Trump Falsely Claims Protest Witness Was Paid Agitator
At a White House press conference on Tuesday, President Trump made an unsubstantiated claim that a woman captured on video shouting “Shame! Shame!” after ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good on January 7 was a “paid agitator” or “professional agitator.” Trump offered no evidence for the accusation, instead characterizing the woman’s vocal protest as unnaturally loud and professional in manner, concluding she must be a paid operative rather than a genuine bystander expressing outrage at the killing.
During the same briefing, Trump defended the ICE immigration crackdown in Minnesota by displaying printouts labeled “MINNESOTA WORST OF WORST,” claiming they documented immigrants with criminal records that agents had detained. He repeatedly asserted that ICE agents are “patriots” seeking only to remove dangerous individuals from the country, framing opposition to the operation as the work of “paid agitators and insurrectionists” rather than concerned residents reacting to enforcement actions in their community.
Trump’s accusation contradicts documented evidence and patterns of protest. Multiple recorded incidents over the past year show genuine community members expressing opposition to immigration raids without compensation, according to reporting that examined his earlier repetition of the same baseless claim. The president provided no documentation, financial records, or identifying information linking the protesting woman to any organization or payment scheme.
The video of Good’s shooting was recorded by multiple bystanders, including by Ross himself, and shows the fatal incident occurred in public view on a Minneapolis street. The woman shouting “Shame!” is visible in at least one cell phone recording, though it remains unclear from available footage whether she is the person recording or a separate bystander. Trump acknowledged feeling “terribly” about Good’s death while simultaneously dismissing vocal responses to it as inauthentic and orchestrated.
Trump’s dismissal of protester motivation follows a pattern of administration officials defending the shooting, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance both characterizing the fatal shooting as justified. By labeling all opposition as paid and inauthentic, the administration avoids addressing the substantive objections residents have raised to the ICE enforcement campaign in Minnesota.
