Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Tuesday skewered two of the most senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, railing with visible frustration against their “incompetent” actions in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol agents fatally shooting Alex Pretti Saturday.
Tillis was approached on Capitol Hill by reporters who asked if he has any confidence in Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has baselessly claimed Pretti “committed an act of domestic terrorism” by supposedly impeding law enforcement before he was killed.
“None at all,” Tillis bluntly replied. “No. I’ve tried to maintain confidence.”
The Republican senator was initially most disturbed by Noem’s failure to properly manage disaster relief, arguing that the federal response was far more reliable without her during Trump’s first term and concluding, “There’s no comparison whatsoever.”
“To give you an idea of how incompetent I think she is, she actually thought FEMA should be eliminated,” Tillis said Tuesday. “And when she had a FEMA director who said he didn’t think that was a good idea, she fired them within 24 hours.”
