An extremely heated exchange between Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) ended with the DHS Secretary calling the Missouri Republican’s comments “despicable.” Mayorkas was forced to respond to Hawley’s remarks by informing him he is “the child of a Holocaust survivor,” whose “mother lost almost all her family at the hands of the Nazis.”
In Tuesday’s hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Hawley showed what he said were online comments from one DHS employee calling Israel an apartheid state and denouncing Israelis.
Hawley, who has targeted Mayorkas for impeachment for months, read from the comments, calling them, “pretty extreme rhetoric.”
Ageeing, Secretary Mayorkas added, “I think there is a distinction between espousing or endorsing terrorist ideology and speech that is odious, that does not rise to that level.”
“This person works for you,” Hawley then stated, naming her and identifying her as “an employee of the Department of Homeland Security.”
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He then showed what he said was a graphic, “a fake graphic. I want to be clear, but I think we understand it. This is a paraglider a Hamas paraglider depicted here with a machine gun flying into Israel. She posted it under her online alias with the celebratory ‘Free Palestine.'”
Hawley then slammed Mayorkas.
“Mr. Secretary, what what’s going on here? Is this, is this typical of people who work at DHS? This is an asylum and immigration officer who is posting these frankly, pro-genocidal slogans and images on the day that Israelis are being slaughtered in their beds. What have you done about this?”
“Four things I’d like to say to you,” Mayorkas began. “Number one, your question to suggest that that is emblematic of the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security is despicable.”
“I’m sorry,” Hawley replied. “This person works for the Department of Homeland Security. Have you fired her?”
“That was one of four answers,” Mayorkas continued, plowing through.
“Have you fired her?” Hawley demanded. “Have you fired her – don’t come to this hearing room when Israel has been invaded and Jewish students are barricaded in libraries in this country and cannot be escorted out because they are threatened for their lives. You have employees who are celebrating genocide, and you are saying it’s despicable for me to ask the question. Has she been fired?”
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“Mr. Chairman, after the consumption of Senator Hawley’s time, I’d like to speak,” Mayorkas interjected.
“Frankly, Mr. Secretary, I think that your performance is despicable,” Hawley continued. “And I think the fact that you are not willing to provide the answers as to this committee is absolutely atrocious.”
“Mr. Chairman, may I?” Mayorkas asked, before serving up a strong rebuke to the Senator from Missouri.
“Number one. What I found despicable is the implication that this language, tremendously odious, actually could be emblematic of the sentiments of the 260,000 men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, number one. Number two, Senator Hawley takes an adversarial approach to me in this question, and perhaps he doesn’t know my own background.”
“Perhaps he does not know that I am the child of a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps he does not know that my mother lost almost all her family at the hands of the Nazis, and so I find his adversarial tone to be entirely misplaced. I find it to be disrespectful of me and my heritage. And I do not expect an apology. But I did want to say what I just articulated. Thank you.”
Hawley asked for time to respond but was denied.
Watch both clips below or at this link.