Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina unloaded on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, calling her tenure a “disaster” and demanding her resignation—to her face.
“What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem! A disaster!” Tillis shouted. “What we’ve seen is innocent people being detained that turn out are American citizens!”
Tillis, who voted to confirm Noem just last year, ripped into the DHS secretary on multiple fronts: her handling of ICE, her bottlenecking of FEMA disaster relief, her refusal to admit wrongdoing after immigration agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis—and, yes, that time she shot her own dog.
GOP Sen. TILLIS to DHS Sec. Noem: "what we've seen is a disaster under your leadership"
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On ICE, Tillis accused Noem of prioritizing quantity over quality in immigration enforcement. “Quality matters, not quantity!” he yelled, arguing she’s missing the opportunity to focus on actual criminals.
On FEMA, he blasted her policy requiring personal approval for any disaster relief over $100,000, which has delayed aid to North Carolina communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene’s $60 billion in damages. “People are hurting in western North Carolina from the most significant storm they’ve ever experienced!” Tillis said. “I’m convinced you can’t do it.”
Then came Minneapolis, where DHS agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement operations. Noem had smeared both Americans as “domestic terrorists”—a claim she refused to walk back during the hearing.
“Why can’t we just say, ‘We made a mistake?'” Tillis demanded. “The fact that you can’t admit to a mistake which looks like, under investigation, is gonna prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back!”
Tillis wasn’t finished. He brought up Noem’s 2024 book, where she bragged about shooting her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, because the dog was “untrainable” after ruining a hunting trip.
“I train dogs, alright?” Tillis yelled. “You don’t take a puppy out there! You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training! And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices!”
He also brought up the goat Noem killed for “behaving badly.” His assessment: “You are a farmer. If you don’t castrate a goat, they behave badly! You should have probably done that before!”
Noem sat silently, shaking her head.
The senator vowed to block all Trump nominees until he gets answers from DHS about immigration enforcement in North Carolina. After the hearing, Tillis told HuffPost he was still fuming.
“She’s making rash decisions, and that’s fine if you’re killing a dog or a goat on a farm,” he said. “It’s not fine when people are dying because enforcement agencies aren’t actually using the sort of temperament that they should to get it right.”