Vice President Vance delivered a vigorous defense on Thursday of the ICE officer who shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, saying she was fueled by ‘left-wing activists’ who are to blame for her death.

Vance offered little details as to how administration officials came to that conclusion, saying a Justice Department investigation was underway. But that didn’t stop him from characterizing the incident as “classic terrorism.”

The vice president spent considerable time at the White House blaming the media and asking it to tone down its coverage of Macklin Good’s killing, suggesting it was demonizing the ICE officer who killed the Minneapolis woman.

But at the same time, he and other White House officials have repeatedly cast Macklin Good in a negative light, describing her as a domestic terrorist representing a lunatic fringe who deliberately sought to kill a law enforcement officer.

“What you see is what you get in this case,” Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing. “You have a woman who was trying to obstruct a legitimate law enforcement officer. Nobody debates that. You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that.”

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left, who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers,” he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also dug in on her belief that Macklin Good was committing an act of “domestic terrorism” at the time of the shooting.

Others are deeply skeptical that Americans will buy the administration’s “domestic terrorism” label.

“I don’t think the country is going to look at the videos and think this was ‘domestic terrorism,’” said Mick Mulvaney, who served as President Trump’s chief of staff in his first administration.

“Given that she did hit the ICE agent with the car, it may well be legally justified. And she may have well been breaking the law. But I don’t think most people think the appropriate penalty for that should be death,” he continued.

Trump condemned Macklin Good’s conduct prior to the shooting in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, saying “she behaved horribly.”

During the sitd-own interview, reporters from the publication told Trump that videos of the incident online were unclear. Trump then had his aide play a video of the shooting on a laptop for the reporters to watch.

“With all of that being said, no, I don’t like that happening,” Trump said before playing the video.

The Times reporters told Trump the angle from the surveillance footage did not appear to show that the ICE officer had been run over.

According to the Times story, Trump appeared to offer a somewhat toned-down response.

“Well,” Trump said. “I — the way I look at it.”

The Trump administration’s response stands in stark contrast to the response from local and state officials in Minnesota.

Minneapolis Police Department Chief Brian O’Hara said in a CBS interview on Thursday that the shooting was “entirely predictable.”

“I would hope no matter what side of politics people are on, we can recognize that the loss of a human life is a tragedy and that we do not want to compound that by having a situation which can result in destruction or further harms [in] this community, which has been through so much over the last five years,” O’Hara said.

There is also the question of how the relationship between federal and local law enforcement plays out during the investigation into the incident.

The superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said in a statement on Thursday that the FBI informed the BCA that the federal bureau would be leading the investigation alone and that the BCA “would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.”

The tension between state and local officials comes as the scene in Minneapolis was anything but toned down on Thursday, with protesters taking the streets and tensions flaring with federal law enforcement officers.

Attorney General Pam Bondi offered a pointed warning to protesters, writing in a post on the social platform X, “do not test our resolve.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) announced the Minnesota National Guard has been authorized to be ready if law enforcement needs support in handling protesters.

Mulvaney predicted the political left’s response could impact how others respond to the incident going forward.

“A lot depends on how the left responds. If it is violent, that will simply push people deeper into their own camps. But if it is peaceful, it may be impactful,” he said.