A trio of top Republicans lavished praise on Kirstjen Nielsen Sunday evening, hours after she offered her resignation as head of the Department of Homeland Security amid tensions with President Trump.
“From natural disasters to cybersecurity threats, the Department of Homeland Security protects Americans on countless fronts — including, of course, the front lines of the security and humanitarian crisis on our southern border,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday evening. “Secretary Nielsen’s expertise and skilled management served the Department and the nation well.”
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Such courteous comments might be par for the course for an outgoing official, except Nielsen’s sudden resignation came as Trump’s team is reportedly blaming her for an influx of migrants that has overwhelmed border security resources. The GOP benedictions contradicted the negative view of her that has leaked out of the White House in recent days
“I thank @SecNielsen for her leadership and dedicated public service at @DHSgov,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who chairs the Appropriations panel that oversees DHS funding, tweeted Sunday. “She is a strong and thoughtful leader and was an excellent partner in supporting the department’s critical work.”
The GOP’s praise of Nielsen stands in stark contrast to the outright condemnation from Democrats in Congress. “Hampered by misstep after misstep, Kirstjen Nielsen’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security was a disaster from the start,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. “It is clearer now than ever that the Trump Administration’s border security and immigration policies — that she enacted and helped craft — have been an abysmal failure and have helped create the humanitarian crisis at the border.”
Trump has been thinking of firing Nielsen since at least last year, reportedly chafing at her belief that some White House plans for stiffer border security are illegal and believing she was “weak” on immigration, as Axios put it Sunday night.
Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who chaired the House Homeland Security Committee that oversaw Nielsen’s work from her confirmation in December of 2017 through 2018, implicitly endorsed her posture in those arguments. “Throughout her career, she has been a principled voice on national security issues and wholly understands the complex threats we face,” he said.
Congressional Democrats, by contrast, regard her as the face of the most condemned immigration policies to come from the administration.
“When even the most radical voices in the administration aren’t radical enough for President Trump, you know he’s completely lost touch with the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday.
Trump tapped Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, as the acting head of DHS.
Nielsen touted her record in a resignation letter that hints at her own frustrations in the job. “I hope that the next Secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse,” she wrote.
[Read more: Ann Coulter celebrates Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation: ‘Hallelujah!’]
