Bulwark Takes - Noem Hearing: She Won’t Say Trump Lied

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

At a chaotic DHS hearing, Secretary Kristi Noem refused to admit a Trump-used photo was doctored, exposing how far officials will go to avoid contradicting him. The exchange highlighted the cult-like loyalty around Trump and the erosion of truth in government oversight.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bork, and I'm joined by Tim Miller. We are here to talk about Kristi Noem, who had a hearing before the members of Congress for the DHS budget appropriations request, and it went sideways pretty badly on multiple occasions and provided some interesting insights into how members of the cabinet feel they must tap dance around dear leader Donald Trump. Before we get into that yeah subscribe to the feed all right tim um this is your favorite cabinet secretary um this is is she my favorite i i don't know she's kind of my favorite to discuss i was interested when you first sent me the links and said she was appearing in front of congress it

took me a second because i was trying to decide if that was actually her or there's like the hall of presidents figure of her um because sometimes it or if it was like the Hall of Presidents figure of her. Because sometimes it is hard to tell with the lack of facial movements, whether it's really her. How do I do this to myself? What was the thing? Every time. Do you remember? You ever been to the Hall of Presidents at Disney World?

They still got that? I have been there. I've also been to, you know, whatever Madame Trousseau's wax. Madame Trousseau's. and i get the joke yeah i get it i get it do you have anything else to add well i thought it was a pretty bad performance why don't we go to the clips and uh we'll take them which one do you want to start with uh good um uh swalwell or uh gummin swalwell please okay let's do swalwell set up here, Eric Swalwell brandishing a photo of, um, uh, Abrego Garcia that Donald Trump insisted showed a tattooed hand, uh, and was clearly Photoshopped. And then this transpired.

Could you look at the photo, please? It's right in front of you saying Abrego Garcia is not a white. No, ma'am. He's not a criminal. He's not a human trafficker. You vouched for Mr. Garcia when your team said, ma'am, you vouched for him when you said he was mistakenly deported. I didn't vouch for him. I did not say that. In that photo. He should have been deported. Absolutely. It's so telling that you won't look at the photo. And we will not be bringing. Was it doctored or not? In staying here. Can you look to your right at the photo in front of you? Madam Secretary, can you look to the right at the photo in front of you? I have seen this photo as you held it behind your head. Thank you. And the letters MS and the numbers 13, are those doctored or not? Your testimony today is on a doctored

photo. You don't want to talk about the facts, the importance of our national security. You acknowledge it was doctored. You want to make sure that the United States is protected. Madam Secretary, this is not a hard question. Are those doctored or not? Is that actually on his hand or not? This is unbelievable to me that you're focused on a photo that you think. It's unbelievable to me that you can't look at the photo and tell the American people. I looked at the photo, but I don't have any knowledge as to this photo. Okay, so it's been hanging out there for four weeks.

You are one of the chief law enforcement officials in the country. What have you done to investigate whether the president misrepresented the reason that that person has been detained? Have you done anything to try and figure out whether that was doctored or not? The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is to secure our nation and to make sure that we're out there going after those that are the worst of the worst, the criminals, the bad actors, Abrego Garcia. So the answer is you've done nothing to correct the president. A member of MS-13, a wife beater, and a human trafficker

that should never have been in this country to begin with. So, yeah, that one was crazy to me much more than the other one because it's like she just she refused to look at it and she's like it's like please ma'am please turn to your right maybe she can't turn to her right i don't know that might be kind of part of the side effects um uh the of the reconstruction surgery the um here's the thing with this this is what it is they are afraid to say that donald trump was wrong about anything yes and this is why this is why you know it's like oh you have tds oh you're in a liberal bubble oh you crazy

libs you when you call us cultists it's just whatever it's like no this is a cult it's the number one trait of a cult the cult leader cannot be wrong and like you're in a cult like there was there's never any time where any you know when i worked for a candidate where i couldn't say oops you know we missed on that one and like moved on. You know, like she can't just simply say and she doesn't even have to say Donald Trump was wrong when he said it was MS-13. Like you could even do a plausible defense of this where he's like, well, Trump was just pointing out that the tattoos stand for MS-13. Like you could do that thing, which would have been a lie, but at least it would have been a face-saving lie, so to speak. Trump actually said there is MS-13 on his knuckles.

