Homeland Security Secretary Noem faces questions from Republicans

Abu Sabet: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday was met with skepticism from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who argued during a hearing that a more than $200 million ad campaign was primarily “effective in your name recognition.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last February announced the ad campaign, which features Noem telling migrants to go home or face deportation. A firm with ties to Noem and her former spokeswoman received the contract, which was awarded after skirting the competitive bidding process.

The exchange Tuesday marked unusual pushback from a member of the president’s party against the spending of a Cabinet official, with Kennedy suggesting the video was done to promote Noem rather than the Trump agenda and put the president “in a terribly awkward spot.”

“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked.

Noem told the audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that President Trump had asked her to craft the ad to thank him for his work at the border.

“He said, ‘I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir. I will thank you for closing the border,’” Noem said last year.

“To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot. I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth,” Kennedy said during the questioning.

“It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them’ that he would have agreed to that. I don’t think Russ Vought at [the Office of Management and Budget] would have agreed to that. It’s something we have to defend. I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I mean, my research shows that you did not bid them out,” Kennedy said, adding that one of the contractors “was formed 11 days before you picked them.”

DHS invoked a national emergency at the time, which allowed them to avoid the competitive bidding process. The Strategy Group was involved with Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial race and the company’s CEO is married to former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Corey Lewandowski, a top adviser at DHS, has also previously worked with the firm. The Strategy Group got the money after the contract was initially awarded to Safe America Media, LLC, a firm formed just days prior. Subcontractors do not have to be disclosed.

“The president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from, with putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally, that they needed to leave, or we would detain them and remove them, and they’d not get the chance to come back to America the right way. That has been extremely effective,” Noem said.

It was that assertion that prompted Kennedy to say the ads were effective in boosting her own name recognition.

“We all have friends who are qualified – I’m not quibbling with that,” Kennedy said in closing out the line of questioning.

“It troubles me that a fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money when we’re scratching for every penny and we’re fighting over rescission packages – I just can’t agree with Madam Secretary.”

Noem asserted that others at DHS oversaw the bidding process and followed all requirements.

“I did not have anything to do with picking those contractors,” she said.

*Copyright 2026 Bangla Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

BP/SM