Kristi Noem spent almost $24,000 in taxpayer money on makeup and horse rental for the $143 million no-bid ad campaign that ultimately led to her dismissal.
The ads featured the Homeland Security Secretary, 54, on horseback in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.
Noem uses the ad to lavish praise on President Trump before turning to the camera to deliver her message to anyone in the country without the correct papers: “We will find you, and we will deport you.”
The campaign has become mired in questions about who authorized the spending and who benefited from the $143 million that went to Safe America Media, a MAGA-linked company set up eight days before the award was made.
The Daily Beast previously revealed that a civil war between the Department of Homeland Security and the White House has broken out over the contract. The disagreement centers on whether Trump signed off on the campaign as Noem claimed during a congressional hearing earlier this month. The president denied that after firing her.
Now filings passed to the Daily Beast reveal the eye-watering cost of putting Noem on a horse and plastering makeup on her face.
Financial records submitted in response to a request from Senators Peter Welch and Richard Blumenthal on March 12 by Ohio-based political consulting firm The Strategy Group (TSG) detail the production costs behind the Mount Rushmore shoot, which took place on Oct. 2, 2025, the second day of the federal government shutdown.
The company’s CEO, Ben Yoho, 38, is married to Noem’s former DHS spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, 31, who said she recused herself after learning he had been subcontracted. DHS has repeatedly said it has no say over subcontracting.
Yoho told the senators that TSG had billed Safe America Media $286,137. That included $226,137 for production services for five film shoots that created 45 video ads, and six radio spots, and a $60,000 “signing bonus.”
One line item that stands out is the $20,000 payment to Jill Moody, 60, a two-time Reserve World Champion barrel racer from Letcher, South Dakota, whose competition horse once won $260,000 in a single year.
A spokesperson for TSG told the Beast that this represented the cost for the rental of three horses, transportation, and boarding over a two-day period in October last year.
The hair and makeup tab runs to almost $3,800.
That was spread across Bombshell Beauty Makeup Studio ($2,070.05), a business trading as Beautiful Brush ($600), Abigail de Casanova ($550), a Washington, D.C.-based union hairstylist and makeup artist whose film and TV credits include the HBO miniseries White House Plumbers, and a fourth stylist, Chaneese Rochelle Martin ($561).
TSG said that the makeup covered five shoots, and as such, is in line with industry rates.
Regarding the $60,000 “signing bonus,” which TSG invoiced to Safe America Media on April 15, 2025, the same day as the firm’s first labor hours bill, a spokesperson for the company told the Beast that the fee was standard for such a deal, particularly on a campaign that was executed so last-minute.
The spokesperson noted all of its costs for the campaign had been “fully documented and disclosed to Congress” to “address inaccuracies in public reporting and ensure the record accurately reflects the scope of our work.”
The Safe America Media contract was one of two no-bid awards totaling $220 million made by Noem’s DHS—the other going to People Who Think LLC, a Louisiana-based Republican ad firm.
