Stephen Colbert on Thursday night had a lot more to say about an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman earlier this week.
Colbert’s second Late Show op-ed about the death of Renee Nicole Good—the 37-year-old mother of three who was killed during a federal immigration operation in south Minneapolis—came 24 hours after he condemned the incident itself.
Good was shot at near-point blank range by ICE officer Jonathan Ross, as she sat behind the wheel of her moving SUV. A video analysis by the New York Times determined that Good was steering her vehicle away from Ross and the other ICE officers just before she was shot. However, the narrative being spun by DHS boss Kristi Noem, the FBI, and other government officials—as well as Vance, and President Donald Trump—is that Good was trying to “ram” her car into Ross, and thus the shooting was lawful.
Or as Vice President JD Vance put it Thursday: “I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making”
'Late Show' host Stephen Colbert said the government's "obey, or die" narrative surrounding Wednesday's shooting in Minneapolis should raise "an alarm bell for the entire country." pic.twitter.com/mHJuYLw0zW
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) January 9, 2026
Colbert said at the top of his Thursday-night monologue, “Not only are they trying to spin this without presenting the evidence, today Minnesota investigators said that the FBI has blocked them from accessing the evidence.”
Amid boos from the Late Show audience, Colbert added, “The message from this administration is clear: Only they determine the truth. ‘When our forces come to your city, obey or die, and if you die, you clearly didn’t obey.'”
And that, Colbert asserted, “should be an alarm bell for the entire country, whether you live in a red state or a blue state. 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,” he implored in closing, “peacefully, and non-violently, please let your leaders know you don’t want that.”
