I
She embodies the rural spirit of MAGA like few others. Born in Watertown, South Dakota, Kristi Lynn Noem was raised on her family’s farm in a densely rural county.
She began studying at Northern State University, but dropped out after her father died in an accident. She then took over running the family business.
Her political career began in 2006, when she entered the House of Representatives of her home state, where she remained until 2010. That year, she was elected to the House of Representatives in Washington, DC, representing a district in South Dakota. She remained there until 2019.
She is remembered for her support of conservative policies, ranging from tax cuts and deregulation to opposition to Obamacare and climate change initiatives. She also supported Trump’s so-called Muslim ban (2017) and legislation against abortion rights.
In 2019, she made history as the first woman elected governor of South Dakota, a position she held until 2025. Here, she is associated with actions such as resisting federal mask-wearing policies and lockdowns during the pandemic, perhaps two of the factors that led to the high COVID-19 mortality rates in her state. She is also known for her opposition to abortion and passing bills expanding gun rights.
Her national breakthrough came in 2024 as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate; but, more than for her policies, she was known for her dog, Cricket. “A wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” she wrote in a pompously titled book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.
She was, she says, a dog with “an aggressive personality” that “needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.” But when she took her hunting with other dogs, things didn’t work out for the future secretary. She lamented that Cricket ruined the hunt, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.
On her way back to the farm, she says she stopped to chat with a family, but the dog escaped from their truck and attacked the chickens in the yard. “She grabbed one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.” She behaved, she said, “like a trained assassin.” And when she caught her, the dog “whipped around to bite me.”
As the chicken owner wailed, Noem apologized, wrote him a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.” Despite everything, she says, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy.” And here comes a twist: “I hated that dog. Cricket had proven herself untrainable, dangerous to anyone she came in contact with and less than worthless…as a hunting dog. At that moment, I realized I had to put her down.”
And so she did. She grabbed her gun and shot Cricket. “It was difficult, messy and ugly,” she wrote, “but it simply needed to be done.”
A Pew Research Center study revealed that the vast majority of pet owners in the United States (97%) consider their pets part of their family, including those living in rural areas.
The classic backfire. The image she sought to convey with that narrative — that of a person willing to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” — didn’t work for her.
II
Since January 2025, Noem has been Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 59 to 34.
One of her first actions was to travel to El Salvador in March 2025, from where she sent a message about her new bosses’ immigration policy. But she didn’t do so from the Government Palace, or from a civilian facility, but from an infamous mega-prison called the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT). There, she had herself filmed in front of the prisoners the United States had deported under an agreement with Nayib Bukele.
Staring into the camera, Noem said, “If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face.”
And she did so by displaying a large yellow watch on her left wrist. An 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona with an estimated value of $50,000. The media questioned her not about the watch itself, but why she was displaying it in such a place. For some, clumsiness; for others, arrogance. And for many, a combination of both.
The New York Times observed that with the exception of President Donald Trump, presidents in recent decades have opted for more modest watches to avoid being considered elitist.
III
Around that same time, Noem posted a video on the streets of New York, dressed in a Border Patrol uniform. She wore a bulletproof vest and a green cap. She wore heavy makeup.
“Here in New York this morning, we are taking the filthy people off these streets,” she told the camera.
A continuation of the image she had projected on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show. “Glamorous but militarized.”
From this emerged a new nickname: ICE Barbie.
IV
Last May, Noem had another moment in the national spotlight while testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for fiscal year 2026.
Senator Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, asked her to define the concept of habeas corpus. Noem replied that habeas corpus is the president’s constitutional right to remove people from the country.
There was a cutting silence in the room, including among the Republicans. Until the senator retorted that habeas corpus is the fundamental right that separates free societies like the United States from police states like North Korea.
Hassan then pressed the secretary, asking if she supported the “fundamental protection” of habeas corpus — that is, that the government must provide a public justification for detaining or imprisoning someone.
Noem replied that yes, she supported habeas corpus, and that she also recognized that the president of the United States has the authority, under the Constitution, to decide whether or not it should be suspended.
Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the suspension of this recourse “unless, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires it,” the senator told her. “The Suspension Clause is quite restrictive, allowing Congress to suspend it only in exceptional circumstances. The president cannot suspend that recourse.”
It was, in fact, a message directed not at her but at her second-in-command, Stephen Miller, who had claimed that the Trump administration was “exploring” ways to end due process protections for undocumented immigrants.
That presentation by Kristi Noem had the importance of sending a loud and clear message to anyone who would listen. Incompetence and unconditional loyalty are two of the attributes for which Donald Trump nominated her for the position.
“A lot of goods, little soul,” a 19th-century Cuban who lived in New York City for fifteen years once wrote.
