Jim Beam column:Sen. Kennedy tough on Noem

Published 6:02 am Saturday, March 7, 2026

Louisiana’s folksy U.S. Sen. John Kennedy’s tough grilling of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may have helped President Donald Trump decide to fire her Thursday.

The grilling by Kennedy and others occurred during a five-hour hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Noem was evasive during much of the hearing.

Noem definitely qualified as the prima donna of the Trump administration. Prima donna is defined as a vain, temperamental, or conceited person who demands special treatment, acts superior to others, and is difficult to work with.

Mark Ballard, Washington correspondent for The Advocate, covered Tuesday’s hearing and said Kennedy challenged Noem on spending $220 million for television commercials featuring her. Noem said “she acted with President Donald Trump’s blessing to make commercials made under a contract she had nothing to do with.”

“I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth,” Kennedy said about the commercials, with his hand over his heart. “Knowing the president as I do, it’s hard for me to believe you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”

Trump said he didn’t know about the commercials, which confirms what Kennedy said.

Kennedy, R-Madisonville, said his records showed The Strategy Group handled the commercials and received the lion’s share of the contracts worth about $220 million.

The news report said the firm’s chief executive officer is married to Noem’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, has worked with the firm.

Kennedy said Safe America Media, the other company, was formed 11 days before being picked.

“The people that you ended up picking were people who had formerly done your political work back in South Dakota. Is that right?” Kennedy asked.

“No, that’s not correct sir,” Noem said. “I think it is,” Kennedy said.

Then Kennedy asked, “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?”

Noem said, “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 has been extremely effective.”

Ballard said Kennedy was more polite and low-key when he “drilled down on the TV commercials, in which Noem warned immigrants who entered the country without proper documentation and those in other countries thinking about coming to America without permission that they would be deported.”

Kennedy’s questioning switched to Noem reportedly calling Alex Pretti and Renée Good, two U.S. citizens who were killed by federal officers while protesting immigration roundups in Minneapolis, “domestic terrorists.”

“I think it would be safe to say you got some pushback on that,” Kennedy said. “What got my attention is you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller at the White House, did you not?”

“No sir, where you’re seeing that is in a news article of anonymous sources,” Noem said. “I have never said that.”

Kennedy read from a Jan. 26 news article. “Are you denying that you said that?” he asked.

“Sir, I’m not going to speak to that situation that is relayed (by) anonymous sources,” Noem responded.

“You said it. They are quoting you on the record,” Kennedy said before his time for questioning expired.

Noem’s department also came under fire in February in an NBC report that said DHS had been leasing a luxury jet that it wanted to purchase for $70 million.

Some officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is under DHS, initially said the aircraft was too luxurious in the way it was outfitted to be used for immigrant deportations.

A spokesman for DHS had a different story. He said the plane is intended to save taxpayer money because it would serve dual missions both for ICE deportation flights and for cabinet level travel.

However, one of the two DHS officials involved in the purchase request called the idea of using the jet for immigrant deportations “far-fetched.”

Although he fired Noem, Trump said he’ll make her a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere. So his prima donna got another government job.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at jim.beam.press@gmail.com.