Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem remains in the spotlight. On Tuesday, during a tense hearing in the Senate, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for her resignation as he compared her leadership to the killing of her own dog.

Kristi Noem was heavily ciriticze – and praised – for her actions during the Minnesota ICE operation in January. But while that occured, the Homelan dSecurity Secretary is now under heavy fire again, and that because of a passage in her 20242 memoir, No Going Back.

The book sparked huge controversy already before its release. The Guardian had obtained en exercpt of the book in which Noem described how she had shot and kiled her wirehaired pointer puppy, Cricket. Kristi Noem wrote that it was “untrainable” and “less than worthless” as a hunting dog.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote in No Going Back, explaining that she had attempted to train Cricket with an electric collar. However, ultimately, she decide to shoot the dog in a gravel pit after the puppy had attacked chickens at the naighbors.

Moreover in the book, Kristi noem wrote how she killed a goat at her family farm in the same way, describing how it was “nasty and mean” as it wasn’t castrated.

At the time, many were outrageous about the stories Noem wrote in her book. She was South Dakota governor at the time, and responded on X.

GOP Senator rips Kristi Noem over ‘shooting her dogs’ while being in charge of ICE
Noem also wrote of killing a male goat on her family’s farm in the same manner. The goat, she wrote in her memoir, was “nasty and mean” because it had not been castrated.

“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” Noem wrote.

Kristi Noem manage the ICE operation in Minneapolis and Saint Paul in January where two US citizens, Renée Nicole Good and Alex Preetti, were shot and killed by ICE agents.

On tuesday, the Homeland security secretary was grilled in a Senate hearing over the Minnesota immigration enforcement crackdown and one Senator had had enough of her.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis likened her decision-making during the ICE operation and at her farm, calling for her resignation.

“You should know that if you’re going out to a hunting lodge and you’re putting pheasants out and you’re putting dogs out, you don’t take a puppy out there — a 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years,” Tillis said, per PBS.

“You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training, and then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices.”

“Disaster under your leadership”
He continued, “You are a farmer. You don’t castrate a goat; they behave badly. You should have probably done that before. But my point is, those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.”

The Republican Senator concluded, “I’m giving you a performance evaluation here. Time after time after time, I’ve been disappointed. What we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership.”

What do you think about Kristi Noem? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Holy shit, Senator Tillis just flash fried Kristi Noem over her failed leadership and FINALLY screamed at her for killing that puppy.

This was BRUTAL. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/UtILasodt0

— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) March 3, 2026