Nation’s Dogs Celebrate Noem’s Firing

As Kristi Noem is consigned to the gravel pit of history, TBR takes one last look at her storied career. Enjoy!

Kristi Noem first won election to Congress in 2010, when the Tea Party ushered in such other luminaries as Marco Rubio and Mike Lee. (Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party’s Senate candidate in Delaware, flamed out amid allegations that she was a practicing witch.) Though not a card-carrying Tea Partier, Noem courted the group’s members, who enjoyed brandishing protest signs featuring Barack Obama with a Hitler moustache.

Noem in 2013, before her extreme MAGA makeover.

During her early years in Congress, Noem seemed like a garden-variety right-winger, but after the 2016 election she heeded the call of opportunism and became an angry drunk karaoke version of Donald J. Trump—much like her partner in toadying, Elise Stefanik. But Noem didn’t try to be as sociopathic as her death-cult’s leader—she tried to be more sociopathic. And her success demands that we stand back and marvel.

Consider, for example, the two politicians’ speeches at the NRA’s 2023 meeting in Indianapolis. “With me at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no one will lay a finger on your firearms,” Trump vowed, drawing predictable applause. Noem, by contrast, shared this nugget about her one-year-old grandchild, Addie: “She already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle and she’s got a little pony named Sparkles, too.” Kristi’s homespun yarn about her granddaughter’s lethal weaponry brought down the house—because, as everyone knows, the only thing that stops a bad one-year-old with a gun is a good one-year-old with a gun.

It's also illuminating to compare Trump’s record in office with Noem’s—specifically, during the pandemic. It was hard to outdo Trump, whose leadership mainly consisted of urging us to ingest bleach, but Kristi managed. In 2020, she scorned the warnings of scientists and invited bikers from across the country to a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. At her beckoning, half a million pathogenic hosts arrived on their thundering hogs. Steve Harwell, whose band Smash Mouth entertained at the superspreader event, whipped up his audience by shouting, “Now we're all here together tonight. And we're being human once again. Fuck that COVID shit.”

Alas, fucking that COVID shit came at a price. “South Dakota took the lead for the worst COVID state in America and the third-worst mortality rate in the entire world,” The New York Times reported. According to a National Institutes of Health study, the post-Sturgis outbreak jacked up health care costs by as much as $8.7 billion.

Bizarrely, Noem crowed about her management of the pandemic at the following year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I don’t know if you agree with me, but Dr. Fauci is wrong a lot,” she said, earning a standing ovation.

Fauci was probably astonished to discover that there was a Republican politician dumber than Rand Paul. (Of course, the pandemic wasn’t the first time Kristi demonstrated a masterful approach to a public health crisis. In 2019 she unveiled a new anti-drug slogan for South Dakota: “Meth: We’re on it.” Since you might be thinking that I made this up, I am offering visual evidence below.)

The most hilarious thing about this slogan is the (TM), which suggests Kristi was worried some other state might try to steal it.

Now let’s explore a playing field where Trump has been the undisputed champion: misogyny. It would be tough to compete with a man who’s been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 25 women and who was found liable for abusing one of them in a department store dressing room. But give Noem credit for effort: While still in Congress, she was one of the few women to vote against the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

As governor, Noem was a passionate booster of Trump’s assault on women’s reproductive freedom—because, like all people who want toddlers to have firearms, she’s extremely pro-life. But here, too, she strived to be even more dystopian than her role model. Not content with South Dakota’s near-total abortion ban—which permits the procedure only to save the life of a pregnant woman—Noem threatened to prosecute pharmacists who sell abortion pills. She called their use “very dangerous medical procedures” and warned that “a woman is five times more likely to end up in an emergency room if they’re utilizing this kind of method for an abortion.” Unfortunately for Kristi, Factcheck.org revealed that she was misquoting statistics from a study that was later discredited and retracted. Like Trump, Noem is a multitasker, managing to be both anti-abortion and anti-fact.

Noem flaunting her familiarity with the cinema of Leni Riefenstahl. (Mandel NGAN/ AFP)

There is one category of sociopathic achievement, however, where Trump leaves Noem in the dust: the art of the grift. With half a century of fraud under his belt, it would be unreasonable to expect Kristi to have fleeced as many suckers as he has. But she did her darnedest.

In March of 2024, she posted a five-minute social media video praising a dental practice in Sugar Land, Texas called Smile Texas, which she claimed helped beautify her gubernatorial mouth. The video struck many as weird, not least because, though Noem has helped rid South Dakota of abortion clinics, it still has plenty of dental clinics. Wasn’t it a little fishy that she travelled a thousand miles to have some Texans zhuzh up her teeth? A consumer advocacy group called Travelers United thought so. They sued Noem in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, accusing her of posting an “undisclosed advertisement.” Noem has yet to hawk sneakers or Bibles, but turning a buck from her public office ensured that she’d feel right at home in the Trump administration.

