As the partial government shutdown gets underway, Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz defended the decision not to fund the Department of Homeland Security and argued that not only was it essential for ICE to be reformed, but Democrats should also demand that Kristi Noem either resign or be fired.
“I mean, for me, this idea that we have a 10-point plan, but we’re not asking for leadership change, that doesn’t work,” Moskowitz told CBS New Miami. “I think Kristi Noem needs to resign or be removed. By the president’s metrics, tell me what her successes are? She’s built no border wall; 200 miles of that wall is being held up by her. These are the president’s metrics, not mine. Okay. She’s got the largest backlog of FEMA money. She’s not sending out any money even to red states, okay. She’s deporting less people than Barack Obama did – again, the president’s metrics, not mine. I mean, what success does she have? I mean, if the president had her on The Apprentice, his old show, she would be the weakest link, and he would have fired her by now.
“You know, as far as policy changes are concerned, I think the idea that we have masked men running around American streets is ridiculous,” Moskowitz continued. “So, for me, body cameras is a must, should have always been there. And the masks, the masks have to go. I think the masks are totally ridiculous and un-American. If our police officers don’t have to wear them, okay, and our FBI agents don’t to wear them, there’s no excuse that ICE gets to wear them.”
Speaking to CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede for Sunday’s edition of Facing South Florida, Moskowitz said Noem had crippled FEMA’s ability to respond to a natural emergency.
“She’s gotten rid of all sorts of staff,” he said. “The regional offices are half empty. And so, I’m deeply worried about FEMA’s response capabilities. The president said FEMA needed reform, and there were things that FEMA needed to reform, no question about that. But what Kristi Noem has done is she has destroyed that agency, the agency that is responsible for the continuity of government. God forbid we had a major catastrophe.”
Moskowitz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Attorney General Pam Bondi embarrassed herself during her appearance before the committee last week by refusing to answer any questions about how the Justice Department handled the release of the Epstein files. Bondi refused to answer the most basic questions and instead repeatedly launched into prepared insults of various House members from a binder that her staff had prepared.
“Sometimes one can be their own worst enemy, I don’t know that that strategy works for her,” Moskowitz said. “To keep asking Republican members, `Can I have twenty seconds to respond,’ and you don’t respond, you just read from the burn that your staff provided for you, it was too much.”
“[Her] answers on Epstein were just totally unsatisfactory for the American people,” he said. “There should be justice for these victims. That’s what the American want to see. And to pretend that the administration didn’t try to stop the release of these documents for a whole year, and they’re the most transparent administration in history, I mean that’s just bull****.”
