In a remarkable exchange on Capitol Hill this week, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis delivered a blistering critique of Kristi Noem during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday, March 3.
The hearing, which stretched for hours and focused largely on immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security’s recent controversies, became notable when Tillis – a Republican – unloaded some of the harshest criticism of the day on a member of his own party’s administration.
He even went after her over the famous incident where she shot her 14-month-old puppy.
At one point, Tillis said he didn’t even ask a question. Instead, he told Noem that he was simply giving her a “performance evaluation.”
“What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Miss Noem – a disaster,” Tillis said heatedly, noting the Department of Homeland Security had detained innocent people who later turned out to be American citizens.
Tillis went further, saying that the department’s current approach to immigration enforcement was undermining public confidence in a policy he supports.
“We’re beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong,” Tillis said. “It’s the exact opposite. The way you’re going about deporting them is wrong.”
The senator and others have already publicly called for Noem to resign, and his remarks during the hearing made it clear that he hasn’t softened one bit on that position.
The next day, on CNN, he continued his attack, saying the reason he was so angry during the questioning was that she had not provided information for the department’s Charlotte’s Web operation, where immigrants in Charlotte had been rounded up. He said that he had waited a month for the information he is entitled to and, about an hour before the hearing, he was informed that he would never be getting that information. He added that if the operation in Charlotte had been the success that the department claimed, Noem should be happy to share it. He said the fact that she won’t suggests strongly that she is lying about the success of the effort.
He also said she is very proud of the fact that she reviews all spending over $100,000, but she apparently knew nothing about a contract for a roughly $200 million DHS advertising campaign featuring Noem that was awarded to a company created just days before the contract and then subcontracted to a consulting firm tied to her political allies, raising allegations of misuse of taxpayer funds.
On CNN, he also pointed out that she had taken an issue on which President Trump had terrific approval ratings – immigration – and now his ratings on that same issue, the one that she’s responsible for, were dismal.
He also told the television audience that, if Noem had been a contestant on The Apprentice, Trump would have fired her already.
The March 3 oversight hearing confrontation was especially striking because Tillis isn’t seeking reelection and therefore has little political incentive to soften his criticism.
Tillis also brought up a controversy that has followed Noem for months – her admission in a memoir that she shot and killed a puppy that she said was poorly trained and aggressive.
Using the anecdote as a metaphor for what he described as poor leadership judgment, Tillis suggested the episode reflected a deeper problem with how she approaches difficult situations.
A dog that age, he noted, is essentially the equivalent of a teenager in dog years.
“You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training,” Tillis said, arguing that the story raised questions about judgment and responsibility.
The senator also turned the discussion to an issue with direct implications for North Carolina – the federal government’s disaster response after Hurricane Helene.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, has been criticized for delays in disaster reimbursements to the state and local governments.
During the hearing, Tillis accused Noem of creating bureaucratic obstacles that slowed the release of disaster funds and suggested her policies might even violate federal law.
“You failed at FEMA,” Tillis said during the exchange.
He pointed to FEMA’s slow flow of reimbursement funding to North Carolina and he argued that a policy requiring the secretary to personally approve large expenditures was creating a bottleneck that delayed recovery projects.
“The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the secretary from restricting FEMA resources,” Tillis said. “Based on your disaster response … I have reason to believe you’re violating the law.”
The senator said his office has been flooded with questions from North Carolinians trying to understand why disaster funding has been delayed.
At another point he warned that, if the department failed to provide answers, he would block future Department of Homeland Security nominations in the Senate.
While Democrats at the hearing also sharply criticized Noem – particularly over the deaths of two protesters during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis earlier this year – Tillis’ remarks were particularly notable because they came from a Republican senator criticizing a Republican administration official.
Several Senators pressed Noem as to why she called the victims domestic terrorists when there was no evidence that they were. She also would not apologize to the families of the ICE victims for slandering their names when there is no evidence that either protester had any intention of harming any federal agents.
Tillis’ criticism focused less on the broader immigration policy itself and more on how it has been executed.
In Tillis’ view, the policy goals may be defensible – but the way they’re now being carried out is creating unnecessary controversy and political backlash.
By the end of his remarks, Tillis had delivered a lengthy lecture rather than a traditional round of questioning.
