Donald Trump on Thursday complimented Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s horse-riding abilities.
In front of a crowd of several law enforcement members at a Washington, D.C. police station, the president thanked several members of his administration for their work on what has been billed as a crime crackdown in the city.
“Where’s my Kristi?” Trump asked after praising “popular” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and “greatest” Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“There you are, dear,” he said upon spotting her to his left. “Thank you very much. She’s been incredible. And she can ride a horse like nobody. She gets on those horses, she rips those horses around.”
Noem has regularly ridden horses since taking office in January.
A few weeks after being confirmed to the post, the former rancher and South Dakota governor saddled up at the U.S.-Mexico border with a U.S. Border Patrol unit, members of which were found to have acted in “unprofessional and dangerous ways” while pursuing Haitian migrants seeking asylum in 2021.
In July, Noem rode a horse in Argentina with the country’s security minister.
That same month, Noem was criticized for posting on social media several portraits of herself on horseback, asking for feedback on which should hang in her home state’s capitol while Texas flood aid sat waiting for her to sign off.
Noem’s equestrian hobby was also featured in a splashy DHS video montage marking her 200th day in office earlier this month.
Noem’s time Thursday in Washington was not as glamorous, as she handed out pizzas with U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. In attendance, according to The Hill, were members of the FBI, DEA, US Marshals, ATF, Secret Service and Homeland Security.
Trump’s venture outside the White House came the day after other members of his administration made their own field trip to Union Station. There, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller were booed and heckled.
The president has claimed that his National Guard deployment and the federalization of the city’s police department has already improved crime levels, which had been at a 30-year low before he even made his move.
On Thursday, Trump reiterated how unnamed Democratic friends of his allegedly said they hadn’t been out to eat in four whole years until recently due to crime.
Trump has also argued that restaurants in the city are now much busier than they have been “in a long time,” even though online reservations fell dramatically in the week since the National Guard deployment.
The apparent impetus for getting the military involved in D.C. affairs was the alleged assault of former DOGE employee Edward Coristine during a carjacking.
“Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly afterward.
“They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!”
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