NEW: Sec. Kristi Noem Reacts to Mayor Bowser Praising D.C. Crime Crackdown

GUY BENSON, HOST, “THE GUY BENSON SHOW”:  We begin with the secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, also former South Dakota governor, on the program here for the first time.

Madam Secretary, welcome.

KRISTI NOEM, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY:  Hi, Guy. How are you doing today?

BENSON:  I’m doing well.

I want to start with a sound bite from yesterday that really made my jaw drop. I actually had to double-check that it was real and that it was from, in fact, yesterday. Yes, it all checks out. I live in the D.C. area. So do you. We’re familiar with the work and the politics of the mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser.

She was talking about President Trump’s federal crackdown on crime in the District. Here is what she said in front of reporters in cut 14.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MURIEL BOWSER (D), MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C.:  We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what MPD has been able to do in this city. The difference between this period, this 20-day period of this federal surge and last year represents an 87 percent reduction in carjackings in Washington, D.C.

We know that, when carjackings go down, when use of gun goes down, when homicide or robbery go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer. So this surge has been important to us for that reason.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BENSON: “We greatly appreciate the surge. The surge has been important to us for that reason.” She mentioned one of the stats, 87 percent reduction in carjackings.

Her office put out more statistics about huge reductions in violent crime over this period. She is singing a dramatically different tune than what we’re hearing from almost any other Democrat in the country. Are you surprised by this? What do you make of this?

(LAUGHTER)

NOEM:  Well, Guy, let me translate what she just said for you. This is what she really was saying, is, she is saying, hey, everybody, I was a dummy. I tried to be political and was getting blown up by my liberal friends.

And then the people that actually have to live in my city got ahold of me and straightened me out as to what my priorities are. So now I’m going to be honest in what’s going on here in D.C. and start being truthful with all of you, because I still want to be able to keep my job.

That’s basically what her press conference was, was, she was thinking she could be political and get away with it and not tell the truth. And the people in D.C. who are finally feeling what it’s like to breathe a little bit of safety and freedom again and — got ahold of her and shook her to her core.

And that’s what I think is going to happen with every Democrat that right now is wrapping their arms around Trump derangement syndrome. They’re going to wake up soon and realize they’re on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the American people, and they will hold them accountable to it.

BENSON:  Yes, I give her at least a little bit of credit for recognizing this and recalibrating and saying what she said.

It’s really the opposite approach of what we have seen from some of these other leaders, including the governor of Illinois. I’m sure you have seen this. A couple days ago, he put out a video along a very nice part of the Chicago lakefront early in the morning at daybreak.

In case you missed it, here’s what it sounded like with the governor narrating. Cut 22.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL):  Well, here I am on the path on the lakefront at 6:00 a.m. on a Monday. And we a lot of people running, having a great time. Doesn’t feel like a hellhole here. In fact, everybody’s having a great time and enjoying themselves.

So I don’t know who in Washington thinks that Chicago is some sort of hellhole, but you may need to look inward.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BENSON:  Well, Madam Secretary, I’m sure there was no crime happening in front of the governor at 6:00 a.m. in that part of the city while he was surrounded by security.

NOEM:  Right.

BENSON:  But you were recently in Chicago. And I know that there’s a strike team heading that direction. What is the governor missing in that little propaganda video he put out?

NOEM:  Well, the governor spent his life surrounded by people who keep him safe and living a plush life and not having to live as the average person in Chicago or throughout Illinois has to live.

And it’s one of the most dangerous cities in our country right now. And when we go there as federal law enforcement officers, as ICE officers and CBP officers, they refuse to have our back. In fact, the governor’s office has leaked information against our officers and our presence when we have been in the state.

So President Trump has been very focused on the fact that this governor is not protecting his people and that he’s going to use every authority that he can to do what he — to keep them safe, to give them a different opportunity to send their kids to school and sleep in their beds.

