Kristi Noem: "Haven't taken anything off the table" about immigration operations in more cities

We begin today with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who's joining us from Florida. Madam Secretary, thanks for being with us. Absolutely, Ed. Thank you for inviting me. Yes. Well, we have a lot to discuss, so we want to start with this because we've learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning on expanding operations in the coming days to Chicago. When are those operations expected to start? And you said in recent days that you're using the recent deployments in Los Angeles as a model. What does that mean? Well, we've already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we're upholding our laws. But we do intend to add more resources to those operations. I won't disclose the details because they are law enforcement and investigative folks that are on the ground there, and I want to make sure we keep their security our number one priority. But we will continue to go after the worst of the worst across the country, like President Trump has told us to do, focusing on those that are perpetuating murder and rape and trafficking of drugs and humans across our country, knowing that every single citizen deserves to be safe. Part of what distinguished the Los Angeles operations, however, is that National Guard troops were there, in essence, protecting or backing up those federal agents as they conducted operations. Is that what we should expect to see in Chicago? You know, that always is a prerogative of President Trump and his decision. I won't speak to the specifics of the operations that are planned in other cities, but I do know that L.A. wouldn't be standing today if President Trump hadn't taken action. Then that city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state. And so the citizens who live there, the small business owners in downtown L.A., they're thankful that President Trump came in with federal law enforcement officers and helped support keeping those streets open, keep their homes and businesses from burning down, and made sure the law and order was restored. I just want to clarify one thing you said there. You said L.A. wouldn't be standing, if not for these federal deployments? So many of those homes and businesses that were in downtown L.A. and in those areas were dealing with riots and violence, and coming in and bringing those federal law enforcement officers in was incredibly important to keeping peace. And so we are grateful that President Trump was willing to send resources and people in, in order to enforce the law. And Ed, since then, we have arrested 5,000 dangerous illegal criminals out of L.A. and removed them from our country and had them face justice for their crimes. So as you know, we spoke with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker about all this, and I asked him what he'd say to you about these forthcoming plans. Let's play that and let you respond after. If she were to call you, what would you say? What's your message to her? Well, I'd tell her that what she's doing is inflaming passions and causing disruption that doesn't need to be caused. We have people that have lived, yes, in the state of Illinois, in the city of Chicago for decades, working here, paying taxes. They're law-abiding members of our communities, friends, neighbors. And why are we arresting them? Why are we making them disappear? Indeed, they're even disrupting the lives of people who are attempting to go through a legal process to stay in this country, who've been invited to a hearing. And then they're arresting them in the hallways on their way to that hearing. So this is dangerous. They shouldn't be doing it. It's anti-American. It's un-American. And I would tell her to maybe check herself for what does she really believe. She's also critical of the fact that Chicago is one of those cities that doesn't cooperate with federal immigration operations. And she was quoted as saying that Illinois, refuses to have our back. Well, that's not true. In fact, there were police officers who made sure that there was nobody interfering or attacking or causing problems for the ICE officials that were here. People have a right to express themselves. People have a right to their First Amendment freedom to express. And we protect that too in the city of Chicago. So it's not true that nobody has their backs. What we won't do, however, is engage in what is a federal effort. That is to say they have their job, immigration. We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city. And by the way, we're succeeding at that job. But when they bring people in and don't coordinate with us, they're going to cause enormous problems. Madam Secretary, your response? Well, for 13 consecutive years, Chicago had more murders than any other American city. In fact, just last year in 2024, they had three times the amount of murders that L.A. did, five times more than New York City. So he can talk about what a great job he's doing as governor, but he's failing those families who will no longer have their child with them, their mother or their father or their cousin, aunt and uncle that are gone forever because of the violence that's happening in Chicago. So I was a governor for many years. So I recognize the responsibilities that you have on your shoulder when you're a governor. And I'll tell you, as a governor, when I had to make tough decisions and when I had disagreements with the Biden administration or challenges my people were facing, I called up the Biden administration. I went and talked to them. I asked for meetings. I fought for my people. This seems like it's more about Governor Pritzker's ego now rather than actually protecting his people. If he has one murder in the city of Chicago, he should be calling President Trump and saying, what's your ideas? What can we do? They don't even honor our detainers in Chicago. They don't go out there and work with us to make sure we're bringing people to justice. And instead he goes on TV and he attacks me when we're doing exactly what those people need, is they need someone to help them get the dangerous criminals off their streets. And if he has one, two, five or 10, those victims and their families deserve to walk in freedom on those streets and not have to worry about what's going to happen to them on their way to their jobs. Are you planning beyond Chicago to expand these kinds of operations to other cities? There've been reports, for example, that Boston may very well soon be next. I think there's a lot of cities that are dealing with crime and violence right now. And so we haven't taken anything off the table. We've been making sure that we have the resources and the equipment to