Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer argued on Tuesday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem will not survive much longer in the administration over her response to the killing of Alex Pretti.
Following the Border Patrol-related shooting of Pretti on Saturday, Noem stated that he committed an act of domestic terrorism by approaching Border Patrol agents with a gun, although he legally open-carried his firearm. Spicer stated on “The Huddle” that Noem had “crossed the Rubicon” and will never politically recover from this current “disaster.”
“When you cross the Rubicon, good news to bad news, you never come back in Trump world … So, I can’t think of a single instance where somebody went from good or neutral to bad and then came back,” Spicer said. “It doesn’t happen. Again, I speak from very personal experience on this, and you have to know sort of whether to try to wait it out or to take the nearest offramp. And I don’t see how Noem comes back from this. She was already on thin ice, this was a complete and utter disaster, you have problems within MAGA world now. You’ve got the NRA, you’ve got congressional leaders and by the way, just one quick note, you have 145 members of the House saying they’re going to impeach her.”
“If you realize that she’s bad news and you’re gonna get her, you have to get her while you still own the Senate and get a new person in … She crossed the Rubicon and I don’t know how she gets back,” Spicer continued.
WATCH:
President Donald Trump met with Noem for two hours in the Oval Office on Tuesday and told reporters afterwards that she will not be stepping down. He sent border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota on Monday evening to address Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) operations and the Somali fraud scandal.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday briefing that Trump still has the “utmost confidence” in Noem ahead of Homan’s visit. Noem wrote on X that Homan’s visit was “good news for peace, safety and accountability in Minneapolis.”
Noem said during a press conference on Saturday that Pretti “violently resisted” officers as they attempted to disarm him, adding that the agent fired defensive shots while he feared for his life. Police confirmed that Pretti had a gun permit and that the gun was removed before the agent shot him.
Several Republican lawmakers criticized the administration’s response of Pretti’s death, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who argued that officials should be “more measured” in their response. Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said rushing to judgment on the matter is a “disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.”
Democratic Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly introduced a resolution to impeach Noem, which has earned 120 co-sponsors. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called on Noem to be impeached in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
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