Former Bush DHS secretary rips Trump for treating department like 'the president's personal militia'

Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge.
(Image credit: Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images for FEHSF)

America's first secretary of homeland security thinks his former department has gotten its mission twisted.

The Trump administration has sent federal agents into Portland, Oregon, and has suggested sending them to other cities in what it claims is an attempt to quell violent protests there. But Tom Ridge, a former two-term Republican governor of Pennsylvania who former President George W. Bush tapped as the first DHS head, told Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish on Tuesday that's not what DHS is meant to do.

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.