Deutch calls for resignation of security leader

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, said Friday that President Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary should resign.

Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen “has repeatedly spread misinformation and lied to the American people,” he said.

“By rejecting facts and refusing to directly face obvious security threats, Secretary Nielsen is betraying our values and failing to lead the agency responsible for public security,” he said in a statement.

Deutch, who represents most of Broward north of Interstate 595 and southeast Palm Beach County, is a strong critic of Trump.

He offered a list of issues with Nielsen’s performance:

Denying Russia’s interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump.

Suggesting that Trump administration’s policies were not to blame for separating children from their parents entering the country illegally at the nation’s southern border.

Failing to denounce the white supremacists who violently marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, resulting in a death. “If she can’t state unequivocally that neoNazis and white supremacists are a threat to the American people, we must question her judgment,” he said.

Three Republicans are seeking their party’s nomination to challenge Deutch and he is facing a little-known candidate in the Aug. 28 Democratic primary.

The big independent ratings — Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Inside Elections — rate the 22rd Congressional District as safely Democratic. And the Cook Political Report lists the district as “D+6.”

That means that in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, the district performed 6 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole.