Bulwark Takes - Kristi Noem Embarrasses Herself Again

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Andrew Egger and Sam Stein share their take on Kristi Noem’s disastrous Senate testimony, where she completely botches the definition of habeas corpus. They also discuss Marco Rubio’s fiery clash with Senator Van Hollen.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bork, and I'm joined by Andrew Egger, who is the author of Morning Shots. We are here to talk about habeas corpus, or frankly, can you define habeas corpus? And are you a cabinet official who can define the term habeas corpus? Because apparently there's one cabinet official who has no idea what it is, and she's in a pretty influential position. That's the tease. Before we get to the substance, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate all the subscriptions. Like our content, share with family and friends. It's educational and informative. It's good for the brain. All right, Andrew, let's talk shop. Kristi Noem, who is our Secretary of Homeland Security,

had a little trouble today defining habeas corpus during a budget hearing in the Senate. This is Senator Maggie Hassan. Let's roll the tape. So, Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus? Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to- No, let me stop you, ma'am. Suspend their right to... Habeas corpus, excuse me, that's incorrect. President Lincoln used it. Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason

for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea. As a senator from the live free or die state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans. So Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection

that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone? I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not. It has never been— Let us be clear, though, that this president— It has never been done—it has never been done without approval of Congress.

Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress. Okay. You go first and I'm going to read some of the headlines that Christina received for this flub. But what are your initial reactions to this? She sort of got sandbagged. Let's say that off the top. It's a little bit of a gotcha question in the sense that she's not expecting to be asked it. Let me just say that right off the top okay okay we're done we give her her one thing don't tell me the don't tell me that it's uh you know ah come on she should have known of course she should have known um but it is it's just funny to see it kind of happen in real time where she's like oh i'm gonna i'm gonna get destroyed for this one aren't i and she kind

of you know you think she saw that i think she keeps a straight face her poker face is amazing and this is like the the thing that we see over and over again with christy gnome is like because there have been so many of these bizarre news cycles where like you know all the interviews that she had to do after her book came out and and it came out that she had like shot that dog or or last week that dog when eric's dog her dog her dog, her dog. Her dog. Her dog. Her dog. Some stray dog roaming the property. It was her dog. When Eric Swalwell, you know, ambushed her with the pictures of Kilmar Abreu Garcia's tattoos, was like, are these photoshopped? This picture that this picture that the president was holding up is that photoshopped. And she wouldn't look at the picture and she just like couldn't get off the moment.

But but the whole time, you know, she, she's able to just kind of deadpan and stare straight ahead and not break, which I guess is admirable in a way. But no, let's hear some of those headlines. It was a rough moment for the department. Do you think there's something about her that makes her uniquely targeted for sandbagging? Because this is now her showmanship at these hearings.

This is twice now that this has happened to her. But I don't think it's... We can debate whether this was a sandbag. If you're in the act of trying to suspend the principle, you should probably know what the principle is. Anyways, headlines. I'm just going to read a few. This is just brutal. Axios. Noam botches habeas corpus question at Senate hearing. CNNios gnome botches habeas corpus question at senate hearing cnn gnome incorrectly says habeas corpus allows trump to remove people from this country new york times christy gnome incorrectly defines habeas corpus as the president's right to deport

people politico gnome defends potentially suspending habeas corpus flub's definition as trump's right to remove people oh and and the daily beast my alum uh my old stomping grounds they were a little harsh on this one ice barbie christy gnome offers her own made-up definition of habeas corpus i guess the beast has the beast um that was yeah so that was you know i i think you you obviously shouldn't know what it means i think the fact that it's not that she didn't know what it means. I think the fact that she didn't know what it means, her definition of it was like totally revealing too, right? It's like, oh, yeah, it gives Trump the right to do whatever he wants basically. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

There is a reason why she keeps getting into these situations. And it's the combination of the fact that ultimately she's the cabinet official with whom all of the – not all, but a big chunk of the most controversial, the most kind of alarming stuff the administration is doing. The buck stops with her on this stuff, all of this, all of the deportations, all of the stuff with, you know, sending migrants to El Salvador and yanking people's protected status and, you know, these sort of misinformation campaigns against individual people who have been swept up in these dragnets and, you know, smearing them as terrorists and gang members and all this sort of stuff. All of that ultimately lands at her feet. So she has

