These Painfully Awkward Kristi Noem Moments Will Haunt Her Forever

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Kristi Noem essentially shot herself in the foot with her 2024 memoir "No Going Back." For some strange reason, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary couldn't resist telling the world that she fatally shot her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, because she found the poor animal "untrainable." What followed the disturbing revelation was intense backlash, widespread bewilderment, and an accidental, yet telling revelation from JD Vance. When the vice president appeared on the New York Post's "Pod Force One," in October 2025, the interviewer brought up how Twitch streamer Hasan Piker was under fire for allegedly abusing his dog. "If you can actually cause suffering to an innocent animal, you're probably the kind of person who doesn't worry about suffering in people as well and that's been my experience," Vance opined. He then reiterated that animal abuse was a tell-tale sign of "a really terrible person." 

The former Ohio Senator inadvertently likened his colleague to serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, too, by pointing out that they started off by torturing animals. What makes the situation even more awkward is the fact that Noem previously dodged the exact same bullet. According to Politico, an early draft of the former South Dakota governor's first memoir, "Not My First Rodeo," also featured the controversial anecdote. However, the publishing experts behind the book understandably thought it best to leave it out. 

But she wound up working with a different team for her second autobiography that apparently greenlit the story. Although Noem made a major amount of money with her controversial memoir, she also paid the price for it in gold with her destroyed reputation. However, the embarrassment from the controversial politician's second autobiography paled in comparison to some of her other intensely awkward moments over the years. 

When President Donald Trump's controversial Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, attended a hearing in May 2025, Senator Maggie Hassan asked her to give a basic definition of habeas corpus. "Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from the country," Noem responded with full confidence (via YouTube). Before she could complete her personal definition, though, the New Hampshire senator fact-checked her in real-time, correctly defining habeas corpus as a writ that required the government to have a valid reason for imprisoning people. 

Hassan then stressed that habeas corpus was vital for a democratic country like America since it prevented people from being indefinitely detained at the government's whim. When Hassan asked the DHS secretary if she would side with the federal court's decision to uphold habeas corpus, or Trump's desire to overturn it, she replied that she would do whatever the federal court deemed right, as everyone in the administration always had. Hassan was then forced to remind Noem that there were plenty of times when they had blatantly ignored federal orders. 

Notably, back in May 2025, a federal judge overturned the Department of Homeland Security's decision to revoke the student visa of an Indian student named Priya Saxena over a minor traffic violation from back in 2021. Perhaps the most embarrassing part of the whole incident occurred when Saxena earned her doctorate around the same time that Noem also received an honorary doctorate from South Dakota State University. While the Indian student's graduation was met with thunderous applause, Noem's honorary doctorate received widespread backlash.

During a December 2025 hearing before the House, Representative Seth Magaziner asked Kristi Noem whether she was responsible for the deportation of any veterans. Without missing a beat, the former South Dakota governor confirmed that the DHS hadn't done so. Within the next few moments, Magaziner revealed that a war veteran named Sae Joon Park, whom her department had deported, was on Zoom, much to Noem's dismay. However, it wasn't enough for the controversial politician to change her tune, as she later stated that she was "grateful for every single person that has served our country and follows our laws, and knows that our laws are important and every one of them needs to be enforced." 

MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported?

NOEM: We haven't deported veterans

MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea pic.twitter.com/oz8Epvf4I4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 11, 2025

According to NPR, Park, a green-card holder who had immigrated to the States at the age of seven, had been deported to South Korea in 2025 over a drug possession charge and a failure to appear in court, both of which occurred in the 1990s. The Purple Heart recipient argued that both offenses took place when he was gravely struggling with PTSD. At one point, it seemed that the embarrassment from the hearing became too much for Noem bear. As a result, she proclaimed that she wouldn't be able to answer any more of the committee's pressing questions because she had to rush to an important FEMA meeting. 

However, Mississippi Senator Bennie Thompson later dished to The Hill that the DHS secretary may have just been trying to dodge more inquiries, because the meeting in question had been cancelled. He sought to subpoena Noem to continue her testimony.

