What seemed to begin as yet another way to “own the libs” is now backfiring on the Trump administration and one of its biggest allies in the MAGA social media ecosystem.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem let Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik accompany her on an ICE raid in Arizona. While Noem was decked out in tactical gear and carried an assault rifle, Raichik donned a police vest and an ICE officer badge on the “ride-along” and posted “exclusive footage” of the arrests of supposed “criminal illegal aliens” to her social media platforms.
“Just stop trying to glamorize the mission and put yourself in the middle of it as you cosplay ICE agent, which you’re not,” conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly exclaimed on Wednesday.
Noem, in particular, has come under fire in recent weeks – especially from the left – over her relentless media tour in which she’s dressed up not just as an ICE agent but also play-acting as a Customs and Border Protection officer, a firefighter, and a pilot. The backlash grew more intense after she filmed an Instagram video at the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador, which featured her wearing a $60,000 Rolex while standing in front of shirtless prisoners.
But this most recent stunt, which not only featured a pro-Trump influencer but also saw Noem apparently failing gun safety standards, seems to have been a bridge too far for the right.
“Kristi Noem clearly doesn’t understand that a cabinet secretary’s job is not to cosplay,” right-wing pundit John Cardillo tweeted. “The job is to be in their office, making the agency more efficient, professional, and effective. The job is to be on Capitol Hill, ensuring the agency has resources to do its job.”
Kelly, the former Fox News star who has become one of the top podcasters in the country, went even further with her criticism of Noem.
“Can we talk about Kristi Noem and these ridiculous photo ops? Why does she have to keep doing this?” Kelly wondered on her show this week.
“I can’t stand these photo ops, you guys. I think they diminish ICE, they diminish DHS, CPB. She’s not an agent! She is an administrative policy person appointed by Trump because she was very loyal to him,” she continued. “Stop with the glam! I mean, she looks like I look right now, but she’s out in the field with her gun, being like we’re gonna go kick some a**! No one wants you there.”
Raichik, who vaulted to conservative fame in recent years for her aggressive anti-trans social media posts, has also found herself in the line of MAGA fire for her part in the ICE raid photo-op. Much of that anger, it seems, is due to the far-right already growing a bit disenchanted with the administration deporting fewer migrants than President Joe Biden when they thought Trump would have already cleared out millions of immigrants.
“This s**t enrages me. Deportation numbers are low, denying that is wrong,” one ultra-conservative social media personality reacted. “Instead, we’re bringing libsoftiktok along in a circus event.”
Lara Logan, a former award-winning CBS correspondent who has morphed into an Alex Jones-level conspiracist, tweeted: “Not sure what this is but if this is today’s ‘journalism’ we are not better off.”
Conservative columnist T. Becket Adams, in the meantime, snarked that “‘ICE raids tourism’ is a thing now,” while a writer for MAGA website The Gateway Pundit remarked: “This is just embarrassing. We don’t need more influencer photo ops and cabinet members playing dress-up. We need this admin seriously focused on deportations.”
Will Sommer, a senior reporter at The Bulwark who specializes in right-wing extremism, speculated about some of the reasons why the Libs of TikTok founder was suddenly taking so much heat for this PR stunt.
“Why is Raichik getting raked over the coals? I think this reflects some fatigue on the right toward ‘influencers,’ particularly those who are seen as pulling punches against the administration in exchange for access,” he wrote.
“Raichik was also at the White House for the Epstein-binders debacle,” Sommer added. “Altogether, the real diehards see her as part of a group of MAGA influencers who are trotted out occasionally to create the illusion that Trump is delivering for his base.”
Despite the growing outcry from the right, though, Noem has suggested that she’s not going to pare down on these photo-ops.
“Every day I wake up and there’s new criticisms. It’s something different every single day, so I try not to pay attention to the noise,” she told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday night. “Obviously, I’m guided by the folks that I work with every day to be appropriate for the situation that I’m in and to take the same precautions they do.”
The post Even MAGA is sick of the ICE agent ‘cosplay’ following Kristi Noem’s ride-along with Libs of TikTok creator appeared first on The Independent.
