been responding to “an act of domestic terrorism.”

The secretary claimed that the victim had “attacked” a group of federal officers whose vehicle was stuck in the snow, attempting to “run them over and ram them with her vehicle.” An officer had “defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him” and killed the woman, Noem said.

Witnesses reported seeing something entirely different.

Emily Heller, a Minneapolis resident, claimed that the woman had been blocking traffic with her car as part of the protest earlier Wednesday. When the woman tried to turn her car around, an ICE agent standing in front of her car leaned over the hood and shot her in the face at least three times.

Another resident, Aidan Perzana, told Fox9 that he’d seen three ICE agents attempt to detain the driver. When the vehicle suddenly reversed and then pulled away from the officers, one of the agents shot through the driver’s side window three times.

Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar indicated that the deceased victim was not only a U.S. citizen, but a legal observer.

A video of the incident appeared to show that the woman’s car did not move toward the ICE officers, but away from them.

Minneapolis Ice Shooting

Despite these stories, it seems that the Trump administration intends to run with its claim that the victim was a so-called “domestic terrorist.”

White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also claimed that the victim had committed a federal crime. “Democrats continue to lend aid and comfort to domestic terrorism,” Miller wrote on X, responding to Minnesota Senator Tina Smith’s plea for ICE to leave Minneapolis following the incident.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who has spent the last several months spinning blatant lies about immigration officers’ violent interactions with civilians, described the victim as a “violent rioter” who was attempting to kill the federal agents.

“This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement,” McLaughlin wrote on X.

Even the White House press secretary can’t seem to defend Donald Trump’s incessant warmongering.

Karoline Leavitt couldn’t muster a logical explanation for the president’s escalating fixation on Greenland during a press conference Wednesday, vaguely suggesting that acquiring the Danish-controlled territory would be beneficial for national security purposes.

“I’m curious if you could just spell out for the American public what specifically would the U.S. gain by taking control of Greenland that the U.S. doesn’t already have access to right now?” asked a reporter, highlighting myriad existing treaties that effectively give the United States unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.

“Um—more control over the Arctic region,” Leavitt stuttered. “And ensuring that China and Russia and our adversaries cannot continue their aggression in this very important and strategic region. And there would be many........

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