The Trump administration is battling with Minnesota authorities over the killing of Renee Good, following months of attacks by the president.
Protests after ICE shooting in Minneapolis
Following the ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis, protesters confronted ICE agents and shouted chants in the streets.
- The feud between President Trump and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has intensified following the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents.
- The Trump administration has highlighted another fraud scandal in Minnesota, blocking evidence from state investigators, citing the need for federal oversight.
- Minnesota officials, including Gov. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have called for an independent review and criticized the administration’s defense of the officer.
After months of trading insults, the feud between President Donald Trump and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz reached volcanic heights after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on January 7.
The Trump administration has shone a spotlight on Minnesota’s latest welfare fraud scandal by refusing to allow state investigators to examine evidence, but allies like Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have responded by calling for an independent investigation. They have vigorously defended ICE officer Jonathan Ross and have harsh words for the administration, which they claim Good drove toward Ross and provoked the murder.
Walz has been a vocal critic since the incident occurred, criticizing the government’s portrayal of the incident as a “propaganda machine” in a Jan. 7 post on the X program.
“Tim Walz is a joke. His entire administration is a joke,” Vice President J.D. Vance responded at a White House press briefing on January 8. On January 9, President Trump called Walz an “incompetent governor and an idiot.”
“I mean, he’s an idiot,” Trump added. He had previously used a slur for intellectually disabled people to describe Mr. Walz.
Frey, who was elected to a third term last fall, called on ICE to leave the city in expletive-laced remarks hours after Goode’s death.
Now, political observers say Goode’s death could become another political football, with the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes potentially once again the epicenter of civil unrest ahead of a crucial election.
“This is one of the most shocking and high-profile examples of ICE’s highly aggressive tactics and approach, and it was captured on video,” said Matthew Dallek, a historian and professor of political management at George Washington University.
“We don’t know if this is a tipping point, but the gloves are off, and, frighteningly, this focuses everyone’s attention on the dangers of deploying thousands of ICE agents, many of them untrained and often masked, into the interior of the country.”
‘At war’: Minnesota Democrat Walz sounds louder alarm than 2020
Minneapolis is experiencing a dark sense of deja vu locally, activists told USA TODAY.
The city was thrust into the spotlight after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, viewed by millions of people. The incident sparked nationwide demonstrations and, like Goode’s murder, sparked a divisive partisan debate.
“We’re a blue state, we’re a progressive city, we have liberal policies that the (Trump) administration doesn’t like,” said Shannon Gibney, an English professor and member of Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, a grassroots group opposed to Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign.
“So this feels like a political battle and we’re kind of in the crosshairs here.”
But unlike the story six years ago, the conflict between President Trump and the Minnesota Democratic Party has intensified in the months before Good’s death, punctuated by the president’s longstanding disdain for Walz, which dates back to the president’s criticism of the governor’s response to the 2020 Floyd protests.
As expected, the two men traded jabs during the 2024 campaign when Walz was the Democratic vice presidential nominee, but tensions have escalated since Trump returned to the White House.
In March 2025, Walz infuriated the president’s supporters by describing ICE as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo” during his commencement speech. Later that year, the animosity escalated when Trump refused to accept a condolence call from Walz and called the former vice presidential candidate a “devastated” governor after a shooting that targeted two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota.
However, the president has not only been abusive, but has also used his great executive power to apply pressure on Democratic-led states such as Minnesota.
On January 7, the Trump administration froze more than $10 billion in federal child care and family assistance funds to Minnesota and other states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York, citing concerns of unspecified fraud. A judge temporarily blocked the move on January 9th.
“There’s a reason why President Trump is concentrating his efforts in places that have governors he doesn’t like, because it’s not just Minnesota, it’s Illinois, California, things like that,” Dallek said. “He’s kind of exerting a desire to be dominant over states and governors that he feels are being treated badly.”
White House slams Minnesota Walz in pre-shooting fraud scandal
Mr. Trump and his allies take a different view, arguing that Mr. Walz runs a corrupt and “incompetent” liberal state that requires full federal intervention.
