Kristi Noem Mocked for Thanking Trump for Keeping Hurricanes Away: ‘Not a Cabinet, It’s a Cult’

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was mocked Tuesday for comments she made seeming to credit President Donald Trump with preventing hurricanes.

Noem made the remarks during a cabinet meeting Tuesday during which the president made a number of false claims himself.

After accusing President Joe Biden of using DHS to “invade the country with terrorists” and thanking Trump for giving her “a very interesting job,” Noem said that her agency was hiring its 10,000th ICE officer who would “be on the job within ten days,” bragging about getting “hundreds of thousands of applications.”

Noem also claimed that TSA “went through this government shutdown without any delays,” saying that “they all showed up for their shifts and worked hard doing security and they have been absolutely fantastic.”

It’s not clear what data Noem was citing to claim there were “no delays” during the shutdown, but that is not accurate; beyond FAA cancelling flights due to air traffic control staffing shortages, there were also problems filling TSA shifts since employees were not being paid, plus other delays during the shutdown. For example, Houston had wait times in its airport security lines of up to three hours in early November.

It was Noem’s comments about hurricanes, however, that drew far more attention.

“You made it through the hurricane season without a hurricane,” Noem said to Trump.

“Yeah,” replied Trump, as the other Cabinet members laughed.

“And so FEMA —  you kept the hurricanes away, we appreciate that,” said Noem, before discussing resources that FEMA had been deploying.

Noem’s comments may have been made in jest, but still sparked a wave of mockery on social media, with many commenters calling out what they viewed as an extreme level of obsequiousness.

A sampling of reactions is below.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!