White House press secretary slams Irish journalist as ‘left-wing hack’ after question on ICE
Karoline Leavitt accused Niall Stanage of having a ‘crooked view’ of immigration enforcement issues
Niall Stanage, who works as a White House Columnist for The Hill, a politics news outlet, questioned Leavitt on the behaviour of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good earlier this month.Leavitt responded by asking Stanage why he believed Good was killed and he responded “because an ICE agent acted recklessly”.This prompted the press secretary to chastise the journalist.“You're a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion. Yeah, because you're a left-wing hack.“You're not a reporter. You're posing in this room as a journalist, and it's so clear by the premise of your question.“And you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you're a journalist, you shouldn't even be sitting in that seat, but you're pretending that you’re a journalist, but you’re a left-wing activist.“And the question that you just raised and your answer proves your bias.”Leavitt accused Stanage of having a “crooked view” of immigration enforcement issues, referencing cases of immigrants who murdered American citizens.“You should be reporting on the facts, on the cases,” she said."Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who ICE is trying to remove from this country?The shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent has sparked protests across the US. Photo: AP“I bet you didn’t even read up on those stories. I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray or all of the innocent Americans who were killed at the hand of illegal aliens in this country and the brave men and women of ICE are doing everything in their power to remove those heinous individuals and make our communities safer."And shame on people like you in the media who have a crooked view and have a biased view and pretend like you’re a real, honest journalist.”Renee Nicole Good, identified as the woman shot by ICE, was a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to the city.Her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that her daughter was "probably terrified" during the confrontation with officers that saw her fatally shot and that she was "one of the kindest people I've ever known"."She was extremely compassionate," Ganger told the daily newspaper. "She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being."In an interview with Reuters this week, US president Trump appeared to express some sympathy for the death of Ms Good, calling it “a very unfortunate incident.” Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, labeled Good a domestic terrorist.But even so, he made clear he was standing behind his choice to send militarised officers into American cities.“I know that it was a tough situation to be in. There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers,” Trump said.He said he would continue sending armed agents into cities, claiming that his efforts had taken “thousands of murderers out of our country.” There is no evidence to support that assertion.