So, we are. We’re sending a strike team to Chicago. I won’t tell you when or what the operations will be. But they will be there, going in, specifically targeting illegal criminals, and making sure that we’re bringing them to justice and deporting them out of the country, just like we are in so many other cities.

We’re going to use L.A. as an example, because that was an operation where we have now arrested over 5,000 individuals that were committing crimes and burning down L.A. Despite the terrible local leadership, we made a real difference for the people who live in that city. And that’s exactly what we’re going to deploy across this country to Chicago and to Boston and to other cities, San Francisco, Portland.

We’re going to just go, go, go, because the president is recognizing that these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states are incredibly dangerous. And they’re dangerous, Guy, to our national security strategy. The amount of people that Joe Biden let cross our border and come into this country that are known and suspected terrorists and member — members of criminal organizations is incredible.

And President Trump’s not going to stop until he gets them all out.

BENSON:  One of them is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the Democrats and the left have elevated into this almost cult figure. He is an illegal immigrant. There’s no question about that.

He has a deportation order against him, removal order. He is a criminal. He was accused by his wife of abuse. And she got multiple restraining orders against him. He’s now indicted for all sorts of crimes related to human trafficking and beyond. And he has been adjudicated as being a member of the MS-13 gang.

The argument that we heard for a while from people on the left, Madam Secretary, was, well, we’re not talking about him specifically. It’s the principle of rule of law. He wasn’t supposed to be deported to El Salvador, according to a judge’s order. And then the administration sent him there anyway. So that’s the problem. He’s got to come back.

Well, now he is back. You guys have indicted him on a bunch of crimes. There’s this move to now deport him somewhere, possibly Uganda. But we’re seeing a lot of the people who were at least pretending it was just about this one technicality and the rule of law, now they’re coming up with new reasons to champion his cause.

His entire due process has been exhausted. He might still stand trial for all these additional crimes. But what’s the argument now against deporting this man?

NOEM:  I don’t have one. I mean, they’re being political.

But, listen, this is a man who’s a serial human trafficker and so sick and twisted that — let me tell you a little bit of his background, that, while he was smuggling human beings and trafficking them across this country, he shared nude and pornographic pictures of minors with other individuals.

And he was so perverted that his other fellow colleagues in the human trafficking world told him to knock it off, to quit being so evil, because it was going to draw more attention to them, that even other people who were in the same business with him trafficking children said, hey, dude, back off.

BENSON:  Scale it back.

NOEM:  Quit being such a pervert, because you’re going to draw attention to us. That’s how bad Abrego Garcia is.

And these senators and congressmen and Democrats that are standing with him, I think they’re just as guilty as he is for all of his crimes for doing so.

BENSON:  I’m not sure if you saw the clip of him yesterday in his handcuffs in view of cameras and some of the microphones. He is referring in Spanish, because he still doesn’t speak English. He’s been here for years, but he was in his native tongue, Spanish.

He was referring to the U.S. government and really, I’d imagine, your department as corrupt. He said it’s a corrupt government, which is interesting, given the fact that he is also once again asking for asylum with that corrupt government, even though he’s tried that in the past, has been rejected for good reasons.

As you hear that from him, this attack, oh, this is a corrupt government, that’s sort of rich coming from someone in his position, is it not?

NOEM:  Absolutely.

I just don’t understand why people would say something like that and not leave. If you think we’re corrupt, if you don’t like America, if you want to criticize it and tear it down, then you have many other choices to make your home. Go — feel free to leave at any point in time, and we will help facilitate that. I will buy you a plane ticket.

(LAUGHTER)

BENSON:  I think you have tried that once before. You will do it again.

NOEM:  Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

BENSON:  I want to ask you about this. I saw a headline about foreign students and foreign students who are currently studying and living in the U.S. and a move that DHS might be moving toward on that front.

What’s the proposed policy? What can we expect here?

NOEM:  Well, I think foreign students need to be in this country that truly want to be a part of our education system.

