During Thursday’s Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) questioned DHS Secretary. Kristi Noem about Homeland Security spending and her social media presence.
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00:00Thank you very much, Chair Britt, and I look forward to working with you and
00:04Ranking Member Murphy in this Congress. Madam Secretary, as Senator Murphy mentioned in his
00:11opening statement, Secretary Noem, under your leadership, we have seen you ignore our appropriation
00:17laws, our constitution, common sense, and even basic humanity. Like a lot of Americans, I really
00:24have been horrified by the lawlessness and incompetence and cruelty that we have all
00:28witnessed. And for all the talk about going after criminals, you have sidetracked DHS staff who are
00:36investigating drug dealers, terrorists, human traffickers, and rather than photo ops, we need
00:43more of your focus on providing basic diligence because your crackdown has roped in American
00:50citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record. Now, I'm not going to ask you
00:56whether that was right or wrong. I know it's wrong. The world knows it's wrong. And I think the first
01:02thing that history is going to say about your leadership is that you are responsible for many
01:06of these travesties. So I'm deeply concerned. You've deported a four-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer.
01:12You've disappeared people to a notorious prison in El Salvador. And you have spent $100 million in
01:19taxpayer dollars to air TV ads thanking President Trump. That is really reckless. It's unacceptable,
01:26and in my opinion, can't continue. The American people are paying for this with our taxpayer dollars
01:32and with their most basic rights. Now, in the last three months, you have frozen or canceled over $100
01:41billion in funding that was approved by Congress bipartisan. We are talking about everything from
01:47disaster relief to grants that keep people safe. But when my staff has requested information
01:53on the status of this unacceptable holdup, the department failed to provide any, any acceptable
02:01justification. This illegal freeze, and it is illegal, is taking a real toll on communities who are
02:07waiting on the investments that Congress has delivered. So will you commit to immediately unpausing
02:15these funds? Well, Senator, thank you for covering a lot of topics there. Let me touch on a few of
02:21those right away. What the Trump administration is doing is enforcing the law for the first time.
02:26Under the Biden administration, illegal aliens were prioritized over American citizens. Now the
02:33scales of justice have been leveled, and no one is treated better than anyone else. Citizens are treated
02:39the same. Madam Secretary, I know your answer. I heard it previously. I'm asking you a specific
02:45question. The grants that you are referencing have been paused and re-evaluated to make sure that they
02:52are truly being spent in the way to which they were appropriated. Many of these grants were being
02:57diverted into things they were never intended. These funds were passed on a bipartisan basis by members
03:02Absolutely. And the Biden administration perverted them in how they used them, diverted them to facilitate
03:08illegal immigration, to house people in places like the Roosevelt Hotel, who held illegal criminals that took the
03:15life of Lake and Riley. We're talking, Madam Chair, about $100 billion. It is not credible to me that all the
03:20recipients of that. Madam Secretary, it is not credible. Madam Chair, it is not credible that $100 billion
03:28is used to break the law. That just cannot be true. And let me change this a little bit. On the other
03:36hand, I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically overspending funding that Congress has not provided.
03:45If you were a CEO doing that, I don't think you'd be in your job long. We need accountability and we need
03:52answers. And that includes informative responses to oversight questions sent to the department,
03:58over the last three months. I am ranking member on this committee. I have worked with every member
04:03of this committee. We take our responsibility serious to fund your department and others. We need
04:09to have answers. We need to have accountability. And we need to make sure you're not overspending money
04:14that you were not allocated. Well, thank you for that question. I will be very clear in the fact.
04:21The statement. Do you want me to respond? Well, you can. Well, I've worked many, many jobs in my life,
04:26but I also have been a CEO. I've run businesses. I've been a governor. I'm not questioning your
04:29credentials. I'm questioning your spending. We are prioritizing where our security needs are in
04:34this country. And we are hoping that this body will agree that reconciliation is necessary to address
04:41the things that have been neglected in this country for too long. That we have the technology
04:46upgrades, the manpower upgrades that are necessary. So the $170 billion request for the Department of
04:53Homeland Security is incredibly important. Madam Chair, my time is running out. I do have a couple
04:57of additional questions. The fact is that you've not been given this funding. Saying that it's going
05:03to come in reconciliation that has not passed is not an acceptable answer. I did want to ask about
05:08FEMA and disaster relief. This is really important. A lot of disaster relief has been politized. You've
05:15endorsed eliminating FEMA outright. We have seen an upheaval at FEMA that is going to put lives in
05:20jeopardy. One in five FEMA employees have been pushed out taking this administration's so-called buyout
05:27offer. We are losing indispensable staff just weeks away from fire and hurricane season. And over $100
05:35billion in disaster relief and FEMA grants are still being held up. DHS is making it a lot harder to
05:43qualify for relief, something people in my home state of Washington are experiencing firsthand.
05:49Multiple requests from governors have been rejected in recent weeks, including a request from our state.
05:56And we haven't been given any response about this. And I'm watching this and I'm thinking,
06:02has President Trump directed you to prioritize funding for Republican states?
06:07Absolutely not.
06:08Under this administration, there will not be any politicization of support, relief, FEMA assistance,
06:20or grants given based on politics. Every single person will be treated the same. It will be very
06:25different than the Biden administration.
06:25Madam Secretary, there's a clear trend of Republican-led states getting very fast responses and funding.
06:32Democrat-led states are being forced to wait. We have never treated FEMA as a partisan issue in this country.
06:39Thank you, Madam Chair.