Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly berated members of the press at a news briefing Tuesday, saying that many of them “owe an apology” to DHS employees.
“I would like to thank all the men and women of DHS who take on this often thankless, often dangerous, and very, very difficult job,” Kelly said at a White House briefing. “Most Americans appreciate what they do and thank them every day. Most public officials also appreciate and defend them, but there are many who owe them an apology. Many in public service owe them an apology, and frankly many in the media, for how they disrespect them, disrespect them for what they do and how they serve us every day.”
This is not the first time Secretary Kelly has publicly attacked press coverage of the Department of Homeland Security.
“So I make my way up the Beltway every day, and I use that hour or so to read the news clips about DHS. It’s one of the first two things I do every day—the other is the daily intelligence briefing,” Kelly said at a speech at George Washington University. “In one, I read what other people are saying about me—and more important, what they’re saying about my people. In the other, I learn about what’s really going on.”
Secretary Kelly was at the briefing to speak about how a bipartisan budget in Congress will affect border security. He said that the $1.5 billion allocated for border security will help “us replace see-through steel wall along the southwest border.”
“It keeps us moving in the right direction to a more secure United States,” Kelly added. “If I may remind you apprehensions of illegal immigrants and criminals at the border are down significantly.” (RELATED: Border Apprehensions Hit 17-Year Low)
The budget, however, does not include adequate funding to start construction on President Trump’s proposed southern border wall. Kelly said he was “shocked” that many politicians are “rejoicing in the fact that the wall will be slower to be built and consequently our southwest border under less control than it could be.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Democrats that the budget deal “does not fund the immoral and unwise border wall.”