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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced heated questions from Republican senators while testifying on Capitol Hill Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Noem\u2019s testimony was the first time she appeared for questioning after two earlier shootings in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents that resulted in the deaths of two anti-ICE activists, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy was the first Republican to press Noem, grilling her about the ads she\u2019s running to encourage illegal immigrants to self-deport and the contracts behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe you have a policy, Madam Secretary, that you have to approve all contracts at your department over $100 million,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
Noem denied the claim, saying, \u201cI have a policy in place that I review contracts,\u201d adding, \u201cMy deputy chiefs have the ability to review anything under five million, above that I evaluate \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The secretary also claimed that the policy was \u201cextremely effective\u201d in saving taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, however, continued to push, asking how she squares \u201cthat concern for waste \u2026 with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noem responded that \u201cthe president tasked\u201d her \u201cwith getting the message out to the country and other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from with putting commercials out that told them if they were in this country illegally that they needed to leave or we would detain them and remove them and they would not get the chance to come back to America the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has been extremely effective,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Kennedy then asked if she \u201cbid out\u201d the contracts for the companies that produced the ads, alluding to a potential conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
A company known as The Strategy Group ran the ad campaign. The company had helped with Noem\u2019s 2022 gubernatorial campaign in South Dakota and is run by the husband of the secretary\u2019s recently-departed spokesperson, according<\/a> to ProPublica.<\/p>\n The Strategy Group has never had a contract with DHS.<\/p>\n We had a subcontract with Safe America for limited production services. Safe America paid us $226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements and 6 produced radio advertisements.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to try\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 The Strategy Group Co. (@StrategyGroupCo) March 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In a statement Tuesday, The Strategy Group said it \u201chas never had a contract with DHS,\u201d adding that \u201cWe had a subcontract with Safe America for limited production services.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSafe America paid us $226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements, and 6 produced radio advertisements,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to try to question our integrity, bring actual evidence \u2013 we did,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n The Strategy Group\u2019s ad work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem\u2019s agency to businesses controlled by her allies and friends.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, they did, they went out to a competitive bid and career officials at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials,\u201d Noem said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the people that you ended up picking were people who had formerly done your political work in South Dakota, is that right?\u201d Kennedy followed.<\/p>\n Noem replied: \u201cNo, that\u2019s not correct, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n To which Kennedy asserted, \u201cI think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n Noem insisted it wasn\u2019t the case, and career employees had chosen the firms.<\/p>\n Kennedy then asked if Trump himself approved the $220 million ads \u201cahead of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Noem eventually said he did, adding, \u201cAnd one thing senator I think would be helpful to know is how effective that communication has been \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy then gave a scathing response, saying: \u201cWell they were effective in your name recognition \u2026 to me it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot and I\u2019m not saying you\u2019re not telling the truth, it\u2019s just hard for me to believe \u2026 that he would\u2019ve agreed to that \u2026 it\u2019s something that we have to defend, I\u2019m on the appropriations committee.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy research shows that you did not bid them out. In fact, one of the people you picked \u2026 was a company formed eleven days before you picked them and that the strategy group got most of the money,\u201d Kennedy continued. \u201cThe head of that is married to your former spokesperson,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cIt troubles me. A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer money when we\u2019re scratching for every penny, and we\u2019re fighting over [unintelligible] packages. I just can\u2019t agree with Madam Secretary.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Noem insisted she didn\u2019t have any say in the contracts.<\/p>\n Kennedy then pivoted to the fatal shootings in Minneapolis, asking about Noem\u2019s assertion that the deceased were committing \u201cacts of domestic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt appeared to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Noem faced heat for getting ahead of any investigations by making the statement.<\/p>\n That led Noem to blame \u201cMr. Stephen Miller at the White House\u201d for making her jump the gun, Kennedy said.<\/p>\n Noem, however, denied that and said Kennedy received that information from \u201ca news article of anonymous sources\u201d who \u201csay a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n But Kennedy continued to press the issue, saying, \u201cWell, here\u2019s what you said on the record, I\u2019m gonna read you your words, \u2018Everything I\u2019ve done, I\u2019ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen.’\u201d<\/p>\n Noem asked Kennedy for the source of that statement.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said that on January 27 of 2026, did I read your words accurately?\u201d the senator asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI enjoy working with the president and with Stephen Miller, and that day we were working to get as much information to the American people as possible \u2026 that is what we\u2019ll continue to do,\u201d Noem responded.<\/p>\n Kennedy asked Noem if she thought \u201cit was fair to blame\u201d Miller.<\/p>\n Noem, however, continued to deny making the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you denying that you said that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cSir, I\u2019m not going to speak to a situation that is relayed on anonymous sources that no one has heard me say that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Still, Kennedy said \u201cit was you\u201d and that the news article was \u201cquoting\u201d Noem \u201con the record saying it\u2019s Stephen\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n Later in the hearing, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis used his time to give Noem what he called a \u201cperformance evaluation\u201d while renewing his previous calls for her resignation.<\/p>\n Tillis opened his questioning by railing against Noem for the arrest quotas that were thrust upon federal immigration agents.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just want numbers, we want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day because numbers matter, right? No, they don\u2019t matter. Quality matters, not quantity. Quality. And what we\u2019ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem.\u201d<\/p>\n Tillis then took issue with her handling of the Minneapolis shootings, saying she should admit to the mistakes made by her officers.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe the president recognized that you weren\u2019t getting it done in Minneapolis, and you\u2019re putting us further away from pointing to this. We\u2019re beginning to give the American people to think that deporting people is wrong, it\u2019s the exact opposite. The way you\u2019re going about deporting them is wrong. The fact that you can\u2019t admit to a mistake, which looks like, under investigation, is going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back,\u201d Tillis said.<\/p>\n \u201cLaw enforcement needs to learn from that,\u201d the North Carolina Republican said. \u201cYou don\u2019t protect them by not looking after the facts. Not only should the FBI be investigating it, but every single law enforcement agency in that jurisdiction should be invited to it, so our law enforcement officers don\u2019t have this fog cast upon them. One of the reasons that ICE officers are having threats and damn the people that threaten ICE officers because so many of them are doing a good job is because you\u2019ve cast a pall on them by acting like we should investigate things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLaw enforcement, we\u2019ve gotta have their back, we\u2019ve got to make it clear when they make a mistake, then they get corrected for it, but you don\u2019t walk away from it, and you\u2019ve done it too many times,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n TILLIS slams NOEM for Minneapolis:<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that you can\u2019t admit to a mistake which looks \u2014 Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Tillis said he also recently read Noem\u2019s earlier book, where she revealed she shot her 14-month-old dog. Noem earlier defended the action, saying it was due to the dog\u2019s aggression and that it was untrainable.<\/p>\n He slammed them as \u201cbad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.\u201d<\/p>\n TILLIS brings up NOEM\u2019s book, saying her choices to shoot a dog and later a goat \u201care bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/JKO4jjvpJU<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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like under investigation, it\u2019s going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/UPRwb4wBxp<\/a><\/p>\n\n