On Friday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) argued that “funding DHS isn’t going to get at” addressing safety issues.
Host Chris Jansing asked, “These increased security threats, Congresswoman, come at a time when the Department of Homeland Security is not funded, and the secretary is on her way out. As you know, DHS was created in the wake of war, and here we are, now, in another one. Do these issues, now, of funding and leadership, pose real risks to American national security?”
Dingell answered, “Okay, this is a very complicated issue, because the fact of the matter is, look, we need to put guardrails on ICE, and that is what this is about. FEMA was gutted a year ago, and nobody is going to tell me that FEMA’s not getting what they need because it’s not funded. That got gutted by DOGE, and let’s be very clear about that. And these security grants that you’re talking about, I am someone — let me tell you what Michigan’s like right now, it was raw before yesterday. We have two communities that are targeted, and it’s been very raw on both the — just by my own colleagues on Muslims this week, the hatred that they have no place that they belong. I go to the synagogues. These people are my friends and community. What happened yesterday and how it happened has people living in total, absolute fear. But funding DHS isn’t going to get at what needs to help address these issues. And if I felt like there really — TSA is something different. I have tried, I’ve introduced legislation, multiple times, trying to keep TSA from being a ping pong ball, but when I meet with those TSA officers, which I do regularly, they say to me, do not let anyone think that these politics, which they don’t like and they hate, will keep us from keeping you safe.”
Earlier, Dingell said there should be better funding for security grants.
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