00:00So why am I disappointed with Secretary Noem?
00:03Because we're not going after enough people who did this damage at the expense of running
00:09numbers that Stephen Miller wants out of the White House.
00:12We just want numbers.
00:14We want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day because numbers matter, right?
00:19No, they don't matter.
00:21Quality matters, not quantity, quality.
00:24And what we've seen is a disaster.
00:26Under your leadership, Ms. Noem, a disaster.
00:30What we've seen is innocent people getting detained that turn out are American citizens.
00:36I could talk about the culture that's been created here with Stephen Miller aiding and
00:41abetting.
00:42I heard first reports that he was the one that said it was a domestic terrorist situation
00:47where two people lost their lives in Minneapolis.
00:50I've heard that report.
00:52Maybe you can refute it.
00:53I don't know that we'll have time for you to respond because I'm giving you a performance
00:56evaluation here.
00:57I'm not looking for a response.
01:00And I'm saying, Ms. Noem, that time after time after time I've been disappointed.
01:06But before I get back to looking at the vicious people that did this damage to these families,
01:12I want to talk a minute about FEMA.
01:15You have a policy right now that anything over $100,000 has to go through your desk for approval.
01:23I ask my staff, because I'm a management consultant, I don't try to do cheap shots in here.
01:28But the facts do not lie.
01:31This is your administration for FEMA response.
01:35This is President Trump's first administration.
01:37Which one would you like to have?
01:40If you're a state that has a $60 billion disaster, your biggest disaster in South Dakota that
01:46I can tell that when you were an elected official was about a half a billion dollars.
01:51So one one-hundredth of this single storm where thousands of people are hurting in North Carolina,
01:56and you're just barely catching up.
01:58This is what competent FEMA leadership looks like.
02:02This is what incompetent FEMA leadership looks like.
02:05And people are hurting in Western North Carolina from the most significant storm they've ever experienced.
02:11This is what we need more of.
02:13I'm convinced you can't do it.
02:14If you're requesting a review of $100,000 and up, then it begs the question, why?
02:20Why would you be involved in that?
02:21Why would that be a policy?
02:23And in a minute, I'll ask about some people that are involved, some special government employees.
02:27Why are they involved in it?
02:30Senator, that $100,000 only had to do-
02:35I will hold the clock until I finish.
02:37Okay.
02:38The bottom line is, I've done the analysis.
02:40And you can say whatever you want to.
02:42I've worked with the Democrat governor, I've worked with the Republican governor, I've worked with fiscal research.
02:47We have people contacting my office now to get the information to better understand the failure of this department.
02:54You've failed at FEMA.
02:56And in fact, if I get to it, actually, why don't I cover this right now?
02:59The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from restricting or diverting FEMA resources from
03:08the agency's mission.
03:10Based on your disaster response, the chart that I just showed you, I have reason to believe that you're violating
03:16the law, either knowingly or unknowingly.
03:18So I'll be asking and getting a submission to the record, submitting a question for the record, what the total
03:25amount of FEMA reimbursements are currently being held by DHS, awaiting for final approval.
03:31Held by DHS, awaiting for final approval for an agency that you should not be obstructing the disbursement on.
03:38I'm going to give you time to answer to it under penalty of perjury so that we can get it
03:42right.
03:44Now, going back to Minneapolis, why can't we just say we made a mistake?
03:51I will ask you one question, if you can just give me a quick response.
03:55Who does Tom Holman work for?
03:57You or the President?
03:58The President.
03:59Okay.
04:00Why is that?
04:01Because I believe the President recognized that you weren't getting it done in Minneapolis and you're putting us further away
04:07from pointing to this.
04:08We're beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong.
04:13It's the exact opposite.
04:14The way you're going about deporting them is wrong.
04:17The fact that you can't admit to a mistake, which looks like under investigation, it's going to prove that Ms.
04:23Good and Mr. Pretty probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back.
04:27Law enforcement needs to learn from that.
04:30You don't protect them by not looking after the facts.
04:33Not only should the FBI be investigating it, but every single law enforcement agency in that jurisdiction should be invited
04:40to it.
04:40One of the reasons why ICE officers are having threats and damn the people that threaten ICE officers because so
04:52many of them are doing a good job is because you've cast a paw on them by acting like we
04:58should investigate things differently.
05:00Officer involved shootings have a formula that we should go through every time and we're not going through that formula.
05:06As a matter of fact, in Ms. Good's case, I think that they were even saying that maybe there wasn't
05:10even a need to do it in the DOJ.
05:12I hope that that's changed, but I'm telling you, it was a civil rights review.
05:17I saw your frown.
05:18You can correct me if I'm wrong, but originally Blanche said there wouldn't be an investigation.
05:23Folks, law enforcement, we've got to have their back.
05:27We've got to make it clear when they make a mistake that they get corrected for it, but you don't
05:33walk away from it, and you've done it too many times.
05:38Now, Secretary, I read your book last week, and honestly, some of the parts of it impress me, but some
05:47of it distresses me, and I'll give you a good example of one that does.
05:51The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old.
05:57I train dogs, all right, and you are a farmer.
06:01You should know better.
06:02You should know that if you're going out to a hunting lodge, and you're putting pheasants out, and you're putting
06:06dogs out, you don't take a puppy out there.
06:09A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years.
06:13You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training, and then you have
06:18the audacity to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices.
06:24It's in your book.
06:25We could play it if we had time.
06:27At that same lunch hour, you killed a goat, and you killed a goat because you said it was behaving
06:32badly.
06:32You are a farmer.
06:34You don't castrate a goat.
06:35They behave badly.
06:36You should have probably done that before, but my point is those are bad decisions made in the heat of
06:44the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.
06:48I expect we're an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we're exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership, and you've
06:56demonstrated anything but that in the time that I've seen you responding to the emergency in North Carolina and across
07:03the southeast and acknowledging when mistakes are made and speaking too soon for the expedient of social media or whatever
07:11it is.
07:12I'll leave you with this, Ms. Noem.
07:15I'm expecting answers to Charlotte's web.
07:18I requested it a month ago.
07:20That was one of the investigations in Charlotte, 20 minutes from where I live.
07:25All I asked for, if it had to be anonymized, was information so that I could determine if your hit
07:31rate is right.
07:32I want to find more of those people, and I want to detain fewer of the others.
07:36And Mr. President or Mr. Chair, in my remaining time, I have a lot to go.
07:41But I want to submit this letter from the Office of Inspector General that cites 10 different instances under Ms.
07:48Noem's leadership where they've been misled and not allowed to pursue investigations that they think are critically important.
07:55Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the OIG in this agency to come out
08:01and do this publicly?
08:02That is stonewalling.
08:03That's a failure of leadership, and that is why I've called for your resignation.
08:08And if I don't get an answer to these questions, I don't want an applause.
08:12Please don't do that for me.
08:14If I don't get an answer to these questions, if I don't get an answer that you've had a month
08:18to respond to, and the remaining ones,
08:21as of today, I'll be informing leadership that I'm putting a hold on any on-block nominations until I get
08:27a response.
08:28And in two weeks, if I don't get a response, I'm going to deny quorum and markup in as many
08:33committees as I can until I get a response.
08:36Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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