Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced heated questions from Republican senators while testifying on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Noem&#8217;s 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&#8217;s running to encourage illegal immigrants to self-deport and the contracts behind them.
&#8220;I believe you have a policy, Madam Secretary, that you have to approve all contracts at your department over $100 million,&#8221; Kennedy said.
Noem denied the claim, saying, &#8220;I have a policy in place that I review contracts,&#8221; adding, &#8220;My deputy chiefs have the ability to review anything under five million, above that I evaluate &#8230;&#8221;
The secretary also claimed that the policy was &#8220;extremely effective&#8221; in saving taxpayer dollars.
Kennedy, however, continued to push, asking how she squares &#8220;that concern for waste &#8230; with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently.&#8221;
Noem responded that &#8220;the president tasked&#8221; her &#8220;with 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.&#8221;
&#8220;That has been extremely effective,&#8221; she added.
Kennedy then asked if she &#8220;bid out&#8221; the contracts for the companies that produced the ads, alluding to a potential conflict of interest.
A company known as The Strategy Group ran the ad campaign. The company had helped with Noem&#8217;s 2022 gubernatorial campaign in South Dakota and is run by the husband of the secretary&#8217;s recently-departed spokesperson, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-ad-campaign-strategy-group" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to ProPublica.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Strategy Group has never had a contract with DHS.
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.
If you&#8217;re going to try…
— The Strategy Group Co. (@StrategyGroupCo) <a href="https://twitter.com/StrategyGroupCo/status/2028931636314710113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
In a statement Tuesday, The Strategy Group said it &#8220;has never had a contract with DHS,&#8221; adding that &#8220;We had a subcontract with Safe America for limited production services.&#8221;
&#8220;Safe America paid us $226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements, and 6 produced radio advertisements,&#8221; the company said.
&#8220;If you&#8217;re going to try to question our integrity, bring actual evidence &#8211; we did,&#8221; the statement concluded.
The Strategy Group’s ad work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem’s agency to businesses controlled by her allies and friends.
&#8220;Yes, they did, they went out to a competitive bid and career officials at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials,&#8221; Noem said.
&#8220;And the people that you ended up picking were people who had formerly done your political work in South Dakota, is that right?&#8221; Kennedy followed.
Noem replied: &#8220;No, that&#8217;s not correct, sir.&#8221;
To which Kennedy asserted, &#8220;I think it is.&#8221;
Noem insisted it wasn&#8217;t the case, and career employees had chosen the firms.
Kennedy then asked if Trump himself approved the $220 million ads &#8220;ahead of time.&#8221;
Noem eventually said he did, adding, &#8220;And one thing senator I think would be helpful to know is how effective that communication has been &#8230;&#8221;
Kennedy then gave a scathing response, saying: &#8220;Well they were effective in your name recognition &#8230; to me it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot and I&#8217;m not saying you&#8217;re not telling the truth, it&#8217;s just hard for me to believe &#8230; that he would&#8217;ve agreed to that &#8230; it&#8217;s something that we have to defend, I&#8217;m on the appropriations committee.&#8221;
&#8220;My research shows that you did not bid them out. In fact, one of the people you picked &#8230; was a company formed eleven days before you picked them and that the strategy group got most of the money,&#8221; Kennedy continued. &#8220;The head of that is married to your former spokesperson,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;It troubles me. A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer money when we&#8217;re scratching for every penny, and we&#8217;re fighting over [unintelligible] packages. I just can&#8217;t agree with Madam Secretary.&#8221;
Still, Noem insisted she didn&#8217;t have any say in the contracts.
Kennedy then pivoted to the fatal shootings in Minneapolis, asking about Noem&#8217;s assertion that the deceased were committing &#8220;acts of domestic terrorism.&#8221;
&#8220;It appeared to be,&#8221; she said.
Noem faced heat for getting ahead of any investigations by making the statement.
