ICE Barbie’s not done playing dress-up.
In fact, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem loves her costumes so much that she’s asked her most loyal fans on Instagram to vote for their favorite depiction of Cowgirl Barbie riding a horse and sauntering off to save America from undocumented immigrants.
“Which one do you like for the official Governor’s portrait to hang in the South Dakota State Capitol?” she posted on Instagram Monday. “Thank you David Uhl!”
Each portrait showed different variations of Noem on horseback, wearing a Western-style get-up complete with a cowboy hat. The background shows the Great American West—including bison, rolling plains, and cumulus clouds.
In the first option, Noem’s looking out at the distance contemplatively. In the second, she’s galloping on her horse and flashing her glittering earrings as she seemingly rushes to apprehend someone. In the final choice, Noem smiles softly, gripping the reins and squinting at the sun.
Commenters rushed to offer their thoughts.
“2 captures your pursuit of making America safe again,” said one.
“I like 3 as it exemplifies the powerful and yet contemplative manner of governor,” said another.
Others weren’t fans of any of them.
“Where’s the dog??” asked one, referencing Noem’s 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, that she killed for being bad at pheasant hunting. “Oh that’s right?!?? You shot him.”
“Ridiculous,” said another. “You’re no Calamity Jane, you’re just CALAMITY.”
It’s far from the first time Noem has flaunted her bizarre cosplays. In fact, she’s enjoyed a number of photo ops since being appointed by President Donald Trump to head up the DHS.
Republican and Democratic critics alike have slammed Noem for her strange affinity for dress-up.
Some of her favorite costumes have included a firefighter, a pilot, an ICE agent, and a Customs and Border Protection officer. She drew particular criticism when she visited the El Salvador mega-prison CECOT in a $60,000 gold Rolex watch and tight-fitted shirt, where she stood in front of the stripped and humiliated men crowded behind bars.
“Some critics are saying you look too glamorous when you’re wandering through these mega-prisons, or you shouldn’t be all tacked-out, posing for cameras,” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Noem in April.
Noem brushed it off. “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 said.
Some right-wing supporters haven’t taken it quite so well, however.
Meghan McCain, for instance, bashed Noem in April for holding a gun barrel directly at a law enforcement official’s head in a photo.
“I don’t think that it is productive to have a full face of hair and makeup and hair extensions… when you’re doing things like that,” McCain said. “If I were giving her some advice, I would be like, ‘How about pulling our hair back in a baseball cap and not doing a photo-op?‘”
She said she was worried about Noem becoming a “parody of herself.”
Megyn Kelly hasn’t been shy about her disgust, either.
“Stop trying to glamorize the mission and put yourself in the middle of it as you cosplay an ICE agent, which you’re not,” she said. “She’s out in the field, with her gun, being like ‘we’re going to go kick some a–. No one wants you there!”
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