Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has some unhelpful advice for anyone who fears bombs from Iran could rain down any minute.
Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Customs and Border Protection training center in West Virginia, a reporter asked Noem: “What’s your message to Americans who are seeing what’s going on overseas and are concerned about an attack on the homeland?”
Noem—nicknamed “ICE Barbie” for her love of cosplaying as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent for the cameras, among other distasteful PR stunts—could have noted that Iran’s weapons are not capable of reaching the United States. Or that the Trump administration is doing everything possible to prevent this.
Instead, she said they should just be grateful for all the freedoms we have.
“You know what I would tell the people that live in this country is to be grateful that they woke up this morning in the United States of America,” she replied. “We, because we woke up here, are more blessed than 99 percent of the people in the world because we live in a country where freedom and liberty is embraced.”
“That’s what our president was protecting by going after specific nuclear sites in Iran,” Noem added. “That was something that was nonnegotiable, and he did not do anything except take out the potential for that nuclear weapon to be utilized.”
Noem’s comments come days after Trump announced that he had bombed three Iranian nuclear sites Saturday night, with Iran retaliating on Monday by launching missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
When asked by a reporter if Americans are safer today because of the president’s actions Saturday, Noem replied: “I believe that the president worked aggressively to make sure that we are safer and will be into the future as well.”
As Noem spoke to reporters, news of Iran’s retaliatory strikes had not yet broken.
Noem’s comments echoed that of other members of Trump’s inner circle who have insisted that the bombings were not an attempt at a “regime change.”
The morning after the strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that the attack on Iran was a “very precise mission,” telling Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation that it was in no way “an attack on the Iranian people.”
“This wasn’t a regime-change move,” he stated.
Only a few hours later, Trump contradicted his top officials, wondering, “Why wouldn’t there be a Regime change?” in Iran.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote.
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