CNN’s Jake Tapper Battles Kristi Noem in Heated Interview on ICE Shooting: Is Agent Ross ‘Calling Renee Good a F*cking B*tch?!’

Jake Tapper grilled DHS Secretary Kristi Noem about the Minneapolis ICE shooting in a lengthy, tense battle on CNN Sunday.

As part of a 23-minute showdown during Sunday’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper called out the initial comments on the shooting by DHS — for which Noem has come under criticism.

“The shooting, we should note, was Wednesday at 10:37 a.m. eastern,” Tapper said. “Just over two hours later, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement definitively asserting what had happened, defending the ICE agent, accusing Renee Good of domestic terrorism. That’s a characterization that you reiterated in a press conference half an hour later. Now, Republican Senator Thom Tillis said, ‘it was very unusual to have a senior law enforcement official to draw a conclusion about an event where the scene was still being processed. Generally speaking, law enforcement would recognize that a life was lost, that families are changed forever, the shooter’s life will change forever, we’re collecting video, we are trying to assess the situation.’ Why did you not wait for an investigation before making your comments?”

Noem defended her remarks.

“Everything that I’ve said has been proven to be factual in the truth,” Noem said. “This administration wants to operate in transparency. I have the responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to know this information as soon as possible, had just been in Minneapolis the day before, had already had conversations with officers on the ground and supervisors, and knew the facts and decided that the department and the people of this country deserve to know the truth of the situation of what had unfolded in Minneapolis.”

Tapper called Noem out for providing an account of the incident that appeared to veer wildly from from what videos of the shooting have shown.

“With all due respect, secretary, the first thing you said was, ‘What happened was our ICE officers were out in an enforcement action. They got stuck in the snow because of the adverse weather that is in Minneapolis. They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle.’ That’s not what happened,” Tapper said. “And we all saw what happened.”

“It absolutely is what happened,” Noem replied. “Those officers had been out on enforcement action. A vehicle had been stuck. They had come to help get that vehicle out. That’s when this individual started blocking traffic for minutes.”

Tapper interjected.

“You said that the woman attacked them and surrounded them and attempted to run them over, and ram them with her vehicle,” Tapper said.

“Blocked the road for a long time and was yelling at them and impeding a federal law enforcement investigation,” Noem shot back. “That’s what you need to focus on, Jake, is they were breaking the law by impeding and obstructing a law enforcement operation. They were breaking a law already and these officers were doing their due diligence what their training had prepared them to do to make sure they were handling it appropriately.”

After switching topics briefly — with Tapper pressing Noem on her calling Renee Good a “domestic terrorist” — Noem revisited the subject of the video, accusing Tapper of being “untruthful” in his account.

NOEM: I think a lot of people, and guests, and even you yourself called this situation something very different and untruthful about what it was.

TAPPER: What did I say that was untruthful?

NOEM: That this was not a correct definition of what was happening on the ground.

TAPPER: I said that your description — they were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with their vehicle — is not what we see on the videotape. And it’s not.

NOEM: It absolutely is the facts of what happened on the ground that day. They were they were there pushing out a vehicle earlier they had got help—

TAPPER: That’s not what you said.

NOEM: Yes, that’s absolutely what I said.

TAPPER: We’ve all seen the video, I don’t need to re-litigate it, we’ve all seen the videos, she is blocking the street, they approach her —

NOEM: You haven’t seen the video of the entire morning and the previous encounters with this individiual-

TAPPER: Oh, we have aired it. Yes, we have. On Thursday, we were airing and noting the fact that she was there for several minutes.

The CNN anchor then played video from the shooting in which someone was heard calling Renee Good “f*cking b*tch” after ICE agent Jonathan Ross, fired at least three shots.

“Is that Agent Ross’s voice calling Renee Good a f*cking b*tch?” Tapper asked.

“I can’t determine which one it is, but it could be, sir,” Noem replied.

Watch above, via CNN.

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