GOP Senator Says Stephen Miller ‘Never Fails To Live Up’ To This 1 Expectation

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Tuesday skewered two of the most senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, railing with visible frustration against their “incompetent” actions in the wake of U.S. Border Patrol agents fatally shooting Alex Pretti Saturday.

Tillis was approached on Capitol Hill by reporters who asked if he has any confidence in Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has baselessly claimed Pretti “committed an act of domestic terrorism” by supposedly impeding law enforcement before he was killed.

“None at all,” Tillis bluntly replied. “No. I’ve tried to maintain confidence.”

The Republican senator was initially most disturbed by Noem’s failure to properly manage disaster relief, arguing that the federal response was far more reliable without her during Trump’s first term and concluding, “There’s no comparison whatsoever.”

“To give you an idea of how incompetent I think she is, she actually thought FEMA should be eliminated,” Tillis said Tuesday. “And when she had a FEMA director who said he didn’t think that was a good idea, she fired them within 24 hours.”

He continued, “Now she understands that that is an important part of her job. These are like amateurish assistant manager sort of thought processes — going into somebody who’s a secretary in a Cabinet-level position. It’s unacceptable.”

Around $17 billion in federal disaster funds have yet to be distributed to states in need, per internal FEMA documents reviewed Tuesday by The New York Times, as Noem issued a directive last year that she must approve any expense of $100,000 or more.

This has forced many state and local governments to foot disaster relief costs themselves.

Tillis had equally damning words Tuesday for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, one of the chief architects of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, who initially echoed Noem in labeling Pretti a “terrorist” before significantly altering his rhetoric.

“Stephen Miller is in the same boat,” said Tillis after a reporter specifically asked about him. “This guy, after doing the stupid comments he made about Greenland — getting the president in a difficult circumstance — is one of the people that came out publicly and said that this guy was a terrorist before he’d even talked to anybody on the ground.”

He continued, “And that’s clearly not the case now.”

Eyewitness videos captured Saturday in Minneapolis appear to show Pretti filming an interaction between two women and a federal agent before he was wrestled to the ground by multiple agents and disarmed. Approximately 10 rounds were then fired, killing Pretti.

Noem on Saturday refused to answer whether the agents disarmed Pretti before shooting him, but did claim baselessly that he was attempting to “kill law enforcement” — despite Pretti’s lawfully carried gun appearing to remain in his holster until an agent disarmed him.

Noem has reportedly said privately that she has merely been echoing Miller’s own rhetoric. Miller himself has publicly pivoted from the “terrorist” narrative, stating Tuesday that the White House is “evaluating” why proper Border Patrol protocol “may not have been” used.

“Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence,” said Tillis.