White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt lashed out at a reporter over a question he asked about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, accusing him of being a “left-wing hack.”
But the lack of bias is hardly a prerequisite for access to the White House briefings, as the session on Thursday was led by a question from Riley Gaines, the host of The Riley Gaines Show podcast and Trump supporter. In Trump’s second term, in fact, more right-wing outlets have populated the briefings, peppering Leavitt with softball questions.
The reporter, Niall Stanage, a columnist for The Hill, noted that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has insisted that they are “doing everything correctly” when it comes to ICE.
“Thirty two people died in ICE custody last year. One-hundred and seventy U.S. citizens were detained by ICE. And Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent. How does that equate to them doing everything correctly?”
Leavitt responded, “Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”
“You’re asking me my opinion?” he answered.
“Yeah,” Leavitt said.
“Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably,” he answered.
Then she lashed out. “Ok, so you are a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion….you are a left wing hack. You are not a reporter. You are posing in this room as a journalist.”
“You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat, but you are pretending you are a journalist.”
.@PressSec Karoline Leavitt: “Why was Renee Good ‘unfortunately and tragically’ killed?”
Q: “Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably.”
Leavitt: “Okay, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion…you’re a left-wing hack.” pic.twitter.com/5hlamojM4o
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 15, 2026
Leavitt seemed particularly defensive over the response to Good’s shooting, as she lashed out at Democrats for comparing ICE activity in Minnesota to the Gestapo. But even figures like podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump in 2024, have made the comparison.
Leavitt also chided CNN over a chyron describing an ICE shooting of a man in Minneapolis on Wednesday. The chyron read, “Protests erupt after federal agent shoots man in Minneapolis.” But that is what happened. Yet Leavitt said that the chyron was “not the truth,” arguing that in the incident, an agent was acting in self defense while trying to detain a person from Venezuela.
Some veterans of the White House beat have been dismayed by some of the softball questions being posed to Trump during pool availability, as well as some of the conduct in the briefing. That included one incident in which someone yelled “Trump 2028” when the president was making an appearance in the briefing room.