White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was unable to respond to a question about ICE during Thursday’s briefing when presented with a handful of data points that show it’s harming American citizens.
Instead, she angrily lobbed a bunch of meritless and personal attacks at the reporter.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier in the day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are “doing everything correctly,” Hill columnist Niall Stanage opened.
But “32 people died in ICE custody last year, 170 U.S. citizens were detained by ICE, and Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent,” Stanage continued, referencing the shooting last week in Minneapolis. “How does that equate to them ‘doing everything correctly’?”
Here’s how the rest of the interaction went:
Leavitt: “Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”
Stanage: “Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably.”
Leavitt, sarcastically: “Oh, OK. So you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion.”
Leavitt then went on an angry, personal tirade:
Yeah, because you’re a left-wing hack. You’re not a reporter. You’re posing in this room as a journalist, and it’s so clear by the premise of your question. And you and the people of the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist, you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat, but you’re pretending that you’re a journalist, but you’re a left-wing activist. And the question that you just raised and your answer proves you’re biased. You should be reporting on the facts, you should be reporting on the cases. Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t. I bet you didn’t even read up on those stories. I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray or all of the innocent Americans who were killed at the hands of illegal aliens in this country. And the brave men and women of ICE are doing everything in their power to remove those heinous individuals and make our communities safer. And shame on people like you in the media who have a crooked view and have a biased view and pretend like you’re a real, honest journalist.