JD Vance hurls Kristi Noem under the bus for FEMA failures: 'We needed new leadership'
Vice President JD Vance insisted that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was losing her job because she had a "great opportunity" to serve in the Shield of Americas, a multinational military cooperation initiative recently dreamed up by President Donald Trump. He also said that the agency "needed new leadership" due to failures at FEMA.
During a speech in North Carolina on Friday, a local reporter pressed the vice president over the administration's slow rollout of FEMA aid to the state, which is governed by a Democrat.
"We heard from Gov. Josh Stein several times that North Carolina has only gotten a fraction of what other states have gotten in federal funding for recovery for both communities," the reporter noted.
Vance responded by praising Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley.
"He obviously is a Republican. He's committed to the conservative agenda," the vice president said. "I'm aligned with him politically. But he's not afraid to say to me or to the President of the United States or anybody else, we've got to get these resources out faster to protect the people of North Carolina."
He went on to link the lack of resources to Noem's leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.
"We recognize, frankly, that we needed the new leadership to hasten that delivery of resources to the people of North Carolina," Vance remarked. "A lot of people in the media have said that, you know, the reason why we made a change at DHS is because the Trump administration is backing off of its illegal immigration enforcement policy."
"That couldn't be further from the truth," he added. "The reason that we're making this change is because Kristi Noem has a great opportunity to serve in this new Shield of the Americas position," he added. "I think she's going to do a great job. And on the other hand, we think it's useful to have somebody come in and focus on some of this disaster relief and recovery stuff. And that's exactly what we're going to do."
According to reports, Trump ousted Noem over concerns about spending on an ad campaign to bolster her image and an alleged romantic relationship with special government employee Corey Lewandowski.