Wis. Rep. Tom Tiffany speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025, on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

EDITOR’S NOTE (1/20): This article has been edited to include comment from Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mandela Barnes.

Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) responded to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis by calling for a more calming presence from Democrats in the state.

Tiffany made the comments on the conservative show “DrydenWire” last Thursday, when host Ben Dryden asked if he still supports the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in wake of the shooting.

“The other thing is that these leaders, so-called leaders in Minnesota like the boy mayor in Minneapolis and Gov.Walz, I mean they really need to ask for calm here and try to be a calming influence over there,” Tiffany said. “I mean, that’s what public leaders should be doing.”

Videos of the incident show ICE agent Jonathan Ross firing three shots into Good’s vehicle after two other agents attempted to aggressively open her driver’s side door. After the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey held a press conference where he told ICE to “get the f— out” of the city.

Frey and Walz, along with several other members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, have urged peaceful protests amid the backlash caused by the shooting.

Tiffany did not respond to a request to comment on the controversial rhetoric of his own party after the shooting, which has helped fuel protests across the nation.

Republican rhetoric anything but ‘calming’

Immediately after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin began referring to Good as a “domestic terrorist” and spread false narratives that were disproven by the many videos taken during the incident by witnesses. These narratives were supported by Vice President JD Vance in a press conference last week, who labeled Good a “leftist warrior” and he suggested her death was her own doing.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, President Donald Trump also promised a day of “reckoning and retribution “in Minnesota, as he and other Republicans have insisted Ross is innocent of wrongdoing.

After Trump’s FBI took over the investigation into Good’s death, local investigators in Minnesota were blocked from accessing evidence and witnesses. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (DFL) said the move did little to inspire transparency or confidence in the justice system.

This week, several prosecutors in Minnesota resigned after federal officials pressured them to focus on investigating Good’s widow.

Tiffany has served in the Wisconsin state Assembly (2011-13), the state Senate (2013-20) and in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2020. He is currently the leading candidate to win the Republican nomination in the state’s gubernatorial election. 

Mandela Barnes, the Democratic frontrunner in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race and Tiffany’s potential opponent in November, gave a written response to Tiffany’s suggestion.

“Renee Good, a mother of three children, was killed in Minneapolis and Tom Tiffany’s telling us to lower our voices?” Barnes said. “Tiffany and Trump don’t want to keep us safe, they want to stoke fear by sending masked agents into our streets without any accountability. The incident in Minnesota should never have happened. As Governor, I’ll do everything I can to keep Wisconsin communities safe.”