Fox News host Tomi Lahren blasted outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s taxpayer-funded $220 million ad campaign two days after President Donald Trump announced his intention too replace her.
On Saturday’s episode of “The Big Weekend Show,” Lahren singled out the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) costly 60-second advertisement from late 2025, which notably featured a cowboy hat-clad Noem riding a horse as Mount Rushmore is visible in the background. She went on to compare the nine-figure ad’s apparent misuse of taxpayer money to Minnesota’s fraud scandal.
“I don’t how you spend $220 million riding a horse by Mount Rushmore,” Lahren said. “I’m from Rapid City, S.D. Mount Rushmore is the backdrop of where I grew up. I don’t know how you spend that much to do that.”
“And I’ll tell you this: we have to be very, very fair here. If we’re calling out Democrats in Minnesota for their fraud in their ‘learing centers,’ then you gotta call it out on your own side as well,” the commentator stressed, referring to the misspelled sign of a since-shuttered Somali-run Minneapolis daycare center prominently featured in independent journalist Nick Shirley’s viral video looking into allegations of fraud.
“And you gotta say, ‘Hey, the math ain’t mathing here. What was going on with this ad? You’ve become a sideshow. You’ve become the topic of conversation,’” Lahren emphasized.
WATCH:
“That’s not a good thing when immigration is so important to this president, so important to those who voted for President Trump. First and foremost, a lot of folks voted based on immigration,” the Fox News host continued. Polls likewise showed voters who considered immigration an important issue during the 2024 election cycle backed Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“So, yes, the border is sealed, thank goodness. [Border czar] Tom Homan has done a fantastic job. We can give Kristi her flowers for what she did to add to that effort, but when you become the story and your antics off the job become the story, then you lose the plot,” Lahren added, calling Trump’s Thursday decision to replace Noem with Republican Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, pending Senate confirmation, “fantastic.”
“Kristi had to go. And also, I would say, ‘Justice for Cricket,’” Lahren said at the end of her response, referring to a 14-month-old puppy Noem justified shooting in her 2024 book because she was “untrainable.”
Clocking in just shy of a quarter-billion dollars, the taxpayer-funded one-minute DHS ad carried a price tag roughly equivalent to the production budget of the 2021 superhero film “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“Why do I love these wide-open spaces? They remind me of why our forefathers came here. Not just for its beauty but for the freedom only America provides. I’m Kristi Noem,” the secretary says on horseback as the ad starts while a guitar country riff plays in the background. The minute-long video concludes with the on-screen text, “Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.”
NEW: @JoeConchaTV says most, if not ALL, Trump supporters think that FIRING Kristi Noem was the “right move” because of her “sometimes irresponsible” media messaging
He points out that unlike Trump 1.0, the first 2nd term cabinet firing was over 1 year in.@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/QnXAWAKZb0
— Anthony Iafrate (@tonyiafratedc) March 7, 2026
NEW: The day before Trump announced Noem’s dismissal as DHS secretary, Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy questioned her over the ad at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.
“How do you square that concern for waste, which I share, with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?” the senator asked Noem. He later asked her if Trump had approved the campaign. She replied that the president was aware of it and called the ad “effective.”
“They were effective in your name recognition. To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot … it’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m gonna spend $220 million running them’ that he would have agreed to that,” Kennedy fired back.
Right before Lahren’s response, Fox News contributor Joe Concha said on “The Big Weekend Show” that most, if not all, people who support Trump “seem to think that” replacing Noem “was the right move.”
“Not because no one wasn’t doing a good job if you look at the numbers, say in terms of border crossings and in terms of deportations, but the fact her messaging with the media was uneven and sometimes irresponsible,” he added.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
