Kristi Noem Says Immigrants Aren’t Skilled Enough to Drive Semi Trucks

Knowing another language apparently makes you too stupid to drive an 18-wheeler.

At least, that’s what Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seems to believe. The secretary provided updates on Operation Midway Blitz in Indiana Thursday, boasting that the administration had captured 223 undocumented immigrants that she said had managed to obtain commercial driving licenses in “sanctuary states.”

The roads are apparently safer without them, according to Noem, who continued on to claim that foreigners in tractor trailers posed an “extremely dangerous” threat.

“Putting these foreigners in tractor trailers like the one you see behind becomes extremely dangerous,” Noem said. “I have driven semis over many, many years, and 18-wheelers, and understand they’re difficult to stop, maneuver.”

“You have to have a skillset, but also communication with those around you, and certainly in your training that’s important to make sure you’re operating it safely,” she continued. “Putting them behind the wheel of these tractor trailers, weighing tens of thousands of pounds loaded with explosive fuel, down the highway endangers every single citizen that is on our roads.”

Despite her insistence, it’s unclear just how much experience Noem actually has with these trucks. Noem catalogs several instances in her 2022 book Not My First Rodeo in which she was haphazardly tasked with operating a semi while working on her family ranch as a child, but she was never a licensed truck driver.

Besides that, Noem hasn’t exactly been a paragon of road safety herself. In 2010, The Hill reported that Noem—then a Republican congressional candidate for South Dakota—had a whopping “20 speeding tickets, three stop-sign violations, two seat-belt violations and a citation for driving with no driver’s license.” She had also been issued six court notices for failing to appear, and had two warrants out for her arrest.

Katie Miller, the wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, appeared on Piers Morgan’s YouTube show and melted down after other panelists challenged her lies. 

Miller, a former administration staffer herself, was part of a panel that included left-wing commentator Cenk Uygur, fitness influencer Jillian Michaels, and Palestinian American analyst Omar Baddar to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s comments on Islamophobia in the U.S. But upon having her lies called out, Miller attacked the other panelists, particularly Uygur, and accused them of antisemitism. 

“Why is it that every time someone wants to criticize Mamdani, it immediately comes back to the Jews and the anti-Israel movement instead of actually talking about his viewpoints?” Miller asked, her voice raised. 

“Nobody said Jews. You just said it. You always do that. We say Israel, you say Jews. We say Israel as a government. Please don’t make it about Jewish Americans,” Uygur responded, explaining that he believes that Israel should be a safe haven for Jewish people within its 1967 borders, without seizing the West Bank from the Palestinians. 

“You’re totally lying—it’s very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying,” Uygur added, saying to Miller, “You and your husband are supposed to be working for America. Not for Israel. I think you’re betraying this country.” 

This set Miller off. 

“Quite frankly, I’m really sick and tired of this racist bigoted rhetoric that can comes from people like you against my husband, against my family, and my children. I am raising Jewish children in this country—” Miller shot back, before Uygur said incredulously, “Who brought your children into this? What a weirdo.” 

Miller even stooped to threatening Uygur’s immigration status, telling him to “check his citizenship application.”  

Baddar came to Uygur’s defense. 

“Somebody criticizing you personally is not an antisemitic attack,” the analyst said to Miller. “If somebody says that you are lying, that is not an attack on Jews, that is an attack on you, and just stop hiding behind identity. This is all the snowflake behavior that the right is supposedly criticizing the left for that you’re simply repeating here.” 

“Yes, Steven Miller is a destructive force in American society. That is not an attack on Jews. That is no reference to his identity. This is an attack on him individually, and just deal with the merits of this case,” Baddar added. 

Miller has not made many media appearances where her views were challenged, and it appears she can’t handle it. Her husband is responsible for many of the president’s worst policies, including his mass deportation efforts, but she can’t seem to handle the criticism being spoken to her face.

Watch the full show on YouTube. 

Red flags have been raised over asbestos and other potential health and safety risks during President Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing.

“Federal law requires comprehensive asbestos inspection, notification, and abatement before any demolition,” the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization wrote in a press release last week. “No publicly available information demonstrates that these statutory obligations have been fulfilled.”

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey described similar concerns in a letter Thursday to the firm carrying out the demolition, ACECO of Maryland.

