‘Shamefully Edited’: Noem Posts Her Own Version of Kilmar Abrego Garcia Answer from Face the Nation Interview
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted CBS News for “shamefully” editing her response to a question about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying Face the Nation left out key details, including her answer that the Salvadoran citizen at the heart of a deportation controversy poses a threat to “American public safety.”
Noem, in a post through her official account X on Sunday, shared a video showing the program cut 26 seconds from her answer related to Garcia in which she described him as a “perverted” MS-13 gang member and “wife-beater” whom the administration intends to bring to justice. Abrego Garcia, Noem added, has even sickened his fellow thugs by soliciting child porn.
Watch:
“This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Noem wrote. “Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”
In Noem’s clip shared to X, the two cuts showed her full answer above what she said aired on the network. After saying she does not want to see Abrego Garcia “walk free” in the U.S. again, Noem went down a list of Garcia’s alleged criminal past, which did not appear in the version that aired.
“This individual was a known human smuggler, a MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife-beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors. And even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off, he was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children,” Noem said in her original, full answer.
“So he needs to never be in the United States of America,” Noem continued in the missing portion. “And our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can to bring him to justice.”
Reps for CBS News did not immediately respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.
For the record, Mediaite pulled a clip of that portion of the Face the Nation interview from the broadcast on WCBS-NY.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been attempting to deport Garcia for months. Garcia was initially deported to his home country of El Salvador in March — where Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) traveled to visit him — but U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued an injunction the following month, ordering Garcia’s return to Maryland.
Garcia has been in legal limbo ever since. His attorneys last week filed an emergency motion for him to claim asylum in the States or, if he is deported, be sent to Costa Rica. He is currently being held in a detention center in Virginia, with the federal government aiming to send him to Uganda if it is given the legal green light to do so.
