The liberal press tried to manufacture another gotcha this week when CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil confronted President Trump and asked what he would say to the father of Renée Nicole Macklin Good, the woman who was killed during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Dokoupil leaned into the emotional angle, telling the president he had spoken to the grieving father and that the family felt betrayed by the administration’s quick statements about the incident. The attempt to trap Trump with a human-interest moment collapsed under the weight of video, context, and the president’s blunt, unflappable answer.
For those who missed the facts, Renée Good was shot during a federal operation in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, an event captured on multiple videos that immediately sparked protests and national outrage. Reporting shows an ICE officer fired multiple rounds as the SUV moved past, and the aftermath has produced fierce debate over what officers faced at the scene and whether the shooting was justified. This is a serious tragedy for the Good family and a painful moment for the community, but it is also a moment that the media rushed to politicize before investigations concluded.
When Dokoupil pressed the president about what he would say to the father, Trump’s response was simple and unaffected: he expressed sympathy, insisted he cares about all citizens, and noted that the video can be interpreted in different ways. The president also defended ICE’s difficult job, warned that these operations are messy and that agents sometimes make mistakes while dealing with violent actors, and pushed back against the instant, partisan narrative the press wanted to impose. That level-headedness is exactly what the country needs in a crisis—calm leadership rather than cable-news theater.
Dokoupil’s gambit was revealing in itself: he trotted out the father’s grief while pointing out his support for Trump as if loyalty should negate pain. It was a transparent attempt to force a contradiction — to make the president choose between law-and-order and compassion — and it didn’t work. Trump neither ginned up rhetoric nor folded; he answered like a president, not like a studio pundit looking for applause.
Meanwhile, local leaders and activists capitalized on public anger, organizing protests and filing suits against the federal government in response to the deployment of ICE agents in Minnesota. State officials moved quickly to litigate and to demand answers, turning the shooting into a larger political fight over federal authority and sanctuary policies. There should be accountability where wrongdoing is proven, but politicizing a still-developing investigation before facts are in is reckless and plays perfectly into the media’s agenda-driven narrative.
Conservative voices on independent platforms noticed the failed trap and had a field day exposing the media’s desperation; Dave Rubin’s reaction clip captured that moment, showing how easily the cable-news ambush was defused and how furious the anchors became when their narrative blew up in their faces. This is a pattern: when facts are inconvenient the press tries emotion and innuendo, but when confronted with sober answers from the right those same anchors flail and sputter. Ordinary Americans see through that, which is why independent outlets matter more than ever.
We can mourn Renée Good and demand a full, transparent investigation without surrendering to media frenzy or abandoning support for the officers and agencies who put their lives on the line to protect us. Conservatives should call for due process, accountability when warranted, and a refusal to accept politically motivated smears dressed up as journalism. Let the facts come out, hold the guilty accountable, and reject the cable-news instinct to weaponize grief for ratings.
