{"id":434054,"date":"2026-01-28T04:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/434054\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T04:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:07:16","slug":"hill-democrats-and-even-some-republicans-plot-an-exit-for-noem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/434054\/","title":{"rendered":"Hill Democrats \u2013 and even some Republicans \u2013 plot an exit for Noem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Top Democrats in Congress are plunging into an impeachment fight with Kristi Noem, as even some moderate Republicans say they\u2019ve lost faith in the embattled Department of Homeland Security chief \u2013 upping the pressure on the administration over what they see as a complete failure in Minnesota.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a joint statement Tuesday, the top three House Democrats announced they would soon support a vote to impeach Noem \u2014 which they can trigger without any GOP support \u2014 unless Trump immediately moved to fire her following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n And two moderate Republicans \u2014 Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the outspoken centrist of Alaska, and retiring Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina \u2014 told reporters Tuesday they wanted Noem out.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an extraordinary step for House Democratic leaders, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his team issued a blunt statement threatening impeachment after weeks of trying to steer their members away <\/a>from such talk, which they saw largely as a distraction given the GOP\u2019s fierce loyalty to the president.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTaxpayer dollars are being weaponized by the Trump administration to kill American citizens, brutalize communities and violently target law-abiding immigrant families\ufeff. The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done,\u201d they charged in the scathing statement that painted the pair of recent deaths in Minnesota as an immoral \u201ckilling spree.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Leaders\u2019 thinking changed Saturday night, when federal law enforcement officials fatally shot a second US citizen in Minneapolis in the same month. Democrats now sense a unique opening against Noem, with dozens of Republicans visibly uneasy about the White House\u2019s recent ICE operations and some top chairmen hauling in Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement officials for hearings in the coming weeks.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune described the weekend\u2019s deadly shooting as \u201can \u201cinflection point\u201d on how ICE is being used and declined to say whether he personally had faith in Noem.\n <\/p>\n

\n Inside the White House, multiple sources said that Noem\u2019s job was not at risk, even though some administration officials were left deeply frustrated this weekend over how Noem \u2014 as well as top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino<\/a> \u2014 handled the fallout from the fatal shooting.\n <\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/p>\n

\n Those frustrations reached the president. Trump spent several hours on Sunday and Monday watching the news coverage of the shooting and was personally unhappy by how his administration was coming across, one official said.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the hours after the shooting, Noem was in constant touch with a number of White House officials, including Stephen Miller<\/a>, and briefed them on the \u201cdefiant tone\u201d she planned to take, sources told CNN. During that time, she was given guidance on how she should approach the shooting during her later press conference, including a set of talking points on Pretti \u201cbrandishing\u201d a gun, sources told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sources noted Noem was in lock step with the White House\u2019s posture at the time. But as more videos emerged, the secretary\u2019s rhetoric came under intense scrutiny, prompting Trump to distance himself from Noem and Miller as the administration sought to calm tensions in the state.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump told reporters that Pretti was not an \u201cassassin,\u201d a description Miller had used Saturday, and then later said he hadn\u2019t heard rhetoric calling Pretti a \u201cdomestic terrorist,\u201d a phrase Noem had used in her press conference the evening after the shooting.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still, throughout his second term in office, Trump has been more inclined to double down on his officials amid calls for their ouster. The president has expressed frustration over how he and his administration handled impeachment calls and media scrutiny during his first term and told allies and advisers he doesn\u2019t want to give his opponents \u201ca win.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But Trump\u2019s resolve could be tested.\n <\/p>\n

\n Democrats\u2019 sharp focus now on impeaching Noem goes beyond a simple up-or-down vote. Jeffries is signaling that he is willing to use the full might of House Democrats to stage high-profile hearings to showcase Trump\u2019s federal immigration enforcement tactics \u2014 all ramping up public attention ahead of the November elections.\n <\/p>\n

\n One year into Trump\u2019s second term, Democrats see the deadly clashes with ICE as the clearest proof yet of the administration\u2019s overreach. And as that national furor builds, Jeffries and his fellow top Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are attempting to use their limited powers in Congress to further intensify the public outrage. That includes not just impeachment, but also a critical federal funding deadline this weekend<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Schumer and his Senate Democrats have announced they are withholding their votes for the funding package \u2014 which provides money for roughly three-quarters of the federal government \u2014 until the White House commits to major reforms of its immigration force. This comes less than three months after the government reopened following a historic shutdown \u2014 when Democrats refused to lend votes for a funding deal without a compromise on key health care subsidies.\n <\/p>\n

\"Demonstrators<\/p>\n

\n This time, the party\u2019s base appears even more engaged. The offices of multiple Democratic lawmakers told CNN they were receiving hundreds of calls on the issue in recent days \u2014 far more than on the debate over extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies.\n <\/p>\n

\n And one centrist Democrat, Rep. Tom Suozzi, stunned his colleagues with a statement this weekend that apologized for his vote to fund DHS just days earlier.\n <\/p>\n

\n Suozzi, who has long embraced border security as part of his platform, issued a statement after Saturday night\u2019s shooting saying he \u201cfailed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum\u201d on ICE\u2019s conduct in Minneapolis.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI hear the anger from my constituents, and I take responsibility for that. I have long been critical of ICE\u2019s unlawful behavior and I must do a better job demonstrating that,\u201d Suozzi wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the focus on Noem and DHS does not come without risks for Democrats. Other centrist Democrats are privately anxious about an immigration-focused message \u2014 an issue that historically divided their party, according to a person familiar with internal discussions. They don\u2019t believe impeachment will resonate with voters who are far more concerned with rising prices.\n <\/p>\n

\n Democrats also now have to take the difficult step of coalescing around a list of demands for the Trump administration on the funding bill.\n <\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

\n Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the spending panel overseeing border and immigration funding, met with Schumer Tuesday night to discuss a set of reforms to DHS that he said \u201cwill unite the caucus and I think unite the country.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n On his list, he said, are proposals such as body cameras, independent investigations and an end to \u201croving patrols\u201d \u2014 which he argued could be achieved as part of the spending package.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about important targeted reforms,\u201d he said, stressing that the changes needed to be codified by Congress. \u201cIt has to be in law. You can\u2019t trust anything this administration promises.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n As for the willingness by Republicans, Murphy said: \u201cThey know where we are and how important this is to us. My sense is, they don\u2019t want to be in a position of defending the status quo. So hopefully we\u2019ll be able to make some progress here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Senate<\/p>\n

\n But Thune on Tuesday warned Democrats against making changes to the DHS funding bill in the House-passed, six-bill package.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s always a risky proposition if you have to send it back to the House, and nobody knows what\u2019s going to happen over there,\u201d he said when asked about whether he\u2019d split off DHS funding from the larger package the Senate needs to pass.\n <\/p>\n

\n But as the prospect of another costly shutdown looms, Thune reinforced that conversations are ongoing between Democrats, Republicans and the White House.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHopefully those will, you know, get where we need to go,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top Democrats in Congress are plunging into an impeachment fight with Kristi Noem, as even some moderate Republicans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-434054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}