Trump gives garbled word salad when asked why ICE agent not arrested: 'What knows means'

ALSO READ: This horrifying right-wing demand sent a chilling message to us all

Trump gives garbled word salad when asked why ICE agent not arrested: 'What knows means'
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media aboard Air Force One en route from Florida to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., January 11, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota is apparently protected from the law, President Donald Trump's administration has suggested. Trump, however, seems to have no idea what that means.

When asked Sunday after Vice President JD Vance's comment that the agent could not be prosecuted, Trump rattled out a nonsensical word salad that left reporters on Air Force One baffled, the Daily Beast reported.

Good, a 37-year-old Minnesota mother of three, was shot in the face by an ICE agent on Wednesday while attempting to drive away from an ICE protest. Vance responded by incorrectly claiming ICE officers enjoy "absolute immunity."

When a reporter asked what that meant, Trump responded: "Everyone's seen it. A woman who's very violent. She's a, you know, very radical person. Very sad what happened. Her friend was very radical."

When pressed again to define absolute immunity, Trump offered an even more garbled answer: "Well, I'm going to let the people define it. But immunity, you know what immunity, what knows means as well as I do."

Bodycam footage reveals that Good sat calmly behind the steering wheel, telling the ICE agent who would shoot her minutes later: "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you." ICE agents surrounded her SUV while Good's wife, Rebecca, filmed from outside. When ordered to exit her vehicle, Good attempted to drive away. An officer fired three shots into her head, shouting a vile slur as the vehicle traveled several feet before crashing into parked cars.

Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claim Good was attempting to run over agents. Noem accused her of "domestic terrorism."

Video evidence demonstrated Good's tires were turned away from the officer.

Vice President JD Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, said the officer was "doing his job" and therefore protected by federal immunity. Legal experts have rejected this claim, noting that the Supreme Court granted absolute immunity only to the president for official acts, but that does not extend to other federal officials.

When asked whether deadly force was necessary, Trump deflected: "It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement. The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement. You saw that they were harassing them, were following for days and for hours. And I think frankly they're professional agitators."

This statement contrasts with Trump's pardon of over 1,500 defendants who attacked police officers during the January 6 Capitol riots.

According to Good's ex-husband, the couple had just dropped off their 6-year-old son at school when they encountered protesters disrupting an ICE raid and decided to stop and observe.

When the reporter attempted to ask whether disrespect justified killing a U.S. citizen, Trump interrupted: "I'd like to find out—and we are going to find out—who's paying for it."

The administration has repeatedly claimed that protesters are funded by mysterious radical organizations, despite the FBI's apparent inability to identify these groups.

Good's death has prompted nationwide protests, with thousands gathering at hundreds of anti-ICE rallies across the country.

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'Bundle of red flags': GOP could have 'nightmare candidate' with 'no upside' on its hands

A Republican Party representative hopeful could be the nightmare choice for the party as it enters into a crucial election cycle.

Whether Ken Paxton, the MAGA-aligned Texas attorney general, receives the Senate nomination is yet to be seen, but it could prove challenging should he secure the majority vote. A primary contest will take place again in May after a close split between Paxton and fellow Republican John Cornyn saw neither man hit the mandated 50% vote.

While Cornyn said "judgement day" had come for his Republican Party opponent, it seems the party itself will also be against Paxton. Amanda Marcotte, writing in Salon, suggested a Paxton win in May would be a headache for the wider Republican Party.

She wrote, "Were Paxton to prevail in May, he would be a nightmare candidate for the GOP in such an important election. He’s a bundle of red flags and, at a vantage point from outside the reality distortion field that is the MAGA movement, Paxton has no discernible upsides.

"But as we have learned, in today’s Republican Party, scandal and corruption don’t hurt candidates. To the contrary: Being the worst has become a selling point to GOP voters, who conflate odious behavior with being a “fighter” on behalf of their increasingly tribalistic interests.

"Paxton frequently brags about being an evangelical Christian, and he has even argued that his faith should be imposed on students in public classrooms. He also had a messy public divorce that involved a confession of adultery.

"This became the focus of his 2023 impeachment trial — which was led by other Republicans — due to accusations that he broke the law and abused his office to cover up the affair and get his mistress a job.

"But that episode is just one in a staggeringly long list of corruption scandals dating back to his time in the Texas statehouse in 2008 and includes an indictment over securities fraud and an FBI investigation of potential bribery."

