ICE Barbie Kristi Noem was derided for an over-the-top claim about the number of lives Donald Trump had saved through his strikes on alleged drug boats as she sucked up to the boss.
The homeland security secretary, who oversees the finding and seizing of narcotics being trafficked into and around the United States, fawned over Trump, 79, while praising the president‘s anti-drug enforcement efforts.
“You have saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean,” she said during the televised Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Critics immediately jumped on Noem’s claim. Several pointed out that there were 29,449 cocaine-involved overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023, according to the latest available data from the CDC.
The Black List founder Franklin Leonard pointed out that “there are only 340 million people in the U.S.”
MeidasTouch editor in chief Ron Filipkowski, said, “Hundreds of millions. Wow, that’s a lot. That’s more than have died in every single war combined in the entire world since 1900.”
Former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh wrote, “To be honest, once every few days I think about calling it quits. Like, we’re just too lost. And I usually feel that way after I read or hear something like this. ‘Hundreds of millions of lives?’ What the f—.”
Several others, including political pundit Tim O’Brien, pointed out that Trump had, days earlier, pardoned a former Honduran president who once bragged that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.”
On Friday, the president said he would issue “a full and complete pardon” to Juan Orlando Hernández, 57, who was serving a 45-year sentence imposed last year for drug-trafficking and firearms convictions. He walked free on Monday.
Trump’s boat-strike campaign began Sept. 2 with a hit on a suspected smuggling craft in the Caribbean. Since then, the White House has touted more “narco-boat” kills while surfacing scant detail on seizures or arrests.
The strategy has led to questions about its legality, including from some notable Republicans. At the same time, the U.K. has halted sharing boat-tracking intelligence amid fears it may be implicated in potentially illegal acts.
It is the first strike that currently has the Trump administration facing blowback and led to Noem’s obsequious comments to Trump, after The Washington Post reported it had featured a follow-up strike that allegedly killed survivors clinging to wreckage.
With both the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth facing serious questions about what they knew—and Hegseth shifting blame onto a Navy admiral—congressional inquiries are now probing whether the second strike violated the laws of armed conflict.
As for Noem, 54, her latest suck-up to Trump comes with her job reportedly on the line. DHS insider advisers told the Daily Beast last month that she is among those most vulnerable in an anticipated January Cabinet shake-up.
The chatter has been fueled by unrest inside DHS and ICE, where sources described a chaotic hiring spree and mounting pressure to hit aggressive deportation targets. While the White House insists Trump is pleased with his team, Noem’s standing is seen as fragile.
The Daily Beast has approached DHS for comment.
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