a lot of very difficult questions to answer. And meanwhile, she herself is one, not particularly adept at answering these kinds of questions. And two, she's just kind of a faintly ridiculous. She's a very ridiculous figure just in general. I mean, she's among the more kind of like bombastic and just kind of like out there members of an administration that's full of bombastic and out there people with her kind of, I mean, the whole Ice Barbie thing refers to her cosplay, you know, going along on these raids, you know, carrying weapon, wearing, you know, all kitted out in the gear. And it's just, I mean, it's all, it's all has this sort of faintly ridiculous air to it. And when you combine it all, it's, I mean, she's a headline machine. Yeah. And, you know, I think part of it is that everyone knows that this is just performative or not. I want to just be clear. It's very serious what's happening, but her testimony is performative. It's designed to never admit fault and to please Donald Trump. And so, you know, it forces her or compels her to do ridiculous things like never acknowledge

that Eric Swalwell's staffer is holding literally a huge board in front of her or admit that the tattoos that Trump thinks are on Kilmer or Gregor Garcia's knuckles, which are just obviously Photoshopped, never admit that they're Photoshopped. And so then she gets put in these absurd positions and looks bad. So part of this, I think, is not totally her fault. It's Trump's fault because Trump demands these obsequious displays. The contrast today is with Marco Rubio, another cabinet secretary, secretary of state.

He's on the Hill as well. He's talking to, I believe, the Foreign Relations Committee. And he's getting into it with Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is the one senator who actually went down to El Salvador and met with Borger Garcia. Rubio and him just had a really heated exchange. It went on for several minutes. It took place after Van Hollen's questioning was done. The chair of the committee allowed Rubio to respond. Van Hollen took a lot of umbrage to that because Rubio used the occasion to just go off on Van Hollen and to misrepresent a few things, including accusing Van Hollen of having margaritas with Ebrega Garcia when that was set up by the Salvadoran government.

Anyways, let's watch a little bit of that. And you had some interesting thoughts on the contest between Rubio and Nguyen. We can get to that at the end. And I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State. I yield back. May I respond? You may, sir.

Well, first of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job, based on what I know. That's just a flippant statement, Mr. Secretary. May I respond, Mr. Chairman? You may. I didn't ask the question. Senator, please let the Secretary have the floor. I'd be happy to, but then I can respond to his response.

Your time's up, Senator, and woefully used, I might add. Your remarks do not represent the view of this committee. Well, Mr. Chairman— Secretary, please— Well, I'd like to—I can't respond to everything he said because much of these are untrue, but I'll go through a few. First of all, I'm actually very proud of the work we've done with USAID. For example, I don't regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique.

I don't know how that makes us stronger and more prosperous as a nation. I don't regret psychosocial support services. I raise to the end, Mr. Secretary. Can I respond? Senator, I'd ask you to suspend. You had seven straight minutes. I chose to use my time that way, Mr. Chairman. That's my right to use my time that way.

Please suspend, Secretary Rubio. In the case of El Salvador, absolutely. Absolutely. We deported gang members. Gang members, including the one you had a margarita with. And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger, and the evidence is going to be clear. In the days to come, you're going to see who you went to.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Rubio has the floor. Mr. Chairman, he can't make unsubstantiated comments like that. Senator, Secretary Rubio has the floor. Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to the federal court of the United States because he hasn't done it under oath. About the student visas, let me say this. I don't deport anybody, and I don't snatch anybody.

The State Department does not have officers in the streets snatching everybody. What I do is revoke visas, and it's very simple. A visa is not a right. It is a privilege. People apply for student visas to come into the United States and study. And if you tell me that you're coming to the United States to lead campus crusades, to take over libraries, and burn down, try to burn down buildings and acts of violence. We're not going to give you a visa.

Is that what Ms. Ostorch did? We're not going to give you a visa. Is that what she did? Come on, Mr. Secretary. And every single one of these cases, the factors are different. You're just blowing smoke here now. Senator. The bottom line is if you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny

you a visa. And if you have a visa and we find you, we'll revoke it. Does the First Amendment apply to people living in the United States? And we're going to do more. There are more coming. We're going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities.

People are paying money. These kids pay money to go to school and they have to walk through a bunch of lunatics who are here on student visas. Simple as that. I want to do more. I hope we can find more of these people. That's pathetic, Mr. Secretary.

In fact, the other day... All right, so there's just a little clip of Rubio and Van Haan. Why do you think Rubio is more effective? Yeah, I mean, there's two things. I mean, effective is kind of a term. It's a little bit in the eye of the beholder, right? Because obviously he is dissembling and everything, but he's a good politician.

