All eyes were on what US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would say at Donald Trump’s monthly Cabinet meeting at the White House this week. Scheduled before the death of Alex Pretti by shots fired by a federal agent in Minneapolis last Saturday, it was the first time that the person responsible for the operation – and the first representative of the Government who launched herself to slander the 37-year-old nurse by calling him a “terrorist” immediately after his death – appeared in public. But, contrary to his custom, Trump did not open question time for the press. And, although it is common for him to give the floor in turn to all his advisors in these types of events—who praise the president before listing their own achievements—this time he only invited a handful of them to speak. Noem was allowed to remain silent.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, 54, is the most visible face of Trump’s harsh immigration policy of raids and mass deportations. He has become one of the targets of public outrage over the violence of the immigration police deployed in Minneapolis, which has killed two American citizens (Alex Pretti and Renée Good) and has rapidly become Trump’s biggest political crisis in his second term. Democratic deputies demand impeachment or Noem’s resignation. Bruce Springsteen mentions her—along with the all-powerful and aggressive national policy advisor, Stephen Miller—in his song dedicated to the protests, Streets of Minneapolis. Not even among the Republican bench have strong voices emerged to defend it.
“What she has done in Minnesota should disqualify her. She would have to lose her job,” said Republican Senator Thom Tillis. “I think the president has to examine who he has placed as Secretary of Homeland Security,” said his fellow senator, also Senator Lisa Murkowski.
Trump has come to the defense of the former governor of South Dakota. On Tuesday she stressed that she is not going to resign and that she maintains all her confidence in her collaborator. In the corridors of the White House it is taken for granted that it will continue. For now, at least. There are those who remember that the president also initially defended his then National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, at the outbreak of the scandal. Signalgate for the disclosure of military data on a social network, before terminating it weeks later. American media have published that the president did not like Noem’s reaction at all.
In her favor, Noem has that her profile is exactly what Trump likes: a clear loyalty to the president, a photogenic image in front of the cameras and a shameless style when it comes to expressing herself and defending the president’s priorities and the toughest immigration policies of the Administration. Over the last year he has frequently clashed with Democratic and even Republican legislators who demanded greater control over a Department of Homeland Security that has seen its budget and power multiply. The former governor controls 22 federal agencies, including the Secret Service that protects presidents and the natural disaster response entity (FEMA).
Trump even considered her as his vice presidential candidate during the 2024 election campaign. But Noem made an unforced error: in her memoirs published that year, Not Looking Back (“No Looking Back”), told how he had shot his 14-month-old dog, Cricket, because he considered him “untrainable.” Something that made her a political pariah for months.
The president, finally, rewarded the loyalty that the governor showed him throughout her mandate in South Dakota – after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic she became famous for strictly supporting Trump’s recommendations against masks and social isolation – with one of the most influential positions in the Government.
During her year in office, Noem, who shares with Trump a love of appearing in front of the cameras – in her gubernatorial residence she even installed a television studio – has multiplied her public appearances, frequently dressed in one of the uniforms of the agencies she heads, to defiantly defend the massive immigration raids and indiscriminate deportations. At the border he appeared on horseback and with a cowboy hat; In the midst of controversy over the deportations of Venezuelans to the prisons of Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador, he traveled to the Central American country and took photos in front of the cells of shaved prisoners. In New York, fully uniformed, she participated in a nighttime raid.
Noem, born in 1971 in Watertown (South Dakota), grew up on her family’s farm with three brothers. After the sudden death of his father in an accident in 1994, he left school and took charge of the ranch. In 2006 she entered politics as a Republican candidate. She was elected to the House of Representatives, before resigning her seat after winning the gubernatorial elections in her State, the first woman to do so.
Throughout her political career, Noem has proven herself to be a survivor. This time I might also be able to get ahead. Despite calls for his resignation, Democratic opposition legislators also qualified their claims, with the logic of “someone will come and do a good job.” “I don’t want a Secretary of Homeland Security Stephen Miller to replace her,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine acknowledged this week. If she were to leave, “they will simply put someone else like her in office,” her colleague in the Upper House, Gary Peters, resigned.
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