The mainstream press tried to set a trap for President Trump with an emotional appeal and a loaded question, and Dave Rubin was right to call it out when the ambush collapsed. Tony Dokoupil trotted out the grieving father as a cudgel to shame Trump, but the president didn’t fall for the easy narrative the elites wanted him to swallow. Conservatives should be glad someone like Rubin is amplifying what ordinary Americans already know: the media’s first instinct is to manufacture outrage, not to seek the facts.
What actually happened on Jan. 7 was a chaotic, split-second use-of-force encounter that left Renee Nicole Good dead and a nation rightly demanding answers about federal enforcement operations. Multiple videos of the incident circulated, prompting furious debate about whether the ICE officer’s actions were justified and whether the federal deployments into Minneapolis were wise policy. Families grieve, communities protest, and the truth will matter more than the media’s preferred headline.
The agent who fired, identified publicly in reporting as Jonathan Ross, has been treated like a pariah by the left, even as federal officials say he was injured during the confrontation and contend the shooting was in self-defense. Yet the Department of Justice announced it would not open a civil-rights probe into him, leaving many on the left howling that law enforcement gets a pass while others get condemnation without due process. America must not become a country where officers are condemned before investigations conclude and political mobs get to write the verdict.
President Trump’s response — blunt, unsentimental, and protective of the men and women enforcing our laws — enraged the usual suspects but comforted millions of Americans who see an administration trying to do its job in dangerous circumstances. He noted the presence of so-called “professional agitators” at the scene and warned that federal personnel operate in hazardous conditions, saying at one press briefing that mistakes can happen in the heat of operations. Conservatives understand that defending law enforcement does not mean condoning mistakes, it means insisting on fair investigations instead of instant political trials.
The CBS interview that Dokoupil conducted with the victim’s father was designed to tug at heartstrings, yet reporters like Dokoupil should be held to the same standard of seeking facts as everyone else. The father’s pain is real and deserves respect, but pain does not equal proof, and emotional appeals should not substitute for sober examination of the video and the sequence of events. For too long the mainstream press has used grief as a cudgel to drive policy and punish political foes, and conservative voices are right to demand better.
The predictable aftermath — protests, lawsuits from Democratic officials, and calls to pull ICE out of cities — shows how quickly tragedy is weaponized into political theatre. State and local leaders rushed to block federal action and file suits against the administration’s deployments, but throwing federal agents out of cities is a dangerous recipe for ceding authority to chaos. Patriots want accountability, not vulnerability; we want our communities safe and our laws enforced, not hollow press statements that score political points.
Meanwhile, conservative commentators are not blind to the human cost of the shooting. We mourn Renee Good’s death, respect her family’s loss, and insist that her case be investigated thoroughly and fairly at every level. But grief should not be hijacked to gut border security or to send the message that federal officers can be assaulted with impunity; defending America requires firm, clear rules and the courage to let the process run its course without hysterical interference.
This episode exposed everything that’s wrong with how the left and the media handle tragedy: rush to narrative, weaponize sorrow, and punish those who uphold the rule of law. Hardworking Americans want justice and order, not manufactured moralizing that seeks to topple agencies essential to national sovereignty. Stand with law and due process, demand clear answers, and reject the media’s predictable attempt to turn every headline into a partisan cudgel.
