This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Gov. Kristi Noem was in Washington, D.C. for a week. She was there for her confirmation hearing as Secretary of Homeland Security and the swearing in of the President Donald Trump.
We check in with our Dakota Political Junkies for analysis of her visit and other news from the 100th legislative session in Pierre.
Seth Tupper is editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight, and Jonathan Ellis is co-founder of The Dakota Scout.
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Lori Walsh:
Seth, I was looking over the story that you had in South Dakota Searchlight that kind of brought people up to speed on Governor Kristi Noem's career highlights, her political career highlights, sort her origin story, and then all the way up to her confirmation hearing and the challenges ahead.
One of the themes that you found, and I'd like you to start here, is that she's always been a risk-taker.
Seth Tupper:
Yeah. And that story is written in part for our other state outlets and maybe people around the country that aren't as familiar with Kristi Noem as we are here.
But yeah, just kind of provided an overview of sort of her life and times. And I took that cue on that theme from one of her books where she talked about, she said herself that her life has been all about risks.
And really it seems like since her father tragically died in a farm accident in 1994, she had made a decision after that time to take big leaps and take big risks and go big.
And that drove her to run for the Legislature, to run for Congress, to run for governor, and now to have apparently told President Donald Trump that the position that she wanted and his administration was Department of Homeland Security Secretary. And according to her, that's what she said, and that's the one she's about to get apparently.
And the other big risk, of course, is maybe the biggest one was tying herself and her fortunes to President Trump, which seems to have paid off for now.
But as we've seen, that doesn't always pay off in the long run for everybody who gets close to Trump and Trump world.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. All right, so a few things that stand out to you about her biography and the things that we have seen in South Dakota that you think she might bring with her as Secretary of Homeland Security.
Seth Tupper:
Well, toughness. I mean, I've been as critical of Governor Noem in the commentary I've written for South Dakota Searchlight as anybody. But I definitely recognize that this is somebody who is a substantial person, has a lot of toughness from being raised on a farm and ranch in South Dakota and from taking on all the risk and the big political races that she's taken on.
So I think that she's also somebody who's used to maybe being underestimated, somebody who came on the scene as a political newcomer and was underestimated then, but yet toppled an incumbent to win her seat in Congress and has been sort of exceeding those early expectations ever since.
So I think she'll bring a toughness and I think she'll bring that ability to kind of take advantage of people underestimating her and use that to her advantage in her own advancement. And I'll be really interested to see how she interacts with the other folks on Trump's team who are dealing with immigration.
Tom Homan, the border czar, and Stephen Miller, who's an advisor to Trump, and they have some immigration responsibilities, obviously, that they have.
But then we have Noem who's supposed to be the head of the entire department of Homeland Security. So it'd be really interesting to see how those personalities work or clash because I don't think Governor Noem is somebody who's just going to stand in the background and let somebody else do the job she's supposed to be doing.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Jonathan Ellis, you also have spent more than a few years following the career and the political rise of Kristi Noem. Tell us a little bit of the things that you think her political resume brings to this next role as Secretary of Homeland Security.
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, to go on on what Seth said, I mean, that congressional run in 2010 was a huge gamble. She's a two-term lawmaker at the time, hardly a household name. There were already two pretty well-established Republicans in the race, including Chris Nelson, who had won statewide office a couple of times already. And the specter of Shantel Krebs, who was a much better one than a lawmaker also getting into the race. So the fact that she did that in that 2010 primary, wins the primary and then wins in a general election for a very good year for Republicans.
But who would've thought, I think know Stephanie Herseth Sandlin had won upwards probably north of 60-some percent of the vote in 2008, in couple of her two previous elections. So she has some experience via Congress that would certainly acquaint her with a lot of these issues that she would be dealing with at the Department of Homeland Security. It's important to remember that this is a huge organization that with massive responsibilities.
A lot of Republicans, when it was created and of the Ron Paul variety were warning at the time that this agency, that this department was created, that it's too big and it's got too many responsibilities and it's just going to be too difficult for one person to kind of oversee this as a secretary. So I think she's got her challenges, and I think we've talked about this before, but I think that with all of the unknown people who've come into the country in the last four years, I think she's got some real big challenges, whoever's in that position going forward.
Lori Walsh:
Well, Jonathan, I want to go there because in President Trump's inaugural address he made some statements that were very sweeping about what was possible on the southern border. "We're going to stop this. There will be no more border crossings that are not authorized."
And some of that seems like a huge challenge to put before the person who is in charge of executing that policy.
How will she be judged and measured? How good is good enough at that point? How fast is fast enough to see the president's policies go forth?
Because again, he suggested how much authority she does have to make some of those decisions. She doesn't have absolute authority to do whatever you want in American politics. Can she even do what he's putting in front of her based on the inaugural address?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, I mean, I think it's quite a tall order to ask for all illegal entries to stop. I mean, given the size of the border, the terrain of the border, and the fact that there's always been some level of that type of migration back and forth, frankly. And that's a big deal.
But some of the legal analysis I've been looking at this morning and listening to on my way to Pierre was that some of these executive orders that the president signed last night, it's not just going to be Department of Homeland Security.
