WTF is Kristi Noem Doing?

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Whatever happened to Kristi Noem?

I found myself thinking about our erstwhile DHS secretary/puppy exterminator over the weekend during Donald Trump’s incoherent commie-bashing mixtape at Mount Rushmore. Six years ago, with the granite landmark as his backdrop, Metamucilini gave a speech that was widely roasted for being racist and divisive. (Foreign Policy went with the headline “Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech Is the Closest He’s Come to Fascism,” little suspecting how much closer he was yet to come.) In an act of superhuman suction that would eventually qualify her for membership in his Cabinet, then-South Dakota Governor Noem presented Trump with a grotesque gift: a replica of Mount Rushmore with his head grafted on. In this mini-monument, Abraham Lincoln appears to be strenuously avoiding eye contact with the host of “The Apprentice.”

One of these things is not like the other. (Photo: Tom Lawrence)

This tacky tchotchke might have secured Kristi her post at DHS, but, at the end of the day, all the photos of her flaunting her Rolex in front of caged prisoners at CECOT weren’t enough to save her gig. (The press release announcing her axing last March somewhat incongruously called her “the most successful DHS Secretary in history,” which makes you wonder how she would have been punished if she’d only been the second-most successful.) But was Kristi really gone? Hardly. Much like his fellow grifter Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump just couldn’t quit her.

Instead of firing her outright, as he would later do to her rival in toadying, Pam Bondi, he shunted her off to a new role, something called “the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas – Western Hemisphere.” Describing this “job” in a statement marked by vagueness and unnecessary commas, Noem declared, “The Western Hemisphere is absolutely critical for U.S. security. In this new role, I will be able to build on the partnerships and national security expertise, I forged over my time as Secretary of Homeland Security.”

Becoming the envoy for a shield surely guaranteed Kristi a place in history, since there are precious few instances of diplomats representing inanimate objects. But as time marched on, it became impossible to pinpoint what exactly Noem was doing to earn her eleven-word job title. Perhaps in an effort to justify her salary—which, by the way, has never been publicly revealed—she popped up last month on Newsmax, where host Greta Van Susteren asked her to name Washington’s closest ally in South America.

“Well, we’ve worked so much with El Salvador and migration issues and third country agreements,” she said. “But also Ecuador’s been fantastic; we did a joint operation with them with the Department of War against the cartels in their country. We work very well with Argentina; their economic policies line up with ours. Costa Rica’s been fantastic; they have a new president… she’s going to be a great leader for us as well.”

Geography experts might note that out of those four “South American” countries, only two of them—Ecuador and Argentina—are located in South America.

In a perfect world, our first-ever “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas – Western Hemisphere” would know which Americas are which. But maybe that’s too much to ask. After all, this is the same Kristi who had trouble locating her purse and her travel blankie. Why should we expect her to know where Costa Rica is?