Tillis rips Noem’s leadership

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) sharply criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday over her handling of Minneapolis and other issues, calling her a “disappointment” and renewing his call for her resignation.

“We’re an exceptional nation. And one of the reasons we’re exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership. And you have demonstrated anything but that,” he said in a lengthy diatribe during a Judiciary Committee hearing.

Sen. Tillis said she has presided over “innocent people” getting detained who later turned out to be American citizens, and blasted the killings of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, asking her, “why can’t we just say we made a mistake?”

“We’re beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong. It’s the exact opposite,” he said. “The way you’re going about deporting them is wrong, the fact that you can’t admit to a mistake, which looks like under investigation, it’s going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back.”

Sen. Tillis also used his time to criticize Secretary Noem for killing her dog, an anecdote she bragged about in her autobiography.

“You decided to kill that dog because you hadn’t invested the appropriate training, then you have the audacity to write a book and say it’s a leadership lesson,” he said. “Those are bad decisions, not unlike what happened in Minneapolis.”

The senator, who is retiring at the end of this year, said he would place additional holds on presidential nominees if Secretary Noem does not provide information he requested on a Border Patrol operation last year in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He also demanded information about FEMA money for his state that is being held up.

“The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the secretary of Homeland Security from restricting or diverting FEMA resources from the agency’s mission,” he said. “Based on your disaster response, the chart that I just showed you, I have reason to believe that you’re violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly.”