Republican explodes at Kristi Noem over long history of 'bad decisions'

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's resignation and delivered a brutal takedown Tuesday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Tillis criticized Noem over her handling of FEMA disaster relief funding, harsh immigration policies under the Trump administration that have left two Americans dead, and other concerns, when he turned his attention to Noem's leadership and described why it was so troubling to him.

"Secretary, I read your book last week. And honestly, some of the parts of it impressed me, but some of it distresses me," Tillis said. "And I'll give you a good example of one that does: The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old. I train dogs, all right? And you are a farmer. You should know better."

Tillis brought up Noem's book and the story of the puppy she described killing in it.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote in her 2024 book "No Going Back," adding that the wirehair pointer was “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

But Tillis took serious issue with Noem's statements.

"You should know that if you're going out to a hunting lodge and you're putting pheasants out and you're putting dogs out — you don't take a puppy out there," Tillis said. "A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training, and then you had the audacity to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices."

He also brought up a goat that Noem killed, drawing a parallel between her decision-making over the animals and her ability to lead federal law enforcement officials.

"At that same lunch hour, you killed a goat, and you killed a goat because you said it was behaving badly," Tillis said. "You are a farmer. You don't castrate a goat if they behave badly, you should have probably done that before. But my point is, those are bad decisions made in the heat in the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis. I expect — we're an exceptional nation — and one of the reasons we're exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership and you've demonstrated anything but that in the time that I've seen you responding to the emergency in North Carolina and across the Southeast and acknowledging when mistakes are made and speaking too soon for the expediate of social media or whatever it is."

He said that he was expecting answers to the investigation over Operation Charlotte's Web, adding that he wants to target fewer innocent people and instead focus on those who should be immigration enforcement priorities. He then threatened to stall nominees if Noem doesn't stop stonewalling him, demanding answers in the next two weeks.