Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, and patience seemed to have worn thin for the serial cosplayer as lawmakers from both parties grilled Noem on her public conduct and suspicious spending decisions.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island questioned Noem about her luxury jet spending, which she has claimed is connected to deporting undocumented immigrants.
“What kind of deportee justifies being flown out of the country in a luxury jet with a bedroom and accommodations like this?” Whitehouse asked, displaying an image of a bedroom on a luxury jet.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota also confronted Noem over her catastrophic failures on immigration enforcement in Minnesota, highlighting her egregious slander against Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by Border Patrol goons.
“When I spoke to Alex’s parents, they told me that you calling him a ‘domestic terrorist’—this was directly from them—the day after he was killed—a nurse in our VA, Alex—one of the most hurtful things they could ever imagine was said by you about their son,” Klobuchar said. “Do you have anything you want to say?”
Even Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana signaled an eagerness for someone to take the fall for the Trump administration’s plummeting approval. First, he suggested that ICE Barbie’s reported $220 million outreach budget created political liabilities for the administration.
Then Kennedy pressed Noem on her attempts to deflect any responsibility for calling dead U.S. citizens killed by immigration agents “domestic terrorists,” leading to an awkward exchange with Noem pleading fake news while Kennedy held up the receipts.
And finally, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina offered a “performance review” of Noem, highlighting Noem’s autobiography in which she wrote about all of the “tough choices” she had to make as a farmer, including killing a family puppy.
“Those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment,” Tillis said. “Not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.”
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet—and the MAGA swamp by extension—is stacked with an unlikable cast of characters. The trouble with surrounding yourself with exclusively detestable people is that eventually no one likes you either—including your supposed allies.
