Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday defended a spate of recent photo ops in which she has acted out various jobs in the department.
Critics on both sides of the aisle—including right-wing pundit Megyn Kelly—have jabbed Noem, saying that the constant game of dress-up for field operations is unnecessary.
On Fox News, host Jesse Watters asked Noem—who has played a firefighter, a pilot, an ICE agent, and a Customs and Border Protection officer—about the feedback, some of which has come from her own side of the aisle.
“Some critics are saying you look too glamorous when you’re wandering through these mega-prisons, or you shouldn’t be all tacked-out, posing for cameras,” he said, alluding to Noem apparently wearing a $60,000 watch at a notorious prison in El Salvador, and just yesterday holding a rifle while rounding up migrants in Arizona.
“What do you say to them?” Watters asked, not mentioning how Noem’s rifle was inadvertently pointed at an officer’s head.
Noem brushed it off, saying the agencies she visits welcome her and her attire.
“Every day I wake up and there’s new criticisms. It something different every single day, so I try not to pay attention to the noise,” she said.
“Obviously I’m guided by the folks that I work with every day to be appropriate for the situation that I’m in and to take the same that precautions they do,” Noem said, not mentioning the bipartisan concern about her gun safety.
“I will tell you that I oversee 26 different components of the Department of Homeland Security, and they are so proud of the fact that I’m willing to wear an ICE hat, that I’m willing to wear an HSI vest, that I’m willing to go into there and wear something and be proud of them and the work that they do. They didn’t have that with the last leadership team,” she went on, with Watters agreeing.
“He wore Sid Mashburn. That’s what he wore,” Watters said, an apparent reference to Alejandro Mayorkas, who was photographed once by right-wing publication The Washington Free Beacon outside the high-end store in Washington, D.C.