Beyond Paxton's shortcomings in office, there could be problems for the Republican Party should he receive the nomination because of his lack of appeal to swing voters.

Marcotte explained, "On top of the relentless odor of scandal emanating from Paxton, his actions in office would likely alienate swing voters in a general election. He loves wasting taxpayer money on go-nowhere lawsuits that excite bigots and conspiracy theorists, but that annoy everyone else.

"He targeted Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue over false claims that Tylenol causes autism. He went after a school district for not forcing the Ten Commandments on students. He sued to overturn the 2020 presidential election by blocking swing states from having their votes for Joe Biden counted.

"He’s repeatedly filed suit against out-of-state doctors for prescribing abortion pills to women in Texas. He tried to stop community organizers from registering people of color to vote. Paxton often loses these lawsuits, but that’s not the point.

"His apparent aim is to stir up the MAGA base and please an extensive network of far-right billionaires who have spent the past two decades turning the Texas GOP into a fascistic, Christian nationalist party."

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Trump's UN ambassador threatens Iranian counterpart: 'He should be careful with his words'

President Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations threatened his Iranian counterpart in an appearance on Fox Business.

U.S. envoy Mike Waltz clashed with Iran's UN ambassador Saeid Iravani at an emergency meeting Sunday of the UN Security Council after the president ordered joint airstrikes with Israel that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top leaders, after the Iranian envoy urged American representatives to "be polite."

"Frankly, I’m not going to dignify this with another response, especially as this representative sits here in this body representing a regime that has killed tens of thousands of its own people and imprisoned many more simply for wanting freedom from your tyranny," Waltz said at the meeting.

Waltz appeared Wednesday morning on Maria Bartiromo's program, where he apparently threatened Iravani on air.

"You know, I'm going to be kind here," Waltz said, "but it wouldn't surprise me if this guy ends up knocking on our door for asylum. This regime is falling apart, and they have abused, imprisoned, tortured their own people for far too long. They've threatened the world for far too long."

Bartiromo asked if Iravani's comments were threatening, and Waltz said the Iranian envoy had better watch himself while he's in New York City – although the United Nation is considered to be international land.

"I can't say how many American soldiers the Iranians have killed either at their hands or their proxies," Waltz said. "I'm a Green Beret, not my first firefight, and he should be careful with his words sitting on American soil, and I'll just leave it at that."


Texas GOP narrowly avoided 'nightmare scenario' — but still faces disaster: reporter

Semafor reporter Dave Weigel summarized the state of play on MS NOW's "Morning Joe" after the high-profile Texas primaries on Tuesday, and flagged that Republicans are facing what they had most feared going into this week, as state Rep. James Talarico wins the Democratic Senate primary and the Republican Senate primary advances to a runoff between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"Trump's advisers are saying Cornyn is the safest pick, Dave Weigel, because they believe he has a better shot to win in the general election there," said anchor Jonathan Lemire. "I have been talking to advisers in the last couple of days, who say there's some momentum for Trump to do that. And I think ... that if Cornyn had lost even by any number, maybe Trump can't, but because he's more or less pulled even he could justify it and say, I'll put you over the top. But I'm not 100 percent sure he will ... and Democrats are salivating at the possibility of taking on Paxton."

Weigel agreed.

"They're happy enough that there's going to be a very long runoff, that the nightmare scenario for Republicans was what was being described before, which was Cornyn being far down. It was not — it's not ideal for them. The Democrats have settled their primary. Talarico is going to go on a media tour, make a ton of money and talk about the chaos in the Republican side."

Moreover, he continued, "The Talarico argument, which I think lost a little bit as the race became more combative, is actually very populist. It's very combative. It's that Republicans and corporations and the corporate capture, the Trump administration are trying to take away people's democracy, people's rights ... Republicans have already kind of been using the material they were holding off when they were hoping Crockett would win, but the ability he had to turn people out over, over Crockett."

"The final point I make about this is this is comparable to the turnout Democrats had in their 2022 Super Tuesday Texas primary," said Weigel. "If Crockett was running for president in 2020, she would have won that primary. She got more than a million votes ... both of them increased turnout, but Talarico has blown away every projection Democrats have for turnout in the suburbs of Houston, the suburbs of Dallas, and in the Greater Austin area, it was hard to poll for that reason. Are those voters going to look at a ten-week Republican primary and say, 'I love that party. I really can't wait to send more of those guys back to help Donald Trump out?' Democrats think less so than they would have 4 or 5 years ago."

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