Kristi Noem's career has been put out of its misery
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
VR25 - This episode is dedicated to the memory of Cricket, the 14-month-old wirehaired pointer murdered in cold blood by Kristi Noem on an unknown date in a gravel pit in South Dakota.
One week after Donald Trump took now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s job out to the gravel pit, Thomas, Lydia, and Matt get together for a post-mortem. After a brief amuse douche from Noem’s (ahem) closest advisor, Matt plays the one excerpt from her 2024 campaign book “Not Going Back” which should have disqualified her from a Cabinet seat. (No, not that one! But we also revisit that story too and it’s so much worse--and involves twice as many animals--than you may remember.) We then review some of the most notable lowlights of Noem’s time as DHS Secretary, from completely failing to understand the ancient legal concept which allowed federal judges to release so many of the people she was illegally detaining without bond to her disturbing enthusiasm for calling US citizens concerned about killer ICE agents “domestic terrorists.” Also: why exactly did Noem lose her job last week, and where did the $220 million of our money handed over to a shell company run by her former press secretary’s husband go?
Finally, we take a closer look at Trump’s choice to replace Noem at DHS: an Oklahoma Senator with two first names and a temper even shorter than his MMA career.
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“NO GOING BACK: The Truth On What’s Wrong With Politics and How to Move America Forward,” Kristi Noem (2024)
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DHS ad filmed at Mount Rushmore featuring Kristi Noem on horseback
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“Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts,” Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica (Nov. 14, 2025)
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“Markwayne Mullin is for Trump--and Indian Country,” Graham Lee Brewer, High Country News (Dec. 9, 2019)
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“ICE Barbie Replacement Mark Mullin Makes a Killing From Trump’s Wars,” Harry Thompson & Tom Latchem, March 9, 2026
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“Mullin’ It Over” column archives on Markwayne Mullin’s Senate website
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Call my wife. |
| 0:01.6 | Calling UK Wildlife. |
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| 0:05.7 | BlackRock Investment Trust has a lot working for you. |
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| 0:11.4 | BlackRock Investment Management UK Limited. |
| 0:13.0 | Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Hello and welcome to opening arguments. |
| 0:27.5 | This is Vapid Response Wednesday. |
| 0:28.7 | I'm Thomas Thad over there's real life attorney Matt Cameron. |
| 0:31.2 | How are you doing, Matt? |
| 0:32.2 | Hey guys. |
| 0:32.7 | I come down to praise Christine Nams' career, but to bury it in the gravel pit. |
| 0:38.2 | Oh, boy. Yeah. And of course, Lydia, how you doing? Good. I would not miss this one for the world. I'm so |
| 0:46.9 | happy to be here and join you all in this burial that we were about to do. I'm going to spoil the entire party. |
| 0:55.0 | I feel mixed that the only person facing consequences is a woman. |
| 1:00.6 | I totally agree. |
| 1:02.6 | Obviously, it would be that. |
| 1:04.1 | Like, that's the one person that Trump thinks is, you know, expendable. |
| 1:09.6 | I mean, I guess you could argue, no. I was going to say, Stephen Miller, like, he kind of, I felt like he pulled him back a little bit after some of the murders, but that doesn't, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's just. He's not appointed. Yeah. This is, but it couldn't happen to a worse person. Yeah. As we're going to remember it today, we're going to remember her not so fondly, but, you know, it just seems like a few days ago that we were sitting here looking over the nominations for DHS secretary. I know. A.G. and everything else, looking at Trump's staff infection, as you called it back at the time. Here we are, seeing the first one out. And this is, it's taken more than a year for him to fire somebody, which is pretty good for him. How many scaramuchis is that? It's quite a much. It's like an eternity. That's like making like a Bush senior reference at this point. It's so old. I always think about that. I know. All the Gen Z. people are going to be like, |
| 2:01.1 | what are you talking about? |
| 2:01.9 | Yeah, now that we're old, |
... |
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