The president’s border czar stumbled while scrambling to distance himself from his rival immigration colleague during a live TV grilling.
“That’s a question for DOJ. That happened before I had my my feet on the ground in Minnesota. So I’ll leave that,” Tom Homan told Jake Tapper on State of the Union Sunday in response to the closure of the investigation into Renee Good’s killing by ICE agents.
Homan, 64, further shirked any blame in the development by adding, “That’s a question for Pam Bondi or Todd Blanche. I’m not involved with those decisions, I’m not involved in the investigation.”
Homan spent a significant portion of the interview telling Tapper that he would have no involvement in the fallout following the killings of two U.S. citizens, 37-year-olds Alex Pretti and Renee Good, by federal agents in January during an immigration operation in Minneapolis.
“I’ve said from day one, from the very first shooting, that I would not comment on the shootings. We’ll let the investigations play out, and we’ll see where it follows,” Homan said. “We’ll let the investigation continue and see what’s decided based on the evidence.”
Tapper then confronted Homan with a clip of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from a press conference on Friday, in which she seemed to suggest that GOP midterm results were a key focus of her department.
“It may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust is reliable, and that when it gets to election day that we‘ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country,” Noem stated.
After being confronted with the clip, Tapper asked Homan, “So what does she mean when she says electing the right leaders? That’s not really immigration enforcement or DHS responsibility.”
“I don’t know. That’d be a question for the Secretary,” Homan offered after a pause.
Homan then stumbled over his words as he ground out: “If I had to guess probably, that, you know, only those legally eligible to vote would vote. But I have not talked to the Secretary about those statements. That would be something she’d have to answer.”
Despite Homan’s noncommittal answer, Tapper continued his questioning, asking whether key figures in the Trump administration had caused the current “credibility problem” for the DHS. In January, 58 percent of respondents in a nationwide poll called for Noem to be removed from her position.
Homan side-stepped the question and said, “I’m not going to let the media divide this administration, like it’s one team, one fight.”
The lifelong law enforcement officer, who was sent in by Trump to de-escalate the Minneapolis immigration operation after Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Greg Bovino’s methods in the city led to nationwide protests, then admitted there was a divide between the DHS secretary and himself.
“And do me and Secretary Noem agree on everything? No,” Homan said. “We have discussions, and we have different opinions, that’s what makes it a strong team.”
Homan then suddenly picked up the pace of his words while gesticulating haphazardly with his hands.
“We bring different ideas to the table, then agree on a mission based on, you know, again, you can’t work in an echo chamber,” Homan said. “You want to hear different opinions. Different, you know, how you think this should happen or that should happen. But in the end, we clear a mission, we have great success on it.”
Shifting his shoulders and eyes from side to side, Homan concluded: “But it’s one team, one fight. I’m not going to divide this administration. I’m just going to just keep doing what the president wants me to do as a border czar. And we just keep going and doing what the president promised the American people.”
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