The Trump administration has always treated truth as an inconvenience. Nearly a decade ago, Kellyanne Conway gave the country a phrase that instantly became shorthand for the administration’s worldview: “alternative facts.” She used it to defend false claims about the size of Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd, insisting that the White House was simply offering a different version of reality despite clear photographic evidence to the contrary.
That moment was a blueprint.
It signaled that this administration would not merely spin or shade the truth—it would replace it. And today, as the country reels from the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, we are watching the full evolution of that blueprint in action.
Just over two hours after Good was shot, the Department of Homeland Security—under Secretary Kristi Noem—issued a statement defending the agent and labeling Good a “domestic terrorist.” This was before any independent investigation, before the release of full footage, and before the public had any verified facts.
In a tense, nearly 20‑minute interview on CNN, Jake Tapper pressed Noem repeatedly on how she could justify such a definitive accusation so quickly. Noem doubled down, claiming DHS had “unpublished video evidence” and insisting, “We all saw what happened,” even though the available footage raised more questions than answers.
Ross’s own cell phone video captured him calling Good a “f***ing b****” moments after firing into her vehicle as it appeared to turn away. Whether he was struck by the car remains unclear. Yet the administration’s narrative was locked in place within hours.
This is not fact‑finding. This is fact‑dictating.
Conway’s “alternative facts” were widely mocked at the time, but they were also a warning. The phrase normalized the idea that truth is optional—something a government can curate, edit, or discard. It was an early form of political gaslighting, a strategy that critics noted was designed to control public discussion by blurring the line between fact and fiction.
That strategy has hardened into something more dangerous: a government willing to prejudge a dead woman within hours of her killing, while demanding patience and deference for the armed agent who shot her.
Noem’s insistence that Good’s death was “absolutely” what DHS claimed it to be—despite the absence of an independent investigation—shows how deeply the administration’s contempt for factual rigor has become embedded in its governing style.
When a government decides that truth is negotiable, accountability becomes impossible.
Labeling Good a “domestic terrorist” before investigators have even reconstructed the scene is not just reckless—it is a message. It tells federal agents that the administration will protect them before knowing what happened. It tells grieving families that their loved ones’ reputations are expendable. And it tells the public that the government’s version of events will always outrank the evidence.
This is the logical endpoint of “alternative facts”: a state that does not wait for the truth because it does not need the truth.
Why This Moment Matters
The protests erupting across the country are not only about the shooting itself. They are about a government that has abandoned the basic democratic expectation that facts come before conclusions. They are about a pattern that began with something as seemingly trivial as lying about crowd size and has now escalated into preemptively criminalizing a dead woman to justify a shooting.
The Trump administration has spent years eroding the public’s ability to trust what it sees, hears, and knows. Conway gave the country the vocabulary. Noem is giving it the consequences.
A democracy cannot function when its leaders treat truth as a political tool. And the American public should not accept a government that decides guilt or innocence before the facts are known—especially when a life has been taken.
If the Trump administration wants to restore trust, it must start with something radical: telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But that would require abandoning the very strategy that has defined it from the beginning.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.