White House correspondent calls out Trump ICE 'lie': 'They're criminals'

Donald Trump asked the public to celebrate ICE as misunderstood heroes Saturday, and veteran White House correspondent Brian Karem answered with a single word: "LIE."

The president had posted what he framed as a poll, declaring that "ICE has been abused by the Fake News Media at levels never seen before." He called the agents "Great Patriots who work hard, and do a fantastic job in a very hostile environment," and blamed the criticism on "the Dumocrats and the Fake News." Karem, a longtime reporter who has sparred with multiple administrations from inside the briefing room, was not interested in the patriotic framing.

"ICE ignores due process and hides behind masks as if they're the KKK riding through the south during the 1920s," Karem wrote, before invoking two names that have become central to the case against Trump's immigration crackdown. "Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot in Minneapolis during the Trump administration's 'Operation Metro Surge'." His conclusion was blunt: "ICE are not patriots. They're criminals."

The history behind those names is not in dispute. Renée Good, a 37-year-old US citizen and mother, was shot and killed by an ICE agent on January 7 while in her car. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old US citizen and intensive care nurse at a Minneapolis VA hospital, was shot multiple times and killed by Customs and Border Protection officers on January 24 while filming agents with his phone. Both deaths occurred during Operation Metro Surge, the aggressive enforcement campaign that drew more than 3,000 arrests, mass protests, a Minnesota general strike, and a homicide ruling from the county medical examiner in Pretti's case.

What followed deepened the controversy Karem was pointing to. Minnesota officials sued the administration for withholding evidence in the shootings, accusing federal authorities of shielding the agents involved. Local police chiefs and the Hennepin County sheriff condemned the operation, with one calling the agents' conduct "not just only wrong, but illegal." The administration has defended the shootings as self-defense and declined to release the agents' names.

That record is what makes Trump's "Great Patriots" framing so combustible. The president is asking Americans to rally behind an agency whose officers killed two of their fellow citizens months ago, in killings still tangled in lawsuits and stalled investigations. Karem, who has spent a career being told by presidents that the press is the enemy, simply refused to let the rebranding pass unchallenged.