Some of Kristi Noem's worst-dressed moments that are hard to ignore come from her political cosplays. For some reason, the Republican politician has spent an absurd amount of time playing dress-up throughout her career, donning the outfits of construction workers, firefighters, and bikers, among many others. And, of course, who can forget Noem's MAGA cowgirl stunt that came across as so try-hard. Her antics have earned the former South Dakota governor the nickname of "Cosplay Kristi" and left tons of people cringing. In April 2025, Noem took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share footage of herself holding a gun while bragging about how she was joining ICE officers to assist them with deportations. 

What she clearly perceived to be a cool video only brought more humiliation, as many social media users, including Senator Ruben Gallego, poked fun at how she was casually pointing a loaded gun in the direction of an ICE officer's head. Many netizens were also utterly baffled by how someone in Noem's position hadn't properly secured her vest. However, the politician's own cringeworthy past didn't stop her from criticizing others. In June 2025, Senator Alex Padilla was handcuffed and roughly removed from a news conference hosted by Noem for simply trying to ask a question. 

Shortly afterward, the Trump staffer proudly informed Fox News that she would have happily cleared his doubts if Padilla had spoken to her one-on-one rather than engaging in "political theater." California Governor Gavin Newsom then joined many other social media commentators in helpfully providing photographic evidence of all the times Noem had indulged in "political theater" by donning her ridiculous cosplay.

The timeline of Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski's rumored affair is riddled with stories of them openly engaging in PDA. According to a September 2023 report by the Daily Mail, Noem became romantically involved with her senior adviser as early as 2019. Of course, by then, both parties had been married to their respective spouses for over a decade and had even welcomed children with them. However, that apparently didn't stop the longtime coworkers from being touchy-feely in public. One member of President Donald Trump's administration recalled how he had run into Noem and Lewandowski at AmpFest. "I had met Corey a few times, but that was the first time I saw Kristi," they shared. "I told Corey it was nice to meet his wife. He looked at me and said, 'That's not my wife.'" 

According to another insider, Trump's former campaign manager made inappropriate remarks about Noem's body and publicly admitted that he was attracted to her. The former South Dakota Governor apparently suffered secondhand embarrassment from her rumored lover's proclamations, as the insider claimed, "Kristi would make excuses for his behavior and apologize to staffers for him." What makes the DHS secretary's reported personal and even professional relationship with Lewandowski considerably more awkward is that she publicly distanced herself from him in September 2021. 

At the time, disturbing rumors of Noem's alleged affair partner arose, with Politico disclosing that Republican Party donor Trashelle Odom had accused Lewandowski of making unwanted physical and verbal advances to her at an event. Noem's spokesperson later announced in a statement that she was severing professional ties with him.

Notably, an early edition of Kristi Noem's memoir, "No Going Back," invited some serious trouble for her. At one point, the Republican politician looked back on how she had refused to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron because of his comments about the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, Macron's office shared a statement with the Associated Press to clarify that Noem had never actually received a "direct invitation" to an audience with the highly respected world leader. The Trump staffer's spokesperson was then forced to acknowledge that she only been offered the option to sit in the French leader's box at the Armistice Day Parade. 

Elsewhere in her book, Noem also recalled how she had met up with controversial North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and wondered whether he had discounted her talents. But a former government official who was well-versed in America's relationship with North Korea told the AP that the meeting did not happen. Thereafter, in a statement to The Scout, Noem's spokesperson professed that the book's editor and ghostwriter had erroneously included the story about the North Korean dictator. However, a small silver lining was that it at least didn't happen in real-time, like Noem's slip-up on CNN, in February 2025. 

When Dana Bash brought up how the GOP had maintained that unelected government officials shouldn't be entrusted with personal data, Noem agreed with her, replying, "We can't trust the government anymore." Understandably, that eyebrow-raising admission forced Bash to point out, "But you are the government." Then, Noem proceeded to contradict herself by claiming that it was okay for Elon Musk to have access to personal information because it would benefit the government.