On Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem appeared on “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” to discuss the recent flooding in Texas, along with the horrible human cost of that event. The “Meet the Press” anchor also asked several questions about the ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to detain and repatriate illegal aliens, including last week’s raid on a California pot farm.
Now, NBC isn’t particularly friendly ground for Trump administration officials at the best of times, but Secretary Noem handled it adroitly enough; Kristen Welker’s occasional attempts at a “gotcha” fell flat.
Here are a few highlights. First, on the federal response:
“Within just an hour or two after the flooding, we had resources from @DHSgov there helping those individuals in Texas,” says @Sec_Noem.
“This is the fastest, I believe, in years, maybe decades, that FEMA has been deployed to help individuals in this type of a situation.” pic.twitter.com/H97L2QdzRW
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 13, 2025
Kirsten Welker: Thank you for being here after a remarkably busy week. I did have an opportunity to speak with President Trump by phone. He did praise your response to the floods in Texas. There are obviously a lot of questions though, so I want to talk to you about some of those, including about a rule that you recently implemented. It reportedly requires that every FEMA contract, every grant over $100,000 be personally approved by you. Now, officials within the agency have told multiple news outlets that the policy led to a slower deployment of some FEMA resources, including urban search and rescue crews. So let me just ask you: Did your policy delay some of the critical response resources on the ground in Texas
Secretary Noem: You know, those claims are absolutely false. Within just an hour or two after the flooding we had resources from the Department of Homeland Security there, helping those individuals in Texas. It was a heartbreaking scene. And I think it’s been well covered about what the Coast Guard did, how they were deployed immediately and helped rescue so many individuals from those floodwaters. And we had Border Patrol down there with their tactical teams, and FEMA was there just within a few hours as well. So those claims are false. They’re from people who won’t put their name behind those claims. And those call centers were fully staffed and responsive. And this is the fastest I believe, in years, maybe decades that FEMA has been deployed to help individuals in this type of a situation.
Note the key point: The people who are making the claims that Kristen Welker describes are keeping themselves safely anonymous. We saw enough of that during the previous Trump administration to see how that goes. Granted, there are certainly times in which a whistleblower may wish to remain anonymous, but we all saw the immediate response to the Texas flooding from various levels of government, not just the federal government. Activating and deploying resources on this scale isn’t like flipping a switch; if it only takes hours, that’s remarkably fast.
Then, on the California pot farm busts:
“This week, we’ve got murderers off the street, rapists, child pedophiles,” says @Sec_Noem.
“If you look at that marijuana grow facility that we recently just did an operation on, over 319 individuals were brought into custody — and 14 unaccompanied children.” pic.twitter.com/BHrqcGxEqL
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 13, 2025
Kristen Welker: But, Madam Secretary, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said as much this week. He told FOX News that physical appearance was a factor in detaining individuals. What do you say to those who hear that and say that is racial profiling, appearance…
Secretary Noem: The facts of how we do our investigations and our case work and what ICE officers are doing today is they’re going out there and building a case just like other law enforcement officers do. They’re going out there and doing the investigative work, gathering the information to decide how we’re going to run our ops and how we’re going to target individuals. And overwhelmingly, people have heard the president say over and over again about how important it is that we continue to go after the worst of the worst. This week, we’ve got murderers off the street, rapists, child pedophiles. If you look at that marijuana grow facility that we recently just did an operation on, over 319 individuals were brought into custody and 14 unaccompanied children that are children that means that they don’t have their parents with them. They’re working in a facility where they could be exploited, trafficked, maybe sex trafficked. And then we’ve got individuals there who are working at the same facility who are creating, distributing, and taking advantage of children for child pornography.
Note the numbers that the Secretary apparently had to hand:
- 319 illegal aliens apprehended.
- 14 unaccompanied minors, who were presumably working illegally at a pot farm.
- At least one individual was producing child pornography.
This is precisely what we voted for. This is how it’s done. And this is how you handle the legacy media.
See Also: An Emotional Kristi Noem Describes Heartbreaking Visit to TX Flood Site, Meeting Father of Missing Girl
Watch: DHS Head Noem Rips ‘Fake News’ CNN for Accusing Team Trump of Slow Response to Texas Flood
You fight bad information with good information, and that’s what’s happening here.
Some may say that it’s ill-advised for a Trump administration official to appear on an unfriendly network, but a calm, even-handed refutation like this is even more effective in an unfriendly environment. Anyone can go in and speak to an echo chamber, but it takes some skill, some fortitude, and a good command of the facts to handle attempted “gotchas” from a media outlet you know will be trying to prompt slip-ups.
This time, it went well enough. But this is a messaging war, one that will go on until January 2029 – and likely afterward.
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