Kristi Noem's many hats

Earlier this month, the political operation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem began running a wave of new digital ads in South Dakota promoting her official work in Washington. 

“Not only is former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem leading President Trump’s efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens, but Mount Rushmore is on prominent display inside the Department of Homeland Security’s Washington D.C. Headquarters,” one ad reads. 

The ads, run on Facebook and X by Noem-affiliated political group American Resolve Policy Fund, have also promoted Noem’s recent media appearances and bizarrely attacked a small news outlet for its coverage of the former Governor back home in South Dakota. 

As the content exclusively targets viewers in South Dakota, it is a little unclear what the goal of the campaign is. Newly sworn in as DHS Secretary, Noem is not currently running for office in the state. Groups like American Resolve are typically used by nationally relevant elected officials to keep their options open, conduct fundraising and polling, and grow their lists as they mull bids for higher office. As far as I can tell, she is the only Trump cabinet secretary who has an active political operation running ads promoting her work.

However, this type of mini ad campaign has become quite common for Noem - throughout her career, she has shown a keen interest in running splashy advertising campaigns online and off. For example, ahead of the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Noem deployed a “don’t forget about me!” strategy, running ads targeting Republican primary voters in early states like Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Back home in South Dakota, she seems to have particularly enjoyed the more cinematic aspects of filming video ads, having dressed up as a welder, electrician, construction worker, dentist, accountant, cowboy, highway patrol, and nurse in official government-sponsored ad campaigns over the years. This has led some to give her the nickname “Cosplay Kristi.” 

Now, as Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Noem has received a much larger stage on which to play dress up. She’s worn a flak jacket while going on immigration raids with ICE, and “co-piloted” a surveillance plane with the U.S. Coast Guard. 

Most notably, she is the star of a new $200 million advertising campaign aimed at telling migrants from Central America to stay away from the southern border. The first wave of ads from that campaign feature Noem speaking direct-to-camera in English with a thick midwestern accent - hardly an effective messenger for a campaign aimed at Spanish-speaking individuals. 

“Thank you to President Donald J. Trump for securing our border and putting America first,” Noem says in the ad. On Facebook, where DHS has already spent $125,000 promoting the video, her team is targeting users who like “Soccer,” “Mexican Cuisine,” and “Latin Music,” among other interest categories. The content is being primarily served to viewers in TX, AZ, CA, and FL, in addition to a few major metropolitan areas. According to POLITICO, DHS has also spent over $2 million on television ads, broadcasting during programs like The Today Show or FOX News’ The Five. Last week, the Bulwark noted an even more curious bit of targeting information from the campaign: a $30,000 expenditure targeting the location of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on a weekend he was visiting the area. 

For such a costly ad buy, the campaign sure seems like former Vice President Harris’ “do not come” moment on steroids. 

Noem’s DHS has already come under scrutiny for enlisting Republican-linked ad firms in a less-than-open bidding process, and other than this report in the AP, the mainstream media seems to have shrugged off the whole thing. Could you imagine if former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, widely considered to have presidential ambitions, spent $200 million in federal dollars on ads with his face on them thanking President Biden, and giving no-bid contracts to Democratic political ad makers? People on both sides of the aisle would have a field day. 

But for Noem, the whole saga seems to be precisely why she took the DHS job in the first place. She’s able to grow her clout among the MAGA faithful, ingratiate herself with Trump, and introduce herself to millions of Americans on her own terms. 

How the Right dominates “online shows”

Last Thursday, the team at Media Matters produced an excellent report that broke down the breadth and reach of conservatives’ advantage in long-form programming on platforms like YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Twitch. They assessed the audience size of a few hundred popular online shows—from Joe Rogan to Meidas Touch—and illustrated the clear advantage that right-wing programs have built over the years.

The entire report is worth your time, check it out here.

Kyrsten Sinema’s “I told you so” moment

Over the weekend, former U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema logged off of Facebook Marketplace and logged onto X to troll congressional Democrats. Firing off over fifteen posts from Friday to Sunday, the former Green Party member turned performative centrist called out the hypocrisy of her former colleagues for opposing the Senate filibuster when they held the majority last year but now relying on the archaic procedural tool in their attempt to stop Republicans’ bill from passing on Friday. 

“Just surprised to see support for the ‘Jim Crow Filibuster’ here,” she wrote, while quote-tweeting Rep. Pramila Jayapal, surfacing old comments made by the Washington State progressive. 

Sinema is indeed correct that Democrats, locked out of a Senate majority for at least another six years, are thankful that the filibuster can still provide them with some mechanism to slow down the MAGA agenda. It is noteworthy, however, that Sinema has not posted one piece of content on X (or anywhere) about the Trump administration’s slashing of the federal workforce, appointment of political hacks to run major federal agencies, betrayal of our nation’s closest allies, or the growing corrupt oligarchy that now runs our government. It seems she’s just here for a little bit of “I told you so” revenge. 

More things you should read:

• Hot off the presses: The New Yorker just published an entirely way too long profile of Hasan Piker and Democrats’ efforts to win “The Battle for the Bros.

• On a similar note, according to the New York Times, “prominent [Democratic] leaders are flocking to sports radio shows and podcasts, an early sign of how the party is trying to reach apolitical young men who have tilted toward President Trump.

• Former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz kicked off a tour of town-hall style events last week, starting in Iowa and Nebraska. Bernie Sanders is continuing his nationwide “fighting oligarchy” tour, and will be joined at some events by AOC. At the same time, the DNC also announced a set of local “People’s Town Halls” in congressional districts across the country. You can find those events here.

• MAGA is waging a full on assault on Democrats’ small-dollar fundraising operations, with Congressional Republicans targeting tech giant ActBlue and intimidating progressive organizations.

• Last week, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) became the fifth congressional Democrat in the past year to die in office. With condolences to his family and friends, his passing underscores the sad reality that too many members of Congress overstay their time in Washington. By wide margins, Americans support both age limits and term limits for federal elected officials. 

One last thing: Anti-immigrant content pops off on TikTok

The Trump campaign’s official TikTok account, @TeamTrump, has been ramping back up its content operation in recent weeks. Last week, the account shared a viral video of the wall on the southern border, which has received over 13.8 million views and a million likes. Another video from the account, featuring footage of migrants in handcuffs, has been viewed over 5 million times. At the same time, El Salvador’s Trumpian-populist President Nayib Bukele published a highly produced video across social media platforms that featured the arrival of the Trump administration’s deportation flights. That video has received millions of views across TikTok, Instagram, and X. This type of viral anti-immigrant content has become something of a trend for our new overlords in the new Trump era, a bet that there’s no real downside to projecting a tough-on-crime image across the internet.

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