Tuesday evening MSNBC gleefully celebrated as video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem began to go viral.
The narrative was that Noem humiliated herself and the Trump administration — hence the jubilation on MSNBC by GOP traitor Michael Steele and a fuchsia-irradiated Symone Sanders. But as usual, the big lies obscured the important facts, and the facts — the actual words — are what matter, as they prove that not only was Noem correct, but also that the Democrats fell into their own trap.
Earlier in the day, Noem appeared at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, only to be ambushed by Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan.
Democrats, like vipers, are predators of opportunity, taking every chance to strike anyone who dares to oppose them.
Which was exactly what Hassan set out to do. She took a page straight from Katie Couric’s book. (Hassan, like Couric, clearly despises any woman who refuses to genuflect to the left.)
The setup was easy. Hassan, an attorney by trade, laid an obvious trap, asking Noem to define habeas corpus.
Noem, a farmer and rancher by trade who was there to discuss the 2026 DHS budget, got 20 words into her response before Hassan pounced, creating the moment MSNBC salivated over. She berated Noem, who was nowhere near finished responding. But what’s worse is, the senator stopped Noem from being able to actually respond to the question or defend herself.
Let’s cut through the spectacle and walk through exactly who said what and when, which will prove Noem was actually on the right track — something MNSBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others in the liberal media will absolutely never admit.
Was Hasan’s only goal to embarrass Noem?
What Noem actually did was say 20 words. The first eight were fine, but she stumbled over the next three — just three words. And that was enough for the snake, er, Sen. Hassan to strike:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly responded to a lawmaker’s question on the definition of habeas corpus during a Senate committee hearing on her department’s budget. https://t.co/oWHetV493j pic.twitter.com/gxBnz1oD6i
— ABC News (@ABC) May 21, 2025
Hassan: Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?
Noem: Well, Habeas Corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country …
Hassan (breaking in): No, let, let …
Noem (continuing): to suspend their right to …
Hassan (breaking in): No, no, let me stop you …
Noem: (unintelligible) suspend their right to …
Hassan (breaking in): Habeas corpus, excuse me, that’s, that’s incorrect …
Noem: President Lincoln used it …
Hassan (breaking in): Excuse me, habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection … [and then a bunch of scary gobbledygook Democrats use to compare America under Trump to Germany under the Wehrmacht].
Hassan struck fast because she caught Noem in a small misstep and couldn’t risk Noem fixing it, which Noem was already in the process of doing during the interruptions.
Noem’s inflection changed after word 11, and she started adjusting on the fly. (And by the way, if all we get to communicate is 11 words before members of the State stomp us, we’re in even bigger trouble than I realized.)
We’ll never know what Noem was going to say next because after a meager 20 words, Hassan got her clip for the liberal media.
The story wasn’t over, however; immediately after Hassan tried trapping Secretary Noem, Hassan herself faceplanted into the pit herself. Proverbs 26:27 warns us, “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.”
Being a politician, attorney, and blackguard leftist, Hassan couldn’t help but try to humiliate Noem, so she began lecturing the secretary on legalese.
“[H]abeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people,” the smug senator said.
Gosh, that sounds very informed, senator.
Except that it isn’t. First off, there’s no “public” anything involved in habeas corpus. When invoked, the writ goes before a court, not, I don’t know, the cast of “Big Brother”? But more importantly, habeas corpus doesn’t “require” the government to automatically provide an explanation to the court. Sen. Hassan, who again is an attorney, seems to think that’s the case, but in reality habeas corpus is a right that may be invoked by the detained person but isn’t automatically given.
Finally, Noem fired back up and nailed her response.
Noem recognized that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if habeas corpus should be suspended or not.
Boom. Nailed it. It wasn’t the response Hassan asked for, but it was the response Noem needed to give. And then, as a nice little cherry on top, Hassan made the ultimate unforced error: She accidentally validated Trump’s right to suspend habeas corpus.
Hassan was quick to note that when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, he only did so with retroactive approval from Congress — meaning that Lincoln got that approval two years after he suspended it. Lincoln originally suspended it in April 1861, and Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in March 1863. So apparently Sen. Hassan is fine with Trump suspending habeas corpus for the next two years. Good to know.
So in the end Noem actually nailed the point, and a Democratic senator with a legal background faceplanted into the very trap she laid for Noem. We know that Scripture is true, but isn’t it fun to see it play out in real time?
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