And I was speaking with the president about that just yesterday, that he believes that there — they should be a part of our university system, but they have to love America, that they have to be able to be a part of that system and learn from us, and not be here, as we have seen, so radicalized and coming here to subvert our national security policy.

So we’re going to implement that. And we have the ability to be the administrator of that student foreign program that all of these universities participate in. And we can decide if a university is compliant with the program and gets to continue in it or if not.

So, Harvard was very close and may still and other universities lose their student programs if they don’t comply with the regulations that that program was set up for. And that was for the betterment of the United States of America, not to facilitate the hatred and the terrorizing of other religious organizations or beliefs, such as what we have seen unfold across this country under the Biden administration.

BENSON:  There is some pushback, I’m sure you have seen it, including on the right, about Chinese foreign students specifically, Chinese nationals in our country.

President Trump sounded pretty optimistic and positive on that front. A lot of others saying, well, hang on, shouldn’t we be extra on guard when it comes to Chinese nationals because of the nature of that regime and how they actively recruit or even coerce people into espionage?

What’s your response to some of the backlash that you’re seeing specifically on that front?

NOEM:  No, I think, absolutely, they — we have to stay on guard against Chinese nationalists in this country, those that we know are perpetuating spy operations against our country, feeding information back to the Communist Party and the CCP and those that are here illegally.

It’s — under the Biden administration, we had tens of thousands of military-aged Chinese nationalists and individuals that came into this country illegally that we are going to find and remove from this country because of the threat they are to our national security.

So some of the things that we will do is continue to propose rules like we did yesterday on limiting the time frame that these students can be here, but also still continuing to target those individuals who are here illegally or have final removal orders against them and remove them, recognizing and vetting they may have ties to a communist organization whose long-term goal has been to take down the United States as the world power.

BENSON:  Secretary Noem, finally, there is this group of former and even current employees at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who are critical of you and the Trump administration and the handling of that agency.

What actually happened here? What were their complaints? And what’s your response?

NOEM:  Well, we have been very up front that FEMA’s broken. President Trump, as soon as he came into office, said, Kristi, eliminate FEMA the way that it works today. It’s politicized. It’s been a woke agency that hasn’t responded to people when they have a crisis in their life.

And people would wait days, weeks, months for relief and even any kind of a disaster support from the federal government when they lost everything. And we saw that unfold in North Carolina, and then how they targeted people politically…

BENSON:  Yes.

NOEM:  … and specifically to give them disaster response if they were right of — if they were supportive of their politics. If they weren’t, they went past their house and didn’t bring them any kind of help or assistance whatsoever.

So President Trump said, fix it. I am and we have. And these employees hate it. In fact, those employees, the vast majority of them that signed that letter are temporary contract workers. They’re people that shouldn’t be there in the first place. FEMA is bloated. And they would rather sit around and sign letters than actually do the work that we’re requiring them to do.

And we have pushed FEMA hard, deployed people immediately when a disaster hits this country or a community. I think we have had over 15 to 16 disasters already since President Trump has been in office. And I’m so proud of the fact that we have immediately deployed resources and people to those, that — whether it’s Texas or New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma.

These folks, they’re all so happy. Kentucky. They have — they’re — we have — Republicans and Democrats have been universally saying, thank you so much for giving us the ability to respond to our people, giving us the resources we need immediately and help supplement it. And this is such a game changer from when Joe Biden was in office and how FEMA operated before.

So, when you make people go to work and actually take care of people, some people are going to push back because they don’t want to be required to do anything. They want to keep their paychecks coming, and their politics may be different than ours, but we’re going to take care of the American people.

And President Trump has done a phenomenal job in making sure that FEMA is responsive to people who have — who face really tragic situations.

BENSON:  Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, our guest here on “The Guy Benson Show.”

Madam Secretary, thanks so much for your time today.

Absolutely, Guy. Any time. Fun to talk to you.

BENSON:  Likewise.