Brehm: Kristi Noem should resign

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I had not thought much about South Dakota until the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d never visited the state and didn’t know much about it. But as month after month of draconian lockdown went by here in Minnesota in the early 2020s, I began to envy our neighbors to the west.

While Minnesota businesses remained closed, South Dakota’s opened back up. While our students stayed home, kids in the Mount Rushmore state went back to school. That contrast was a result of two very different styles of leadership from two very different governors — Tim Walz and Kristi Noem. Today, South Dakota’s economy, schools and culture are thriving, in large part due to Noem’s prudent pandemic leadership. That’s why, just a few years ago, I considered myself a Noem fan.

That started to change in 2024 when Noem published her memoir. The poorly selling tome included tales about meetings with world leaders that never happened and a now infamous story about how she killed her 14-month-old family dog Cricket because the dog was “untrainable.” Maya Angelou said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Wise words to follow, especially when the subject makes it clear in autobiographical black ink.

So, I was disappointed when President Donald Trump tapped Noem to serve as his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, particularly since her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, had been such a catastrophe in the post and the department was very much in need of competent reform and greater transparency. But I held out some hope Noem would rise to the task.

That optimism did not pan out. As Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis recently said of Noem’s short tenure so far at DHS: “I can’t think of any point of pride over the last year.” That seems to be a legitimate assessment.

As bad as all of that is, Noem’s dishonesty last weekend regarding the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis alone disqualified her from any further federal service, and she should step down from her post at DHS. Or Trump should relieve her of her cabinet duties himself.

As we all now know well, Noem said last Saturday afternoon that Pretti was “brandishing” a gun and “impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them” and that it looked like a “situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” No, Pretti was just a nurse without a criminal record and with a perfectly valid license to carry a firearm who was concerned about his community.

This was not a mere misstatement from Noem; it was a deliberate falsehood. That’s shameful because our leaders should work to build greater trust in our much-discredited institutions. The U.S. needs the unvarnished truth now more than ever from our politicians. But defaming Pretti as a potential cop killer posthumously without an iota of support was a special kind of low. Neither he nor his mourning family deserved that.

It is true that some of the protesters in Minneapolis have become too aggressive in their interactions with ICE agents, and it has been concerning to see so many of our public officials here encouraging that. Like it or not, agents are enforcing federal law at the direction of a democratically and duly elected president and Congress, and the ballot box is ultimately the best place for voters to demand a dramatic change in course.

In the meantime, courts and Congress must hold the administration accountable. Deputizing ourselves as anti-ICE vigilantes, as morally justified as many may feel at times, is dangerous and is in some cases unlawful. Peaceful protesting is protected by the First Amendment; materially impeding federal law enforcement activity is not.

Politically speaking, Noem has done unspeakable damage to the Trump administration, and Republicans who want this presidency to succeed should join in encouraging her departure. The promise to close the border propelled Trump to a second term, and voters overwhelmingly preferred his stronger enforcement policies to those of the previous administration. But polls show Noem’s brutal and violent mass deportation methods are turning Americans against the president on an issue he should still command.

We want illegal migrants with criminal records heaved out of this country with speed, but not our hardworking undocumented friends and neighbors that have been in this country for decades. The Trump administration needs to pivot — as the president now wisely seems open to doing — but it will be impossible to do so fully with Noem remaining in the Cabinet.