South Park’s recent satirical depiction of Kristi Noem as having undergone a defective cosmetic procedure and shooting dogs has rankled the US homeland security secretary, she said in a new interview.
“It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look,” Noem remarked on Thursday’s episode of the Glenn Beck Program podcast – a little more than a year after her disclosure in a memoir that she shot and killed her family’s dog on a farm.
“If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that. But clearly they can’t – they just pick something petty like that.”
Related: From puppy murder to racist podcasts: South Park’s anti-deportation episode is utterly ruthless TV
The South Park episode that skewered Noem on Wednesday portrayed a cartoon version of her with heavy makeup and a melting face which slid off her head from excessive Botox. Her avatar on the show was also shown shooting and killing dogs on an instructional video used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which is under her purview, and during an agency raid that called to mind the administration’s goals of deporting immigrants en masse.
Noem’s depiction by South Park evidently alluded to the attention she has sought by staging photos at Ice raids and in front of a packed cell at the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador, where the Trump administration has deported immigrants.
It also played off the scandal Noem thrust herself into with her May 2024 autobiography No Going Back, in which she recounted how she fatally shot her family’s dog Cricket after the 14-month-old wire-haired pointer ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbor’s chickens.
Noem in the book also shared how she meted out the same fate on her family’s farm to an unruly, uncastrated goat.
Noem – the governor of South Dakota at the time – defended her actions, saying they were characteristic of the “tough decisions” authentic politicians must make. But at least one poll found more than eight in 10 Americans disapproved of the admissions by Noem, who was considered a contender for the Republican vice-presidential nomination in November. Trump eventually won the election alongside JD Vance and appointed Noem as homeland security secretary.
Wednesday’s episode was only one of multiple instances in which the irreverent, profane, animated Comedy Central show’s 27th season has mocked the Trump administration. The season premiered shortly after the show struck a billion-dollar deal with Paramount, which in July received the Trump administration’s approval for a lucrative merger with Skydance Media.
Paramount’s CBS subsequently announced that it was canceling Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, shortly after the host had lambasted the parent company for settling a lawsuit with Trump over an interview with his 2024 election rival, Kamala Harris, that he disliked.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about how it regards South Park. A White House statement maintained the show “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years”. And in her interview on Beck’s podcast, Noem said she had not seen the previous day’s episode, saying she was at work “going over budget numbers”.
Nonetheless, after Wednesday’s episode of South Park depicted a miniature cartoon version of Vance oiling Satan’s rear end for Trump, the vice-president wrote on social media: “Well, I’ve finally made it.”
Noem’s department, meanwhile, used a screenshot in advance of Wednesday’s South Park episode on social media to tout Ice job openings offering signing bonuses of $50,000.
The show responded to the homeland security department: “Wait so we ARE relevant?”
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