Stephen Colbert on the ICE murder of Renee Good: “The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth

Stephen Colbert opened Thursday’s Late Show on a somber note, following the killing of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. “It’s a senseless yet entirely predictable tragedy,” said Colbert. “And our hearts go out to Renee Good’s loved ones, friends and the community where it happened.

“By now we’ve all seen the video,” he continued, referring to multiple videos shot by witnesses which show Good’s car appearing to turn away from the officer, who then fires shots into the side of her vehicle as she drove.

“It sure looks like a federal agent gunned down an American citizen without cause in front of witnesses on a city street,” said Colbert. “But the administration is telling you that you didn’t see that. They’re saying that you saw him respond to an act of domestic terrorism. They’re telling you to believe them and not your eyes. And they told you that immediately, before there was any investigation.”

Colbert noted that Good’s killing was in fact the ninth ICE shooting since September. “So this feels less like an anomaly and more like a trend. You don’t watch the ninth Fast and Furious movie and think ‘you know, I’m beginning to get the sense that Vin Diesel really cares about family.’”

On Thursday, the FBI assumed full control of the investigation, blocking Minnesota officials from accessing all evidence related to the case. “So the message from this administration is clear: only they determine the truth, and when their forces come to your city, obey or die. And if you die, you clearly didn’t obey,” said Colbert.

“This should be an alarm bell for the entire country, whether you live in a red state or a blue state,” he concluded. “Because if we let this go on, regardless of who your state voted for, one day you’ll have unaccountable armed government agents acting with impunity in your town. So peacefully, and non-violently, please let your leaders know you don’t want that.”

On Late Night, Seth Meyers connected Wednesday’s ICE shooting and the torrent of untruths that followed from the administration with Trump’s broken promises on immigration.

“Let’s not forget everybody, Trump lied from the jump about the scope and focus of his mass deportation program during the 2024 campaign,” he said. “Trump said he would crack down on violent criminals, drug dealers and gang members – unless you beat up a police officer on January 6th, or your gang is a rightwing militia that stormed the Capitol, or you’re a financial criminal who swindled Americans out of millions, or you’re a Honduran drug kingpin who flooded America with cocaine.”

But instead of focusing on violent criminals, the Trump administration has “blanketed the country with federal agents, disrupting neighborhoods, Home Depots, 7/11s and even schools”. Meyers played recent footage of ICE agents at Roosevelt high school in Minneapolis, where they hit students with pepper spray and arrested two US citizens.

“This behavior is lawless and out of control,” he said. “And on top of that, most of the detained migrants have no criminal record. In fact, more than 170 US citizens have been caught up in the ICE dragnet.

“The Trump administration lied about their deportation plan, and now they’re lying about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis,” he continued. “The Trump team knows that what we can all see with our own eyes is indefensible, which is why they have to lie about it.”

Speaking just hours after the incident, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, called Good driving in her car on the way home from dropping her kid at school “an act of domestic terrorism” in which she “attacked [ICE agents] and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle”.

“That’s a blatant lie contradicted by the video evidence we can all see with our own eyes,” Meyers retorted.

The host conceded that none of this was remotely funny monologue material. “These days suck. Trying to find a way to talk about the world we live in with levity sucks so much,” he said. “But I do think it’s important to finish with this: a 37-year-old mother in a Honda Pilot was shot dead on a residential street, and they’re calling her a terrorist. The same people who called those who stormed a federal building heroes, the same people who supported pardoning those who beat Capitol police officers while ignoring their orders to stop, are telling that a woman shot dead in her own car, in her own community, is a domestic terrorist. And when they do that, they are also telling us who they are. And it is our job to never forget what they told us.”