Kristi Noem's Hurt Feelings Over South Park Have Her Forgetting That Trump Is The Insult King

The new season of "South Park" is as topical and ruthless as fans have come to expect, but the Director of Homeland Security isn't amused. The second episode of the controversial cartoon made a laughingstock of Kristi Noem, poking fun at her cosplay, her push to recruit more ICE agents, and her infamous puppy-shooting incident (yep, they went there). But it was the roasting of Noem's rumored plastic surgery that really got under her skin. One scene showed her character calling for her makeup team to "fix me up!" as the Botox wears off and her face creepily melts (via YouTube, warning: graphic content).

Appearing on Fox's "The Glenn Beck Program," Noem bashed the portrayal. "[I]t's just so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look," she said (via CNN). "It's only the liberals and the extremists [who] do that. If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can't. They pick something petty like that." 

She might be regretting that comment now, as the internet is racing to put her straight. "South Park" did, in fact, take aim at her job, spoofing ICE as giving minimal training to new recruits and racially targeting its detainees. Many critics don't consider it "petty" that she put down her hunting dog for being untrainable. As for that "only liberals" part? Commenters online would like to remind her that her boss, President Donald Trump himself, has a long history of blasting women's looks — and the only thing liberal about him is his liberal consumption of Quarter Pounders and Diet Coke.

 The MAGA set likes to paint left-leaning folks as being too sensitive, but Kristi Noem's reaction to her "South Park" portrayal shows her skin isn't exactly made of elephant hide. Her comment about the show being petty for ridiculing her looks is especially ironic, considering that Donald Trump has turned to that very tactic for years. In addition to Trump's wild nicknames for his opponents — "Ron DeSanctimonious" and "Basement Biden," to name a few — he's blasted women for everything from their weight to their attractiveness. 

In 2016, he famously posted a meme on X, formerly Twitter, unfavorably comparing the appearance of Ted Cruz's wife to that of his own spouse, Melania Trump. The year prior, he sneered at presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina, telling a group of reporters, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" (via Rolling Stone). Plastic surgery isn't off-limits for him, either. He once referred to journalist Mika Brezinski as "low I.Q., Crazy Mika" and described her as "bleeding badly from a face-lift" when she came to visit him at Mar-a-Lago. As one of the many respondents online pointed out, "Trump is the king of insulting women based on appearances."

Noem might have done better to take the route chosen by Vice President JD Vance. "South Park" raked him over the coals as well, portraying him as the Tattoo sidekick being kicked around by Trump's Mr. Roarke on their Fantasy Island-esque resort. Vance reposted a tweet from the show's account, quipping, "Well, I've finally made it." Judging by the snarky responses he got, Vance's good-sport approach wasn't impressive, but at least he recognized that any political figure is a potential target for Cartman and company.