Then he got mad at his ABC reporter, Terry Moran. He got mad at Terry, and he's like, Terry, this is why people think you're the fake news. You won't just acknowledge it. It said MS-13. And it's like, no, that's a Times New Roman. And my one critique of Swallow who is awesome here is he kept saying

it's doctored. It wasn't really doctored. It's not doctored. They just took his hand and they typed MS-13 on the finger. So I guess it's technically doctored. I did appreciate that he identified the font. Yeah, I did. I like that he identified the font. It's Times New Roman.

It's like like you know the whole thing everyone knows that ms-13 likes ariel fonts come on whoever was making the picture wasn't trying to doctor trump is just so stupid that he didn't understand like what they were trying to do which was just delineate what allegedly each of those tattoos represented and so like she could have just done any of that but she refuses she refuses just be like mr you know no actually or she couldn't have even not mentioned trump at all she could have looked at and said no i you know look i look at that and i had that obviously ms13 someone typed on there but conceivably the tattoos could represent that i'm not an ms13 tattoo expert that would have been a fine answer and she was like but any inch you give centimeter that that

might be interpreted as having a headline saying christinem says Trump was wrong about the MS-13 tattoos, like that is a risk that is not worth taking because you don't want to be cast. That says – to me that says more about Trump honestly, that he can't handle even that and would never want to admit he's wrong. But we were sort of debating in the office whether this was the right and effective use of Swalwell's time. And I think so, because I don't think you're going to get anything out of her because she's not interested in having an actual engaged conversation about issues like due process and deportations and actually what the budget should be used for. I mean, she's not what she's there for. So you do need to make it, if it's going to be a spectacle, you have to make a spectacle. Yeah. I haven't had a chance to watch the entire hearing so i'm going to say that's it's possible other other members did this i think that that is one useful thing is like just pointing out that like

the arguments that they're making about this are untrue just getting that on the record you couldn't you couldn't do that and i think embarrassing her like that is as maybe at least useful just as far as i took pleasure from it um but like to me, I think one thing that would be useful and there's just always so many things to ask these guys, but to continue to put the drumbeat of, can you provide me the detailed evidence for

why Nary Alvarado was deported? And she's going to say, no, we reviewed all these people and they're all on this 13. And you're like, please submit to the committee the evidence that you guys provided and and whatever it can be we can do it in a classified way you know right there are classified versions of these committees like but submit to me the evidence you know the makeup artist andre hernandez submit to me the evidence that was used to determine that he was a Trenda Aragua gang member.

Like to me, like that. And again, I don't know exactly what the whole hearing. So some of that might happen, but like that would, I think, be the most useful. Yeah. So there was one moment and I'm going to not have the right names here, but a representative magazine who said to, no, look, you deported this mother

and her four-year-old and seven-year-old who were US citizens. Four-year-old had stage four cancer. And you testified or the DHS asserted that the mother signed off on having her kids deported with her. He's like, but I've talked to the lawyer directly. And the lawyer says it's patently not true. Can you send me the evidence that you had to justify the decision to deport this kid,

to say that the mother had signed off on it? And she said, we will provide it to you. So yeah. Now, does she follow through? I don't know. But I thought that was, to your point, like, yeah. I mean, the idea here is you need to sort of surface whatever information you can about what is the rationalization for their deportation regime. And if you can't do it, then you do need to expose just how insane some of the decision-making processes. And here's why they're going to fight this. Okay. Because, and here's why it's important to engage in this fight, right? And this is outside of the electoral politics framework. This is about the, this is about the immigration policy framework. Because

it's important to have this fight. Because if you can continue to pressure them on these specific examples, and you get one. This is why they don't want to give on Obrigo Garcia, and this is why they don't want to give on anybody else. If

information can be surfaced, official information, there are still career employees a lot of these places you know and you have a career employee at the dhs that like does what they're supposed to do submits the documents to the congressional committee then the congressional committee goes and says here was their evidence that andre uh was a gang member it's these tattoos but these tattoos are not... And then, if the dam breaks, right? Like, in theory. Maybe a dam will never break. The dam breaks in theory.

