Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) decided to open a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday by making angry demands for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign, stating that the agency was being torn apart by her leadership. During his angry rant, which quickly devolved into a full-on mental breakdown, Thompson accused Noem of dismantling Homeland Security and placing her own interests above those of the agency.
He then went on to rip into her for “making America less safe” and demanded that she do everyone a favor and resign from her post if she isn’t fired by President Donald Trump first. “You have systematically dismantled the Department of Homeland Security, put your own interests above the department, and violated the law,” Thompson said.
The Democratic congressman’s emotional outburst continued, “You are making America less safe. So rather than sitting here and wasting your time and ours with more corruption, lies and lawlessness, I call on you to resign. Do a real service to the country and just resign. That is, if President Trump doesn’t fire you first.”
And that was only the start of the chaos. Later, as Noem started her opening remarks, a group of protesters barged into the hearing room and started shouting “Get ICE off our streets” and “Stop terrorizing our community” before Capitol Police officers finally apprehended them, according to Trending Politics News.
To Noem’s credit, she remained stoic and unfazed by all the theatrics exploding around her. One of the secretary’s grandchildren was sitting in the back of the audience and began to cry when Thompson was going on his tirade, to which she replied, “I don’t think she agreed with him.”
Noem, along with National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent and FBI National Security Branch operations chief Michael Glasheen, defended her time at DHS, saying the administration has successfully bolstered border security and lowered international crime.
“DHS is eradicating transnational organized crime and the stopping of deadly drugs from continuing to be funneled into our communities,” she said to lawmakers. “We’re ending illegal immigration, returning sanity back to our immigration system, and we’re defending against cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure.”
"*" indicates required fields
Noem then warned that the country is looking at an increase in threats both foreign and right here on our own soil as we head into 2026, a year she said is full of major international events, noting specifically the 2026 World Cup and the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding.
“These large-scale events will be potential targets for a range of bad actors, and they come with an increased level of risk,” she explained during the hearing. The hearing comes as rumors have been swirling that President Donald Trump was considering replacing Noem. However, on Wednesday, Trump put those rumors to bed, saying Noem has been “fantastic.”
Noem herself denied the rumors also. “Oh, that’s absolutely not true,” she said during an interview with Fox News ahead of the hearing. “President Trump and I are doing wonderfully. I’m so proud to work for him, and I’m going to continue to serve at his pleasure.”
Featured image: screenshot from embedded video