We've known this about Marco Rubio forever, is that he is effective at spin. He's effective at deflecting. He's effective at, at, you know, taking a melon baller and carving out whatever parts of his brain hold the conscience and the stuff that he previously cared about in terms of foreign aid and, and standing up to dictators and all that stuff, setting all that aside to just go out there and, and really put on kind of a righteous face and, and, and, and stonewall essentially, and, and hold his own in a way that, you know, Donald Trump really appreciates. Donald Trump doesn't necessarily love to see a Christy Noem stepping on rakes. Donald Trump likes to see Marco Rubio out there dodging around the rakes. So that's, that's, that's the main

thing there. I, can I just say one thing also about that? I mean, the, the, the margaritas thing is just like a kind of a hobby horse of mine where I just, I just can't. I find it infuriating. I can't believe that there, that that is a thing that, that officials of our government have now picked up as. Let me, let me jump in here because I find it absolutely infuriating. He is actively taking the side of a El Salvadorian autocrat who is trying to humiliate a sitting US Senator and he's taking the side of the autocrat who is trying to humiliate a sitting U.S. senator, and he's taking the side of the autocrat. And not just taking his side, but regurgitating. Regurgitating his propaganda.

The most flimsy, ridiculous, obscene, like the kind of propaganda that's only intended to work on people who don't have a free media, right? If you are an autocrat who has squashed all dissent and people aren't allowed to get on the internet and figure out what's real, then maybe you can get away with this kind of nonsense. But the idea that the United States of America, that our government, that our top officials here, not only would not hate that and not oppose that, but that they would channel it themselves and use it to throw at their own political, domestic political opponents here for cheap shots. I mean, it's, it's really, it's really grotesque. And, uh, and I, my jaw hits the floor every time it's been going on for a while. It's the lowest rung. I will just add, yeah, I will just add to that. Like, you know, he's dealing in an alternate reality with a lot of this stuff. I mean,

there was a report yesterday from Cato that 50 or so Venezuelans who were sent to El Salvador had no sort of legal case against them being here. They were here under legal protections. He's talking about revoking student visas. It's very evident, and the courts have proven that in some of these cases, it's the flimsiest of pretexts to revoke visas. We're talking about singular op-eds written as the sole basis for revoking visas. I mean, it's embarrassing if you look at the totality of the record, but he's defending it. Obviously, he's defending it because he's part of the administration. But I thought when we say effective, we're just talking about as a mode of political communication.

But some of the defense was really devoid of any sort of moral standing or factuality. And I thought that was evident in there. And you could tell Van Haan was livid with some of the stuff he was saying because of it. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know whether any of this stuff is stuff that Rubio actually cared about back in the day, whether he actually did have like a real opposition. We presume he did, right? He used to be, I mean, you know better than I do. I mean, he was, I assumed he was more in the mode of like, let's stand up to autocrats and let's protect free speech. And like, obviously he worked on immigration reform post 2012. I mean, he's changed. He absolutely did all of those things in a political environment where it seemed like

it was, you know, beneficial for the politician for him to do all those things in a political environment where it seemed like it was, you know, beneficial for the politician for him to do all those things. And that's the I think the kind of the last point I'm going to want to make about Rubio is like, obviously, Rubio, whatever he did in the past, who knows whether he has always been at the moment, Rubio is essentially a craven politician skin suit, right? I mean, he is he's allowed Donald Trump to fully like infuse him as a vessel so that he will have a future in this party. And it is causing him to do all these horrible things. And I think that that one of the like I'm not this is not breaking any news to anybody here.

But one of the big reasons why we're in such a mess right now is because the whole Trump movement has made the incentives so horrible for all the craven politicians who are willing to be skin suits. Before you could be a skin suit for some good things before you could be just trying to be a craven politician and build your and build your brand by opposing autocracy by standing up for freedom in america and around the world right i mean like that's that arguably that's what rubio was doing before uh if if he's willing to let all that go now to be the secretary of state for this guy and and and do all this all this, all this shit today. Um, but like,

man, I would love to get back to an incentive structure where, where people who are actually acting selfishly are thereby motivated, uh, to, to stand up for some good things in the world. That's all. It's just,

it's all, it's all, it's also grotesque. All right. Skin suits and melons that you can scoop out with the brain. I, Andrew's got it all going on. Yeah, we started a little rocky, but we got, we got, you know, we,

we tuned in by the end. All right. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching the feed. Really appreciate that as well. Subscribe and we will talk to you later.