Republican Senator John Kennedy took Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to task for a self-promoting, multi-million-dollar ad campaign and questioned whether she was telling the truth.
The nasty grilling by the MAGA lawmaker came during a hearing on Capitol Hill where Noem was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“How do you square that concern for waste, which I share, with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?” Kennedy asked her.
He was referring to a number of ads the secretary shot, dressed in different getups at locations all over the country and even abroad.
“Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from with putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally, that they needed to leave or we would detain them and remove them, and they woudl not get the chance to come back to America the right way,” Noem claimed.
In response to Kennedy’s follow-up, Noem insisted Trump told her to run the ads before she even took office, and since.
Kennedy noted that despite the secretary claiming the department used a competitive bidding process for the contract, DHS chose people who had previously worked on political campaigns with Noem in her own state.
“No, that’s not correct, sir,” Noem said, but Kennedy shot back: “I think it is.”
The secretary argued that career officials chose the contractors, and those officials have no legal authority to look into the subcontractors.
“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy questioned.
Noem insisted he had, but when she tried to argue the messaging was effective, Kennedy cut her off: “Well, they were effective in your name recognition.”
“To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot,” Kennedy said. “I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth, it’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”
The Louisiana lawmaker said his research showed Noem had not held bids for the contracts, and pointed out one of the companies chosen, Save America Media, was created just eleven days before they were picked and headed by the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin.
“It troubles me,” Kennedy said. “A fifth to a quarter of $1 billion in taxpayer money when we’re scratching for every penny, and we’re fighting over recession packages, I just can’t agree with, Secretary.”
Noem insisted she had nothing to do with picking the contractors, but Kennedy was not done dressing her down.
He went on to question her over her labeling two U.S. citizens “domestic terrorists” after they were killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
“What got my attention was you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller at the White House, did you not?”
“No, sir, I did not,” she declared. She went on to insist that where he saw it was in a news article of anonymous sources. “I’ve never said that at all.”
But the senator proceeded to quote Noem back to her face, “I’m going to read you your words, ‘everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen.’”
“Sir, where did you see me say that at?” the DHS secretary pushed back, arguing it was in a news article with no sources.
Kennedy noted that she said it on the record on January 27: “Did I read your words accurately?”
The secretary did not respond directly but claimed she enjoys working with the president and Miller.
“Do you think it was fair to blame Mr. Miller for your words?” he kept probing.
“Sir, I did not do that,” Noem said uncomfortably, but she would not answer when Kennedy asked if she denied her own words.