go in. We've been working to partner with every single agency that we can. We have hundreds and hundreds of agreements with local law enforcement, sheriffs, city administrators, and mayors across the country that want to solve problems. I'd encourage every single big city, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, whatever they are, if they want to help make their cities safer, more prosperous, allow people the opportunity to walk in freedom like the people of Washington, D.C. are now, and enjoying going out to eat at night and not having to worry if they're going to be a victim of a carjacking or a robbery, they should call us. You mentioned there are a bunch of cities in Democratic-controlled states with Democratic mayors, and there have been a lot of questions asked about that focus. There are Republican cities with major crime issues as well, and we haven't heard about plans to deploy, say, to Dallas or to Oklahoma City or to cities in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi that have considerable crime rates, in some cases higher percentage-wise than those other cities you mentioned. Are there plans to go to red states and Republican-controlled cities in this kind of way? Absolutely. Every single city is evaluated for what we need to do there to make it safer. So we've got operations that, again, I won't talk about details on, but we absolutely are not looking through the viewpoint at anything we're doing with a political lens. One of the most high-profile examples of someone who's been rounded up by ICE in recent months is and the fate of his situation is still up in the air. He's awaiting trial on human smuggling charges set for January in Tennessee, but your department's also working to get him deported to Uganda. If he broke the law in this country, as the administration alleges, shouldn't he be held here and face charges here instead of being deported? Well, prosecution decisions are always made by the Department of Justice and and Pam Bondi's department, so we will let them do that. Although this individual does have criminal charges pending, he has charges pending against him civilly as well, and the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure that he doesn't walk free in the United States of America. But I heard you say that we're going to let the Justice Department do that. Does that mean the push to deport him to Uganda is off? Oh, we will still continue to pursue all options. We will make sure that he's not released into this country. So regardless of that, yes, absolutely. He's not an American citizen and he shouldn't be here, and especially because of his dangerous criminal activities, we should ensure that we leave every avenue on the table. Got it. So among other things, you oversee FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as we hit the peak of hurricane season, and we're marking the 20th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina this weekend, 20 years ago. Is the federal government prepared to respond to a major disaster at this moment? We are absolutely more prepared than the last administration in doing a much better job responding to the disasters we've already experienced since President Trump has been in the White House. We've had over a dozen, close to 20 different disasters throughout the country just since President Trump has been the President of the United States, and we have deployed resources twice as fast as FEMA ever has in the past, gotten people on the ground over 100% quicker than any other administration has. In fact, with the disasters that we saw that were so horrific and devastating in Texas and New Mexico, North Carolina, we've had people on the ground within hours responding to those families that were in crisis. I bring this up because part of what you're suggesting there is in dispute from a handful of current and former FEMA employees who wrote to Congress this past week raising concerns about the agency's ability to respond to forthcoming natural disasters. One of the specific concerns they have is this decision that now has you reviewing any cost of $100,000 or more that FEMA plans to make. Can you give me an example of a charge of $100,000 or more that you've rejected? Yeah, absolutely. We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars to a one-woman firm to deliver to us 30 million meals, and she delivered only 50,000 to us. And it was a one person that the federal government had contracted with in order to deliver 30 million, and I don't know how they ever expected one person to do that. We had a person that was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to book meetings that of less than 10 to 15 people, and with no meetings that we saw that were productive or couldn't be done by sending an email. Over and over again, we're looking at these contracts and looking at the fact that are they duplicative? Are they just supporting woke ideologies, DEI, or are they actually delivering disaster response? Which is what FEMA's job is, is to put in place operations to support states and local governments to take care of people. And so that evaluation has saved us hundreds of millions of dollars within FEMA and within the Department of Homeland Security. It has saved us 13 billion dollars already, and we're going to continue to make sure that we're accountable to taxpayers. At least 20 of the people who signed this letter were current FEMA employees, and they've been placed on administrative leave. And I'd heard you in previous interviews suggest that those that are making accusations against the agency should put their names on the criticisms or the allegations. So now they have, and they've been placed on administrative leave. And I'm curious if it's now the policy of DHS that anytime an employee puts their name on something, publicly criticizes you or the president's leadership, that they should anticipate being put on leave or fired. This letter was signed by many people anonymously. There were some who had their names on there, and those who had their names on there were temporary contract employees who had worked for the Department of Homeland Security for less than a year. Individuals who are not long-term FEMA employees who grab a hold of the mission to be there to go and serve individuals and are deployed across the country and have for years to make sure they're responsive to families in their time of need. So absolutely every employee will be evaluated as to if they're doing their job and if they're doing it appropriately. All right. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joining us this Sunday from Florida. Thank you so much. Lots to discuss. We appreciate it. Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.