'You just now asserted!' Jake Tapper trips up MAGA lawmaker defending ICE killing

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) appeared on CNN Sunday to defend the fatal shooting of Renee Good, the Minnesota woman shot last week by a federal immigration agent, but was called out in real time for contradicting his own argument in defense of the killing.

Good was shot on Wednesday in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross while in her vehicle, and after being issued conflicting commands, with one agent ordering her to “drive away,” and another, demanding she “get out of her car.” Good accelerated her vehicle just moments after Ross positioned himself in front of it, leading Ross to discharge his firearm three times.

Appearing with CNN’s Jake Taper, Mullin fiercely defended the shooting, explaining the circumstances that led up to it, albeit with one major mid-sentence correction.

“She purposely tries to accelerate and run over… I don't know if she purposely tried to run over the ICE agent, but there was an ICE agent positioned in front of her vehicle, Mullin said. “She accelerated to them. At that point, that vehicle becomes a lethal weapon, and the agents have the right to defend themselves, and they did so.”

Tapper immediately seized on Mullin’s choice of words, noting that his initial assertion – that Good “purposely” tried to run over the ICE agent – undermined his position that her killing was fully justified.

“You yourself, just now, asserted that the woman clearly tried to run over the guy, and then you said, at the very least, she was going forward while he was in front,” Tapper said.

“I think that does illustrate the fact that this is, at the very least, a widely disputed incident full of ambiguities and interpretations. How can anyone be confident that she was trying to attack the officer instead of trying to flee the scene?”

Mullin then asserted that Good’s killing would be equally justified should she have been only attempting to flee, and strongly hinted that she may have been a paid protester.

“Fleeing the scene, it doesn't make any difference!” Mullin insisted. “It's mind-blowing to me why we are defending someone that was acting in this manner when it was clearly that she hit an ICE agent, and in hence, law enforcement that's enforcing our nation's laws… Those that are paying for professional protestors to obstruct the justice of law enforcement, they need to start being held accountable.”

“We don't know that she was being paid,” Tapper fired back.