I mean, declaring an emergency at the border enables the military to come in and start helping build the wall, things of that nature. So it's not going to be her on an island. I think this is kind of an all-hands-on effort. You've seen Texas now step up its efforts in the last 24 hours. So this is going to be, I think, a team effort for the Trump administration.
Lori Walsh:
Seth, border crossings, illegal border crossings have been down during the final months of the Biden presidency. President Trump put forth some big challenges for the future. How do you think Kristi Noem will be measured as Secretary of Homeland Security? How much scrutiny for immediate action will be on her?
Seth Tupper:
Well, I think there'll be intense scrutiny, not only from the public and millions of people who voted for President Trump and expect some action on the border, but also from President Trump himself.
And when I spoke earlier about sort of the risk of attaching yourself to the fortunes of President Trump, yeah, she's in the good graces now and she's got the job, but if things go wrong and things don't go well with trying to take action on the border, Trump might be looking for heads to roll.
And he might turn to her as the first person to blame, and she could be on the outs with Trump world just as much as quickly as she was in. And so the risk that she's taking, so I think she's under pretty intense pressure. And of course, if they do a good job securing the border, there'll be all kinds of people clamoring for the credit, including her.
And if things don't go well, there'll be all kinds of people available to take the blame if Trump wants to distribute that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Seth, she said during her confirmation hearing that she was surprised that she didn't get more questions about TSA, which indicated to me that maybe she had some ideas or she was perhaps prepared to talk about TSA more.
And another one of her roles is natural disasters. She mentioned a lot in her final State of the State address. And of course we know what's happening in California. President Trump mentioned South Carolina and hurricanes.
So she also has to deal with disaster response in her role. And Seth, you've been critical and we've talked a lot about her disaster response in South Dakota and some of her failures in that regard.
Is she ready for FEMA?
Seth Tupper:
Yeah, that was one of the interesting parts of Governor Noem's confirmation hearing, I thought, where she talked about some FEMA employees not coming into work and working remotely, and she was very critical of that. And she said something to the effect of, "People not even showing up for disasters," which I thought was a highly ironic statement, given the amount of attention and criticism she's received for the fact that on June 23rd when there were floodwaters bearing down on McCook Lake, she showed up and gave a press conference, made it look as though she was taking charge of everything and running the response.
And then, unbeknownst to everybody until a little bit later, we found out she flew out to a political fundraiser in Tennessee that night. So that was interesting. That's of course, one example.
But I thought the hearing even more broadly was really interesting because just sort of the absurd theater that it is when you think about it. This is the governor of South Dakota, and obviously she spent probably a couple months prepping for this and did a good job.
But this is somebody who probably three months ago knew almost nothing about the Department of Homeland Security probably. She's been to the border and she sent troops there, et cetera.
But she was running the state of South Dakota. And I just find it funny, these hearings, they pluck people out of these positions and placed them in this chair, and then she kind of crams for a test and sits there and answers all these questions that two months ago she probably didn't know anything about. And that's the system we've got. But I just found that to be sort of a funny aspect of the process.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. They would've prepped her, they would've had mock interviews. And we don't know what the behind-the-scenes process is.
Jonathan Ellis, anything else you want to say about the inauguration, particularly Kristi Noem's role in it and what we're looking for in her first 100 days?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, I mean, she obviously, during the ceremony itself, I mean, she was pretty central. You could see her in the shots because of where she was seated in the aisle way there. So she, I think she had kind of a prominent seat, somewhat prominent seat at the event itself. I unfortunately had a lot of work to do yesterday so I didn't get to see as much as I had wanted to.
But I mean, the inauguration from what I did see was it looked like the pomp and circumstance. It looked like a very nice event, frankly.
I mean, most people were dressed very well. Just from a fashion point of view, it looked really good for the most part. And it just looked like a nice event, a nice celebration of our democratic transfer of powers. Going forward, I think this is going to be, this next 30 days, next 60 to 90 days, what they can get done in terms of putting together a reconciliation package that includes what Republicans want in terms of border and taxes.
Those will be big days coming ahead. When will Kristi Noem be confirmed? I mean, she was voted out of Homeland Security last night by a 13-2 vote, just two Democrats voting against her in the committee hearing. So I expect she'll actually get some Democratic votes on the floor. So yeah, we'll see. I think that that will come potentially even by the end of the week.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, just for clarity, that vote happened Monday night. Yes. All right. Jonathan Ellis, you're in Pierre. Let's wrap up with some of the things that you have your eyes out for this week in the state legislature.
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, they're just kind of getting going here. There's a bill that the House will have today that would require that teachers take some education in Native American studies, which I think, given South Dakota, that's definitely an important deal. So that's something, but the big issues have yet to sort of play out yet, but they certainly will be coming.
Lori Walsh:
Seth Tupper, final word, something you're looking for this week in the state legislative session?
Seth Tupper:
We had our reporter, Makenzie Huber, was in the Appropriations' committee this morning where they had presentations from the Department of Social Services and Department of Human Services. And as your listeners may recall, those departments are subjected to a combined tens of millions of dollars in cuts proposed by the governor.
So I'm really interested to hear what came out of that hearing and what the discussion was and how those cuts are viewed going forward.