That led Noem to blame &#8220;Mr. Stephen Miller at the White House&#8221; for making her jump the gun, Kennedy said.
Noem, however, denied that and said Kennedy received that information from &#8220;a news article of anonymous sources&#8221; who &#8220;say a lot of things.&#8221;
But Kennedy continued to press the issue, saying, &#8220;Well, here&#8217;s what you said on the record, I&#8217;m gonna read you your words, &#8216;Everything I&#8217;ve done, I&#8217;ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen.'&#8221;
Noem asked Kennedy for the source of that statement.
&#8220;You said that on January 27 of 2026, did I read your words accurately?&#8221; the senator asked.
&#8220;I 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 &#8230; that is what we&#8217;ll continue to do,&#8221; Noem responded.
Kennedy asked Noem if she thought &#8220;it was fair to blame&#8221; Miller.
Noem, however, continued to deny making the statement.
&#8220;Are you denying that you said that?&#8221; he asked.
&#8220;Sir, I&#8217;m not going to speak to a situation that is relayed on anonymous sources that no one has heard me say that,&#8221; she said.
Still, Kennedy said &#8220;it was you&#8221; and that the news article was &#8220;quoting&#8221; Noem &#8220;on the record saying it&#8217;s Stephen&#8217;s fault.&#8221;
Later in the hearing, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis used his time to give Noem what he called a &#8220;performance evaluation&#8221; while renewing his previous calls for her resignation.
Tillis opened his questioning by railing against Noem for the arrest quotas that were thrust upon federal immigration agents.
&#8220;We just want numbers, we want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day because numbers matter, right? No, they don&#8217;t matter. Quality matters, not quantity. Quality. And what we&#8217;ve seen is a disaster under your leadership, Ms. Noem.&#8221;
Tillis then took issue with her handling of the Minneapolis shootings, saying she should admit to the mistakes made by her officers.
&#8220;I believe the president recognized that you weren&#8217;t getting it done in Minneapolis, and you&#8217;re putting us further away from pointing to this. We&#8217;re beginning to give the American people to think that deporting people is wrong, it&#8217;s the exact opposite. The way you&#8217;re going about deporting them is wrong. The fact that you can&#8217;t 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,&#8221; Tillis said.
&#8220;Law enforcement needs to learn from that,&#8221; the North Carolina Republican said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t 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&#8217;t 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&#8217;ve cast a pall on them by acting like we should investigate things differently.&#8221;
&#8220;Law enforcement, we&#8217;ve gotta have their back, we&#8217;ve got to make it clear when they make a mistake, then they get corrected for it, but you don&#8217;t walk away from it, and you&#8217;ve done it too many times,&#8221; he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
TILLIS slams NOEM for Minneapolis:
&#8220;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.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/UPRwb4wBxp">pic.twitter.com/UPRwb4wBxp</a>
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) <a href="https://twitter.com/JennieSTaer/status/2028880895785017415?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
Tillis said he also recently read Noem&#8217;s earlier book, where she revealed she shot her 14-month-old dog. Noem earlier defended the action, saying it was due to the dog&#8217;s aggression and that it was untrainable.
He slammed them as &#8220;bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
TILLIS brings up NOEM&#8217;s book, saying her choices to shoot a dog and later a goat &#8220;are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/JKO4jjvpJU">pic.twitter.com/JKO4jjvpJU</a>
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) <a href="https://twitter.com/JennieSTaer/status/2028881834432508145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
Tillis also threatened Noem over the department&#8217;s failure to respond to his month-old inquiry about federal immigration raids in Charlotte.
&#8220;If I don&#8217;t get an answer to these questions &#8230; as of today, I&#8217;ll be informing leadership that I&#8217;m putting a hold on any unblocked nominations until I get a response. And in two weeks, if I don&#8217;t get a response, I&#8217;m gonna deny quorum and markup in as many committees as I can until I get a response,&#8221; he said.

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Noem Pressed As Republican Senators Demand Answers In Heated Senate Hearing