GOP Senators Suddenly Discover Kristi Noem Is a Problem
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sam Stein, JVL and Andrew Egger give their takes on the chaotic and dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Republican senators sharply questioned Noem over her leadership at DHS, ICE's deadly actions in Minnesota, and her department’s $220 million ad campaign featuring Noem front and center. They also debate a bigger question: Is Noem being set up as the scapegoat? With DHS funding frozen and Republicans under pressure, are some in the GOP trying to sacrifice the secretary to avoid deeper reforms to ICE and immigration enforcement?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein. I'm managing editor at the book. I'm here with JVL and Andrew |
| 0:04.0 | Edgar, and we've been watching a pretty spicy at times hearing with Christy Noem at the Senate |
| 0:10.8 | Judiciary Committee this morning. Spicy in that there was at least one unexpected Republican who |
| 0:16.6 | grilled the secretary very hard. And then there was a very theatrical moment with Senator Tom Tillis |
| 0:21.1 | that I know JVL wants to merit in on involved talk of castrated goats and dog killing and all that |
| 0:26.6 | stuff. Before we get into that, subscribe to the feed. I really appreciate it. So Andrew, you've been |
| 0:31.6 | watching this with me. What's your, what's like that 30,000 foot takeaway from this hearing that happened this morning? |
| 0:38.7 | Yeah. So we knew what we were kind of expecting to get from most Republicans, right? It was |
| 0:43.5 | come in, talk about how bad the Biden administration was on immigration, talk about how good |
| 0:47.7 | of a job you guys are doing. And we got plenty of that. But like you say, there were a couple of |
| 0:52.8 | somewhat notable defections. |
| 0:54.6 | We were not really surprised that Tom Tillis, who is lame ducked out and has a bit of reputation now for like letting his freak flag fly a little bit on some of these Republicans. |
| 1:05.0 | Not super surprised that he went after Nome, but very surprised by sort of the depth of the attack and the sort of intensity of it. |
| 1:11.2 | That's not really his bag usually is getting all sort of like bulgy-eyed and spittle, |
| 1:16.6 | flecked and just mad. |
| 1:19.4 | And then even more surprising was what we saw from Senator Kennedy, who's also Republican, |
| 1:26.0 | and who is very much not like a thorn in the side of the |
| 1:29.2 | administration on pretty much anything, not just going after Noam, but going after her pretty |
| 1:35.1 | aggressively for a lot of the same reasons, you know, people like us have been criticizing her |
| 1:39.2 | leadership for quite some time, talking about, you know, just the absolute sort of disaster of enforcement |
| 1:46.4 | in Minneapolis that led to the killings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good. |
| 1:49.9 | And really trying it sometimes it seemed like to drive a wedge between Noam and the White House in |
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