Still, Kristi had to answer the question that faces any budding Trump impersonator: did she have her role model’s talent for spewing hate? Box checked. She devoted the first few months of 2024 to spreading vicious claims that South Dakota’s Native Americans are neglecting their children while harboring Mexican drug cartels. Outraged by her comments, all nine of the state’s federally recognized tribes have banned Noem from visiting their reservations. Kristi, who touted South Dakotans’ freedom to move about the state at the height of the pandemic, was no longer free to set foot on twelve percent of the land she governed.

Clearly, she had the fear-mongering credentials required to be in Trump’s Cabinet. But did she do enough to prove her sycophancy? The answer is, “Hell yeah!”

On July 3, 2020, Trump delivered a speech at Mount Rushmore that was widely roasted for being racist and divisive. (“Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech Is the Closest He’s Come to Fascism” read Foreign Policy’s headline.) Noem seized the chance to do some vigorous ego-stroking, presenting Trump with an extraordinary gift: a replica of Mount Rushmore with his head grafted on. In this mini-monument, Abraham Lincoln appears to be strenuously avoiding eye contact with the host of “The Apprentice.”

One of these things is not like the other. (Tom Lawrence)

I’d seen a photo of this nutty curio online so I emailed the photographer, Tom Lawrence, for permission to publish it. Tom’s a fourth-generation South Dakotan who’s been a journalist since 1978, and his family farm was just 25 miles from Noem’s. When I asked him to comment on the GOP’s rising star, he responded, “The fact that she is being strongly considered for national office is amazing—and a bit frightening.”

A bit frightening? I wish I had Tom’s talent for understatement. When the Senate confirmed her as Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem became the most dangerous person in America. And that includes the one-year-old with the shotgun.

One more thing. Or two.

While we are on the subject of La Noem, just remember who appointed her. She is the first cabinet member fired in Trump’s second term. And now she is special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, whatever the hell that is.

Kristi Noem’s ouster isn’t moving Democrats off their Homeland Security funding demands

“The rot is deep” inside the agency, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) departs the U.S. Capitol, on March 5, 2026. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Kristi Noem, the face of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, has been ousted as secretary of Homeland Security — but it’s not changing the calculus for Democrats when it comes to the agency shutdown.

The news that President Donald Trump was firing Noem and nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) in her place broke as senators filed into the chamber to vote on advancing legislation that would reopen DHS — the GOP’s latest bid to pressure Democrats into dropping their demands for more guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.

That procedural vote still failed, 51-45.

"The problems at ICE transcend any one individual ... It goes beyond any one person,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters. “You need to straighten out the whole agency. The rot there is deep."

Democrats in the House took a similar stance on their side of the Capitol Thursday afternoon when they voted largely in lockstep against legislation to reopen DHS.

“Of course this change in personnel is welcome. Kristi Noem was a disgrace, and we made clear what was going to happen one way or the other,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) at a news conference. “But let me also make clear, a change in personnel is not sufficient. We need a change in policy, and that has to be bold, dramatic, transformational and meaningful.”

Democrats have refused to shore up the votes to fund DHS following the fatal shootings in January of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota at the hands of federal immigration enforcement agents. Noem sought to cast the people killed, Renee Goode and Alex Pretti, as “domestic terrorists,” and refused to hold the officers accountable.

In the nearly three weeks since funding lapsed for DHS, Democrats and the White House have been trading proposals on possible changes to ICE and CBP operations, but there have so far been no breakthroughs in negotiations. Democrats are demanding new policies that would prohibit federal immigration agents from wearing masks, require officers to display identification and limit places where agents can seek to detain undocumented immigrants.

Democrats have also been insisting that ICE agents must use warrants signed by judges, which Republicans say is a nonstarter.

Just as the Noem exit was announced by Trump, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, sought unanimous consent to pass a separate bill from Democrats. It would fund parts of DHS — including the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the nation’s cybersecurity agency — but not the agency’s immigration enforcement operations.

ICE and CPB are still conducting operations during the shutdown using billions in funding from the megabill Republicans passed last summer.

“If Republicans keep refusing to ensure ICE and Border Patrol follow the same basic standards that police departments across America already follow, then we should at least fund TSA and FEMA while we press on with negotiations to protect Americans from violence at the hands of untrained, unidentifiable federal agents,” Murray said in a statement Thursday.

“TSA agents should not go without pay because Republicans are dragging their feet on basic reforms and insisting on cutting another blank check for Kristi Noem and [deputy White House chief of staff] Stephen Miller to terrorize Americans.”

Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, chair of the appropriations panel that oversees DHS funding, objected to Murray’s request.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune early in the day Thursday accused Democrats of “flatly rejecting any chance to sit down and actually talk about it.” Following news of Noem’s departure, he predicted it could be a gamechanger in shutdown-ending negotiations.

“Democrats have been complaining about that forever,” Thune said of Noem. “So this, to me is a huge development, I would think, in the funding conversation and hopefully they'll get more earnest about coming to the table and trying to get a deal"

Schumer signaled that wouldn’t be the case.

"They've been stonewalling us on the most important issues, and those have to change, and they have to change them,” he said, referring to Republicans. “We have to change them by legislation, because any one person — I don't trust any one person being in charge of this agency as long as Trump is president, given the policies he's espoused, given how ICE has been structured.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, also said Republicans couldn’t be trusted.

“Oh God, it is not serious. I think that's the best way for me to describe. It is not serious,” she said in an interview. “It is because [Republicans] don't want to do this. They don't want to make the kind of reforms that are necessary for this agency, which is out of control and killing American citizens.” (Politico)

The new mayor of New York City - how is he doing?

The Congress could have stopped Trump’s War.

instead, this happened.

Republican-led House declines to constrain Trump's war in Iran, just as Senate did

A man carries an Iranian flag to place on the rubble of a police facility struck during the US- Israeli military campaign in Tehran on Wednesday.

Most Democrats and a few Republicans voted for war powers resolutions that would have required President Donald Trump to get congressional approval for further military action.

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House narrowly voted Thursday to reject a resolution that would have restricted President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, one day after the Senate blocked a similar war powers resolution.

Taken together, the failed House and Senate votes represent an implicit authorization by Congress for Trump to carry on his military strikes against Iran, which began last weekend, as a majority of Americans say they oppose the war.

The House vote was 212-219. Just two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, broke with Trump and joined most Democrats in supporting the resolution.

Four Democrats voted with all other Republicans against the resolution: Jared Golden of Maine, Greg Landsman of Ohio, Juan Vargas of California and Henry Cuellar of Texas.

The House did pass a separate nonbinding resolution, backed by GOP leaders, reaffirming that Iran remains the largest state sponsor of terrorism. That vote was 372-53, with all of the no votes coming from Democrats.

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., the bipartisan duo that successfully fought for the release of the Epstein files, authored the legislation. It would have halted Trump’s military operations in Iran unless Congress voted to declare war or authorize using military force there.

Democrats have pointed out that the Constitution grants Congress the authority to declare war and that Trump and his top officials are calling it a war.

Even before the vote, Massie acknowledged his resolution was headed for defeat. But he said the vote represented a “victory in itself” because it forced a lengthy debate on the Iran conflict in public, on the House floor. He predicted that the popularity of Trump's war would wane the longer it drags on.

“A war is never more popular than it is on the first day. And I think enthusiasm for this will decline,” Massie told reporters. He added that “as the true cost of this war starts to be known and starts to pile up, there’ll be more support to end it.”

Six Americans have been killed in the conflict so far.

At his weekly news conference Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., blasted Trump and Republicans for hurling “America into another endless conflict in the Middle East, spending billions of dollars to bomb Iran,” but failing to focus on lowering the cost of groceries, health care and housing for Americans.

“What’s the justification for sending American men and women into a theater of war, risking their lives?” Jeffries asked. “We’ve already tragically lost six heroic service men and women, and we mourn for them, and we pray for their families, and we don’t want to see any more American lives lost in Trump’s war of choice.”

Republicans agreed that Trump had a choice, arguing that the commander in chief chose to defend the United States from an “imminent threat.” Trump himself has argued that if the U.S. and Israel hadn’t carried out joint strikes, Iran would have attacked first and started a nuclear war.

“Defending yourself is a choice. It’s a choice that not everybody makes. Some people, instead of defending themselves, curl up into a corner and cry," said Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., an Afghanistan war veteran. "Some people stand up, and they step into the fight, and they make the tough choice of going through the battles that it takes to defend yourself."

“I will thank again President Trump for defending America from an imminent threat — an imminent threat that no other president has had the guts to stand up to,” he said.

In a separate vote Thursday, the House passed an appropriations bill to end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security and fund the sprawling agency through September. But it is not expected to become law, as Democrats in Congress continue negotiating with the White House over changes to immigration enforcement.

The vote was 221-209, with four Democrats joining Republicans in voting yes.

It was virtually the same DHS funding bill the House passed in January, when seven Democrats joined Republicans in supporting it.

But it never became law after the Senate stripped it out of a sweeping package including full-year funding bills for other departments as Democrats demanded more reforms to immigration policies at DHS. (NBC News)

The Reverend Jesse Jackson will be buried today in Chicago.