Even Republicans are Turning on Kristi Noem

In a scorching Senate hearing, Republicans went on the record calling out DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for her corruption and incompetence.

Kristi Noem was on the chopping block in today’s Senate hearing, and it was Republicans who wanted her head, which shows you just how badly things are going for the ASPCA’s most wanted Secretary of Homeland Security.

Republican Thom Tillis came for her in a blistering take down of her incompetence running DHS. And if you’re thinking, “well, he’s retiring, who cares?” then there’s Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana who had no qualms about castigating her over her most obvious instances of corruption. When you have Republicans risking the wrath of Trump on Truth Social and getting primaried to go on the record like this, you know we’ve crossed the Rubicon.

Noem’s catastrophic performance today didn’t come close to her even more disastrous run overseeing the ICE raids in Minneapolis that resulted in the shootings of two U.S. citizens, who she wasted no time branding “domestic terrorists,” in order to pre-clear the ICE agents who killed them.

Now, when Noem was asked point blank if she called them that, she denied it. And yet here she was in the immediate aftermath of the shooting:

Kristi Noem has been in damage control mode since the moment those words came out of her mouth. They set in motion a rapid fire chain of events that saw her immigration strategy completely overhauled almost overnight and put her on thin ice with Trump, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. She hasn’t quite pissed him off enough to lose her job, but that’s just a helpful side effect of Trump’s pathological need to be right. Firing her would amount to admitting he made a mistake, and that’s simply a bridge too far.

But it’s been glaringly obvious since day one that hiring Noem was a huge mistake. Politics notwithstanding, this is a woman who openly bragged about killing her dog in her book. That vile, stomach-churning behavior should be immediately disqualifying from anything besides a storyline in a Ryan Murphy show.

But if that wasn’t enough, we have a litany of instances of her complete lack of moral character. Take, for example, the government contract Noem handed over to a company owned by her own department spokeswoman’s husband: a $143 million friends and family deal.

Or the $70 million private jet complete with a bedroom that she’s been flitting across the country in with her boyfriend, Corey Lewandowski. (They are both married, both deny the affair, and are both terrible at keeping a secret.)

Noem’s corruption, her self-promotion, and her amorality was on full display to the point that both parties can easily recognize that she is wholly unqualified for her position. She should resign, which, knowing Trump, will probably only make him double down in his defense of her.

Most chilling of all though, was the fact that Noem refused to rule out sending ICE agents to polling places on election day. That wouldn’t be on the table if Republicans were delivering on anything to make life for Americans better in any way. But they’re not.

Some Republicans are finally starting to realize that the wagon they’ve hitched themselves to is a lemon full of liars and grifters, and all the wheels have come off. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial that we keep amplifying these images, replaying the tape and spreading the word that this administration is beyond incompetent. Voters need to know just how dangerous these people are and how necessary it is to turn out in the midterms and vote them out.

The midterms start now. I’ll be live here on Substack tonight for the Texas primary results, which will be an early indicator of how things might shake out for Democrats as these campaigns ramp up.