Two days before Mr. Ross, a U.S. Army veteran and former Border Patrol agent, shot and killed Mr. Good, the government was focused on reports that dozens of Somali immigrants were accused of stealing billions of dollars from Minnesota programs, including the COVID-19 Pandemic Relief Program.
In a statement to USA TODAY on January 5, the White House said, “The Department of Homeland Security is on the ground conducting door-to-door investigations of suspected fraudulent sites in Minnesota, with hundreds of (federal) agents in the state, with more on the way.”
The same day, the Trump administration announced that about 2,000 ICE agents would flood into Minneapolis, where there are about 600 sworn police officers.
Walz made headlines on January 5 when he announced he was giving up a third term amid mounting pressure over the fraud scandal, and while conservative activists were elated, the Trump administration did not relent.
Vance, who ran against Walz in the 2024 vice presidential debate, argued at a White House press conference on January 8, “I think Tim Walz should resign, because it’s clear that he knew about, or at least turned a blind eye to, the wrongdoing in Minneapolis.”
At the same briefing, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt slammed the Minnesota Democrat for defending ICE agents while touting a Medicaid fraud investigation dating back to the Biden administration.
“The Department of Homeland Security will continue to be on the ground in Minnesota, not only to remove criminal illegal aliens, but also to continue door-to-door investigations into the widespread fraud in our state under Democratic Governor Tim Walz’s failed and corrupt leadership,” she said.
Minnesota Democratic Party expresses lack of confidence in President Trump’s Justice Department
One of the first signs that Trump and Walz’s beef would have an impact on the ICE shooting came within a day of the deadly incident, when the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Enforcement announced that, after initially announcing that state authorities were partnering with federal investigators, the FBI had notified them that it would no longer have access to any evidence.
As a result, state authorities closed the investigation, much to President Trump’s delight, but on January 9, he told reporters at the White House that Minnesota was full of “crooked officials” and falsely claimed, without evidence, that he had won the last three presidential elections in the state.
“We have an incompetent governor, you idiot,” President Trump said. “I mean, he’s an idiot.”
But the state’s Democratic Party is not on its knees, and several city council members, state representatives and activists joined Minneapolis Mayor Frey at a Jan. 9 news conference to call for a fair investigation, including by state investigators, into Ross’ actions. They say state officials have a track record of being fair in law enforcement shootings and need to be involved so Minnesotans can trust any outcome.
Many of the officials present pointed to comments by Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance and the Department of Homeland Security, and expressed that there would be significant skepticism about the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice. Kristi Noem claims Ross acted in self-defense.
“It’s important and critical for the community to have confidence in the process and to submit an independent investigation to the county attorney so that appropriate charges can be filed,” Minneapolis City Councilman Jason Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants, said at a news conference.
Those calls prompted a response from two of the state’s top prosecutors, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who both appeared in court and told reporters they would launch an independent investigation into Goode’s murder.
Moriarty called on the public to share any video or other evidence of the shooting with his office, and pushed back on Vance’s assertion that ICE agents have “absolute immunity” from state prosecution, particularly during a White House press conference.
“We have the jurisdiction to take into account what happened in this case and make a decision,” he said at a news conference on January 9. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a federal law enforcement officer or not.”
Asked whether federal authorities might reconsider blocking Minnesota agents from participating, Justice Department officials pointed to Frey’s comments that claims of self-defense by ICE agents were “bullshit” as a sign that state authorities had no intention of conducting the investigation in good faith.
“Federal employees risk their lives every day to protect our communities,” Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche told USA TODAY in a statement, adding that after an officer-involved shooting, “standard procedures ensure that evidence is properly collected and preserved.”
“They have to make decisions in dynamic and chaotic situations in less time than it takes to read this text,” Blanche said. “The law does not require police to risk their lives when faced with a threat of serious harm. Rather, police can use deadly force when faced with an imminent threat of great bodily harm.”
