It's the Media Buzz Meter with Howard Kurtz.

Can we all just now agree that Christy Noem as Homeland Security Secretary was a complete and total and utter disaster,

that she was a catastrophic failure in just about every way that you could imagine.

Nobody now seems to be defending her.

Maybe some close family and friends, I'm not even sure about that.

President Trump finally firing her yesterday, and ultimately the final straw was that Noam lied about

Donald J. Trump personally. But this was just a train wreck that really not only hurt the immigration

effort, but day after day, week after week, bad stories, horrible stories when she seemed more

interested in promoting herself than anything else.

Let me tell you a little story.

During the 2024 campaign when Noam was the governor of South Dakota, and believe it or not,

there had been some buzz about her as a

possible running mate for Trump's third attempt at the presidency. There was a Republican operative

who I've worked with over the years, been in and out of Trump world, who was begging me

to put Christy Knoem on the air. But the thing that was dominating the news was that she had

written this book, you know, typical memoir to puff yourself up, particularly if you're angling for a job.

And in the book, she proudly described how she had shot her dog, thinking maybe that this

helped portray her as a hard-bitten cowgirl,

perhaps not familiar with the more humane method of putting down pets.

I hated that dog, she said. Couldn't be trained.

She took out the dog and shot him.

And this blew up, as you might imagine, and it came up, you know, in every interview.

...