In Defense of Kristi Noem

By Martin H. Levinson

Kristi Noem faced lots of unfair criticism and controversy during her time as Governor of South Dakota (2019-2025) and US Secretary of Homeland Security (2025-2026). To wit:

In a 2024 memoir, Noem wrote about shooting and killing Cricket, her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, because the dog was untrainable. This caused bipartisan backlash and unjust public condemnation, as people were unaware that Cricket was not just untrainable but also working for a Chinese spy ring trying to hack the US power grid. The CIA told Noem not to keep mum about this since it had infiltrated the ring and recruited several animals involved in it as double agents.

During COVID, Noem took flak because she opposed mask mandates, encouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine, and held large events like the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which health officials linked to spikes in cases. These were smart actions to keep South Dakota’s population in check and help make sure the state would not be as crowded as Texas and California. They were also in line with promoting resilience through a policy best summed up as, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Noem was taken to task for referring to two US citizens killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis as having engaged in “domestic terrorism,” despite reports that negated this claim. Such blame makes sense if you focus on the literal meaning of the term “domestic terrorism.” But if you focus on it figuratively, domestic terrorism can mean whatever you want it to mean. In this case, Noem wanted it to mean that whatever she said about it would not be taken literally, which is exactly what her critics did.

Noem was pilloried for authorizing $200 million in taxpayer funds for luxury private Gulfstream G700 jets that were used during a government shutdown and for falsely claiming that President Trump signed off on a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign where she was the central figure. About the first charge, we all want to fly first-class and Noem is no exception, with the caveat that most people must buy a first-class ticket while Noem was able to buy an entire airplane. As to the second charge, Noem is a busy lady and quite likely forgot that Trump hadn’t signed off on the $220 mil. And who wouldn’t want to make ads featuring themselves and doing it on the government dime? Maybe Mother Teresa, but I doubt that saint could have done the saintly job Noem did separating families, ignoring court orders on deportations, and whisking immigrants out of the US to places they were not from.

Noem faced intense scrutiny and disapproval over a rumored affair with Corey Lewandowski, a Trump ally who acted as a special advisor at her department. Such censure was ridiculous. Being a special advisor means you are special and special people get to do special things, like having affairs with their bosses. Lewandowski and Noem should have made that case and added that Americans have been brainwashed to think you should not cheat on your spouse and fool around in the office. If Noem and Lewandowski were French government officials there would have been no problem—in France, extramarital affairs between consenting adults who work for the government are not looked down on. Americans need to loosen up and be open to the notion that life is tough, and love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

In 2024, DHS border czar Tom Homan accepted $50,000 from FBI agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover operation. The following year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive, classified strike details about Houthi militants through the unapproved, messaging app Signal on an unsecured computer in his Pentagon office. Corruption and stupidity did not cost these men their jobs. It is discriminatory to argue that women should have to behave better than men. Women should be held to the same low standards as their male counterparts.

After her ouster from DHS, Noem was given a special envoy role in President Trump’s Shield of the Americas initiative. In her new position she will not have the opportunity to steal or screw up on the vast scale that she was able to do in her former post as head of the Department of Homeland Security. And that’s a shame because Noem is a virtuoso at stealing and screwing up, and expertise in any area of life should be maximized.

Given her past accomplishments there can be no question that Noem will do well in her new job. With any luck she will come up with innovative means to scam the system in a fashion only a pro at duplicitous self-serving and bamboozling the public can. The American people have been blessed to have such a thieving, unprincipled fraudster working for them in so many creative and capricious ways. To do a slight riff on a well-known ad-lib originated by Whoopi Goldberg: “You go goon!”