Former New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said Wednesday on "Outnumbered" that getting rid of the Department of Homeland Security - as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested - is "pure insanity" and would put the country at risk.

"Homeland Security was created in order to keep America safe, it was created after 9/11. I just think Ocasio-Cortez is into the shock and awe. She wants to make a statement and be ahead of everything," said Martinez, who served as the state's Republican governor from 2011 to 2019.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made her remarks during a Friday appearance on the New Yorker Radio with host David Remnick, bringing up the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is under DHS.

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“Would you get rid of the Department of Homeland Security, too?” Remnick asked.

“I think so. I think we need to undo a lot of the egregious, umm, a lot of the egregious mistakes that the Bush administration did," said Ocasio-Cortez, who has championed the elimination of ICE.

Martinez said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to balance the party and keep the focus away from Ocasio-Cortez's "far left" ideas before the 2020 presidential election.

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Panelist Charlie Hurt said it was "amazing" that Pelosi, D-Calif., used to be on the far left of the Democratic Party, and is now seeming like the "center of her party."

"Joe Biden used to be the center of the party. Now he's on the right-wing fringe of his party and it's not healthy for the Democrats," said Hurt, joking that Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal freshmen members should call themselves "the committee to re-elect Donald Trump" because their policy ideas could hurt Democrats in 2020.