White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to answer how Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Donald Trump’s administration is doing “everything correctly” after the killing of Renee Good and the deaths of 32 people in ICE custody in 2025, the agency’s deadliest year in two decades.
Instead, she lashed out at the reporter who asked the question, labeled him a “left-wing hack” who is “pretending” to be a journalist, and “shamed” reporters in the room for what she called “crooked” views.
Niall Stanage, a White House columnist for The Hill, noted that administration officials like Homeland Security Kristi Noem have insisted that federal agencies are doing “everything correctly” when it comes to immigration enforcement following a year marked by in-custody deaths, the arrests of dozens of U.S. citizens, and the fatal shooting of Renee Good.
“How does that equate to them doing everything correctly?” Stanage asked.
“Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?” Leavitt replied.
“You’re asking me, my opinion?” he said. “Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably.”
Leavitt — despite asking for the columnist’s opinion shared by a majority of voters who believe her killing was unjustified — immediately laid into him in a remarkable streak of insults.
“Oh, OK, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion, 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,” Leavitt said.
“And you, and the people in the media — who have such biases, but fake like you’re a journalist — you shouldn’t even be siting in that seat,” she added. “But you’re pretending you’re a journalist and you’re a left-wing activist.”
She said he “should be reporting on the facts” and “all of the innocent Americans who are killed by 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 country safer,” she said. “Shame on you people in the media who have a crooked view, a biased view, and pretend you’re an honest journalist.”
Leavitt also dismissed a question from The Independent asking why the president would joke about canceling elections after telling Reuters “we shouldn’t even have” midterms this year.
In a 30-minute interview with Reuters published Thursday, Trump said he had accomplished so much in office that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election” in 2026.
The president — openly fearful that a Congress controlled by Democrats could derail his agenda — has previously warned Republicans that he expects to be impeached if Democrats retake control of Congress in fall elections, and voting rights advocates and election law scholars have feared that the president is preparing to disrupt them.
Leavitt said the president was “joking.”
When pressed by The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg, Leavitt quickly moved on.
“You said he was joking about canceling the elections, but Americans for generations have fought and died for democracy, for this democracy,” he asked. “Are you saying that the president finds the idea of canceling elections funny?”
“Andrew, were you in the room? No, you weren’t. I was in the room,” she said. “I heard the conversation, and only someone like you would take that so seriously and pose a question in that way.”
Leavitt’s latest briefing follows the president’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act in the wake of widespread protests in Minnesota after the president surged federal officers into the state, drawing scenes of masked agents ripping people from heir cars and allegations of rampant racial profiling and indiscriminate arrests.
“In every situation we are doing targeted enforcement,” Noem said Thursday morning in response to questions asking why some Americans have been asked to provide proof of citizenship in Minnesota.
“If we are on a target, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and having them validate their identity,” she added.
Asked what the Trump administration is doing to ensure citizens aren’t wrongly arrested, Leavitt deflected.
“ICE is focused on detaining individuals who are unlawfully present in the country,” Leavitt said Thursday. “That is their intention and that is their goal.”
#Karoline #Leavitt #labels #reporter #hack #blows #questions #ICE #Trumps #election #threats