And I just go back to, you hate to ever give the Republicans credit for anything. But, especially on some of the absurd stuff they did around Benghazi. This is how Benghazi worked. Like, the Democrats kept making fun of the Republicans. Oh, you're so obsessed with Benghazi. Nobody cares about Benghazi. But all those hearings that trey gowdy had like eventually

by law lawyers and whatever department officials made the government turn stuff over you learned more stuff and and like by a like long kind of butterfly flapping its wings way that investigation ended up being the thing that that got people that got the anthony weiner uh laptop you know that that led to many butterflies hillary's emails discovered yeah that led to the james comey press conference right so like you just don't know you know what i mean so like it's important to do that stuff to to continue to rather you know and so i think no doubt you're limited when you're in the minority um but it's important to have the record show that you're pushing for it. The only other notable moment came when Dan Goldman was talking, impressing Christina.

And, you know, this was about the legality of what's happening with the Brego Garcia. And it really sort of crystallized how this fight is being waged. Brego Garcia is in his home country. What steps have you taken? If your continued advocacy for him were to- I'm not advocating for him. I'm advocating for a court order, Madam Secretary. The court order says that you must take steps

to follow the court order. You are here under oath. What steps have you taken to return Mr. Obrego Garcia pursuant to this court order. You are here under oath. What steps have you taken to return Mr. Obrego Garcia pursuant to this court order? It's got to be extremely discouraging to be one of your constituents. To see you fight for a terrorist like this and not fight for them is extremely alarming to me. I'm fighting for due process. And that's under the constitution. Gentlemen, you should fight to process so i mean to me this is it it's like this is the this is the essence of the argument and it's who can be

more convincing in this argument and i you know i'm partial to the rule of law and the constitution respecting the court obviously but like you know who am i I'm just one way to put up for your take off your journalist at your unbiased journalist out there and show a little leg. This is new ground for me. No, but to me that, I mean, would gnomes argument be persuasive for a lot of people? Probably. Yeah.

I think probably would be a lot of lot of people and i think a part of it the like oh even if he comes back he gets deported again but to me that's bullshit it's not true because he by the other supreme court decision he has to have some habeas corpus uh hearing but whatever and also like the stop um i forget the technical term but there's like a stop deportation order on him basically because it was like he can't be sent to El Salvador. Right. I think she was saying, well, we'll send him to, you know, Libya. Libya.

Yeah, we'll send him to Libya. Great. You know, again, I think that as far as a political framework is concerned, the Democrats are best suited to stay on the ground of you don't want the government having this kind of power pulling people off the streets sending them to foreign prisons the joe rogan argument like that's the best argument that democrats have politically but like in in a congressional hearing such as this you don't all the democrats don't always need to be making like the optimized tv ad argument right and there's a policy argument that could be made that is where Dan Goldman is going, again, for the purpose of trying to get more cracks in the facade here in order to try to yield some results. Yeah. Did you see Mayor Pete's handling of this question last night?

Due process is afforded to everybody because it is through that due process that our society can make decisions, including challenging decisions, about what happens to you if you are in fact held to be in violation of the law. As, ironically, happened to the president himself when he went through probable cause, due process, jury, all that. He got due process. It was a classic Mayor Pete line. Oh boy, that was a classic Mayor Pete line. But in a rare case, Mayor Pete has me maybe convinced of taking the other side of that, which is like maybe we shouldn't have given Donald Trump due process.

The idea of Donald Trump in El Salvador sounds pretty good. Wow. But that's bad. Another one of Biden's missed opportunities, I suppose. All right, Tim, thanks so much, man. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. Tune into our feed for stuff like this.

We will talk to you soon.