Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to say Tuesday whether he had confidence in Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as President Donald Trump faces calls to fire her and Democrats push for her impeachment.
“That’s the president’s judgment call,” Thune told reporters when asked about Noem, a fellow South Dakota native who previously served with him in the state’s congressional delegation.
Noem has been at the center of intense scrutiny over the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics after federal agents killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti during a street skirmish on Minneapolis Saturday. Trump said Tuesday he was standing by the embattled secretary.
While Thune’s comments fell well short of an endorsement of Noem’s performance, he has similarly withheld comment on other embattled Trump officials in recent months, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December.
Thune said Tuesday he backs an impartial investigation of the Pretti killing, including probes by state and local officials, as well as a federal investigation outside of DHS.
“Clearly, there a lot of questions that have to be answered,” he said, adding that investigations are “necessary … any time there’s a shooting like that and lives lost.”
He doubled down on praise for Trump’s decision to send White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to oversee immigration enforcement operations there, calling him “an experienced pro” and calling the moment an “opportunity to evaluate and to really assess the policies and the procedure.”
Thune’s GOP counterpart across the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson, has been silent since the shooting, with the House out of session for a one-week break.
The fallout from Pretti’s killing has upended the Senate’s plan to pass a six-bill spending package by the Friday midnight deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown. Democrats want DHS funding stripped out of the bill and renegotiated, but Republicans are hoping that they can appease Democrats with other actions.
Thune said Democrats should make their policy demands “clear and known and see to what degree the administration will be able to address that,” adding that he “would prefer that there be a way that we keep the package together.”
If Democrats block the six-bill package, as they have vowed to do, Thune said the Senate would move to “Plan B,” which is “to be determined.”
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