The 3 Things That Did Not Work Out for Kristi Noem
Victor Davis Hanson /
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” with Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
Jack Fowler: Kristi Noem. Any thoughts that you want to share about her firing and her tenure as head of homeland security?
Victor Davis Hanson: I’m baffled by her because I had followed vaguely. I think she was a congressional representative before she became governor, and I saw a picture in 2015 or something with her husband.
She had no makeup on. She had kind of a shag haircut, short haircut, fresh face. They were very intimate. I don’t mean in the sexual sense, but you know, close, had their arm around each other. She looked happy, she looked unaffected. And to see her today with those long extensions and facial surgery, it’s sad.
And she was a very effective governor. So, something happened, and that happened might be something connected with higher prominence, money. I don’t know what it was, attention? But she needs to get back to her original roots as a Dakotan and a family, you know, wife and kids.
I don’t know the intricacies, but the things that she is doing, there’s three things that didn’t work out for her.
She wasn’t sober and judicious when we had these crises. So, when the two people were killed in Minnesota, she just shot from the hip and said, “Terrorism.” It may have been, but you should have just said, “We regret any death. But as the head of homeland security, we’ve got to protect the lives and safety of our officers. And this is a tragic death, but we’re going to investigate it fully. I have confidence that our officers are not going to be found culpable, but I’m absolutely willing to change my mind if I find evidence of it.”
That’s all you had to say.
And then where is the wall, Jack? I thought the wall was going to be done by now. Remember, we saw all that stuff that Joe Biden let rust, and we had to go buy it. And President Donald Trump said …
Fowler: We bought it back, right?
Hanson: Yeah. It’s somewhat [done], but we want to get it done before the Democratics come back in power. That was her prime objective, and we didn’t get it done.
Then there is when she showed up at that high-security Latin American prison in what, Guatemala was it?
Fowler: El Salvador.
Hanson: Oh, it was El Salvador. Not Guatemala. It was El Salvador. And if you’re going to walk among the most dangerous people in the world, then I would try to play down my personal femininity, and I would be more bureaucratic.
Fowler: It seemed more like Hillary at that point.
Hanson: Yes. What I’m saying is Tulsi Gabbard is a very attractive woman, but when you see her, she looks natural. You know what I’m saying? It doesn’t look like she’s trying to be suggestive. And so that hurt her.
And then she had these campaign ads, and they centered on her, on horses and everything. And now she spent, she had budget. I don’t think she spent it all, but $250 million. Is that what, $240 million?
Fowler: It’s a lot of money.
Hanson: And there were accusations that some of the companies that were making the ads and had the responsibility to market them, I don’t know, were known to her.
And then we get into this. The reason that people liked her in the Dakotas is she represented Dakota values. Maybe she still does. I hope she does. With family, husband, nuclear family, farm, ranching. But then with Corey Lewandowski, she kind of morphed into an urban creature. And then there were these accusations that she was having an affair.
And so, when they ask her about it, you know the Democrats were going do it. They’re going to ask her about it because he’s a special employee attached to her. And there’s been these stories in the paper that they’ve been seen too often together, alone. Or he lost his temper, or she did, when that blanket was left on the private plane.
Or she’s using a huge private plane for … there was this image. Somebody should have said to her, “Look, I know you want high-profile coverage. I know you want bombastic language, but that’s the president, not you. You’re his servant. So, what you want to do is scale back the travel. Wear plain clothes or just wear workman-like clothes that reflect what you’re doing.
“I wouldn’t try to wear a lot of makeup. I wouldn’t have any commercials in which you are in. And I would be very careful with the budget. And you’ve got to get rid of Corey Lewandowski because there’s these rumors that you hired or the administration hired and attached to your staff a special employee that would never … he was not a full-time employee permanently.
“And you’re a married person with grandkids, and that was your image that made Trump interested in you. That you were middle class, upper middle class, successful entrepreneur, but basically flyover America that represents the values. And you’re not projecting that image. You’re projecting a Hollywood wannabe image and carrying on what could be construed as an affair.”
When she was asked about that in a very cruel way, she said, “I know you want to think that conservative women are stupid and slutty, but I’m neither.” And the next sentence is, “And I’m neither, and I resent the fact that you insinuated that I had an affair, which is untrue.” She couldn’t say that.
I don’t know why he would be back, because he fizzled out as Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser when he pushed that reporter. And there was all this controversy around him.
I know that in the wilderness years, when Trump was out of office, there were certain people that he had to disconnect from, like Steve Bannon, like Corey Lewandowski, that came back as die-hard supporters and kind of said, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I’m still with you, president.”
And he naturally wanted to bring them back in the fold, but now he’s in a different position. He is president. So, I think that was wise, what he did.
I thought Rich Lowry, though, was really, you and I have known Rich for so long. You even longer than I did. And he is very mild-mannered.
But did you see that thing he wrote about her?
Fowler: I did not, no. Oh, what did he say? Did he rake her over the coals?
Hanson: Yes.
Fowler: Oh, wow.
Hanson: Basically, she’s a lousy employee that deserved everything she got.
Fowler: I’ll go read it.
Hanson: The other thing about her, just quickly is that there’s one workman-like guy who’s been there forever. He’s hard-nosed. Sometimes he comes across as gruff, but he’s absolutely reliable, and that’s Tom Homan.
Fowler: I’m sure you were going say that.
Hanson: He represents, you know, kind of America law enforcement, and he’s very good at what he does.
And for all of that hard bark on him, he knew that you don’t take high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement people and pick people off the street, and that was a rare occurrence. But he knew that even though … put it this way, when you go after a known criminal, and you go to his apartment, and outside there’s a teenage kid playing, and you know he is illegal, you have an obligation to ask him his status.
But he knew, secondly, that if you did, that is a controversial thing that is dynamite. So what you do is you downplay collateral arrests. You don’t brag on it, and you go after the criminals first. At the later stage, once you got them, that’s fine.
When she was doing these commercials and everything, and then the ICE people in Minnesota fell into the trap that the narrative switched. They actually arrested 4,000 people with criminal records, but we didn’t hear that.
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