A more than 10-minute tirade against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended with a RINO senator asserting his obstructionist intent.
Too often, the presence of cameras at official hearings has afforded lawmakers to embrace their inner theater kid and put on a performance for corporate media with hopes of headlining the next news cycle. On Monday, outgoing North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) appeared to pull such a stunt as his chance to question Noem was instead used for a “performance evaluation,” concluding with his intent to block nominations while calling for her resignation.
Amid the Democrat-led block to DHS funding, the secretary appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on oversight. It was there that Tillis used his time to allow Noem to speak but once as he railed, “I’m giving you a performance evaluation here — I’m not looking for a response. And I’m saying, Ms. Noem, that time after time after time I’ve been disappointed.”
Regarding mass deportation efforts, the senator leaned toward leftist talking points as he asserted, “We just want numbers. We want a thousand a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day, because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality matters. Not quantity, quality. And what we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem. A disaster.”
“What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that turns out are American citizens,” he added.
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. GOP Sen. Thom Tillis is going BERSERK on DHS Sec. Kristi Noem, yelling at the top of his lungs and slamming the table
“Your leadership is a DISASTER!”
“INNOCENT people are getting detained [by DHS]!”
“Stephen Miller aided and abetted!”
Tillis is notably NOT… pic.twitter.com/x4QHnzZHWZ
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 3, 2026
To emphasize her alleged leadership faults, Tillis raised the anecdote from Noem’s book where she’d admitted to putting down a young dog, insisting, “I train dogs, all right, and you are a farmer, you should know better. You should know that if you’re going out to a hunting lodge and you’re putting pheasants out and you’re putting dogs out, you don’t take a puppy out there.”
“A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time in training. And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices,” he went on. “My point is, those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis. We’re an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we’re exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership, and you’ve demonstrated anything but that in the time that I’ve seen you.”
On Minneapolis and the high-profile, riot-inducing deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Tillis wondered, “Why can’t we just say we made a mistake?”
.@SenThomTillis: “We’re an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we’re exceptional is because we expect exceptional leadership, and you’ve demonstrated anything but that.” pic.twitter.com/a3BCw0UteZ
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 3, 2026
“We’re beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong. It’s the exact opposite. The way you’re going about deporting them is wrong, the fact that you can’t admit to a mistake, which looks like under investigation, it’s going to prove that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back,” insisted the senator.
Pertaining to her self-imposed expectation to sign off on spending over $100,000 at DHS, the lawmaker asserted, “The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from restricting or diverting FEMA resources from the agency’s mission. Based on your disaster response, the chart that I just showed you, I have reason to believe that you’re violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly.”
To that end, he called for her resignation while accusing her of stonewalling the Office of Inspector General amid his investigation into the North Carolina immigration raid dubbed Charlotte’s Web.
Having only allowed Noem to chime in to confirm that border czar Tom Homan reports to the president, Tillis reached his conclusion to announce that until he receives answers on the OIG investigation, he would be putting a hold on nominations. Further delay would result in him denying quorum and markup “at as many committees as I can until I get a response.”
While leftists applauded the display, conservatives saw the act as further proof that the RINO senator had long overstayed his welcome in public office.
Tillis has been a shill for amnesty from the beginning. Never represented his constituents.
— Angie C. (@Hattiecat) March 4, 2026
Wow. What emotion. Too bad he didn’t have this passion for the people who let western NC… the people HE REPRESENTS… down after Helene.
— ꧁ C a r o l i n a ꧂ (@CarolinaOuest) March 3, 2026
@marklevinshow @LeaderJohnThune
Senator Tillis should be stripped of his committee assignment.— Wyatt (@Wyatt711846) March 3, 2026
He’s a disgrace. So many GOP senators should have been out of office years ago for their lack of ethical principles.
— Ryan Williams (@ryancwill) March 3, 2026
Those of us in North Carolina can’t get rid of him fast enough.
— Leslie A Morgan (@LeslieAMorgan2) March 4, 2026
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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