“The demolition of a structure of the age and historic national significance of the East Wing demands the highest possible standards of care, not the lowest bid and a blind eye toward regulation,” Markey wrote, according to ABC News and The Washington Post. “Construction workers on the East Wing site, nearby office workers and tourists, and passersby could now be at heightened risk of developing lung cancer, asbestosis, or mesothelioma from the inhalation of demolition dust.”

There is no safe level of asbestos exposure, and the fibers can stay in the air for days.

White House officials have neither confirmed nor denied the presence of asbestos—which is very common in older structures like the White House—but have said that a “very extensive abatement and remediation assessment was followed, complying with all applicable federal standards.” They also say that “any hazardous material abatement was done in September.”

But ADAO President Linda Reinstein says she’s seen zero public information that would confirm that. “I am deeply concerned for White House staff and others working in or near the East Wing demolition site,” she said. “It remains unclear what measures have been taken to ensure the safe removal of deadly asbestos and other hazardous materials.”

The White House last underwent major reconstruction in the 1940s and 1950s, when asbestos use was at its highest.

A 33-year-old DOGE employee was tapped to run the U.S. Navy’s science and technology arm, though she appears to have no experience with the U.S. Navy, science, or technology, The Bulwark reported Thursday.

Dr. Rachel Riley was chosen to replace Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus as chief of naval research, where he has served since 2023. The Office of Naval Research is responsible for disbursing billions of dollars in grants and contracts to benefit the Navy, and has historically been led by an active duty flag officer, according to USNI News.

Riley previously worked as a partner at McKinsey & Company, and completed a Ph.D. in social policy and an M.Sc. in contemporary Chinese from Oxford, according to her LinkedIn. She joined the ranks at DOGE and was assigned to the Department of Health and Human Services, where Politico reported she pushed for massive layoffs earlier this year.

A Navy spokesperson told USNI that Riley “brings deep acquisition, technology, and organizational expertise to the job, and we are pleased to welcome her to the team. We thank Rear Adm. Rothenhaus for his service as he is enroute to his next assignment. We do not have additional information to share at this time.”

Former naval aviator Senator Mark Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Bulwark that Riley was an unorthodox pick. “Usually the head of Naval Research is a very senior member of the military or the senior executive service with an extensive experience in technology, science, engineering,” he said. “That’s the kind of person we put in that job. So I think it’ll be important to see—and I don’t have a lot of information on this nominee’s background—but I do know it’s somebody rather junior who came from the world of DOGE.”

President Donald Trump has his own tenuous understanding of naval technology. Earlier this week, the president ranted about how he wanted to resume using steam catapults instead of electric catapults on aircraft carriers because he loves the way the steam looks pouring off the deck. Meanwhile, the maintenance on steam catapults is considered labor intensive and costly, compared to newer models.

Trump has previously claimed the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System doesn’t work, though there is no evidence that this is true. In January 2024, Trump baselessly claimed that magnets stop working when placed in water, and therefore were a stupid thing to put on a boat.

The United States will resume nuclear testing because everybody else is doing it, according to Donald Trump.

The president announced in a social media post Wednesday night that America would begin nuclear testing for the first time in 30 years in an effort to be on an “equal basis” with Russia and China. Neither of those countries appear to have conducted any nuclear weapons tests since the world’s nuclear-capable nations adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996.

“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, though that appeared to be a lie. Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal of any nation, with 172 more warheads than the U.S., according to data from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN.

“This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice!” he wrote, though it was not clear how updating the arsenal had created more weapons.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump continued. “That process will begin immediately.”

The revised policy was shared mere minutes before Trump was scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but the extended rationale came hours after.

“They seem to all be nuclear testing,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Thursday. “We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing. We’ve halted it many years ago, but with others doing testing I think it’s appropriate that we do also.”

Trump did not clarify where or when the testing would take place.

Nuclear weapons experts argue that Trump’s gambit won’t play out well for America. Beth Sanner, former deputy director of national intelligence, told CNN Wednesday night that it was a “bad idea” that would only serve to give U.S. adversaries a chance to further test their capabilities.

“Adversaries benefit more than we do,” Sanner told the network.

The dominoes have already started to topple: The Kremlin emphasized the terms of the nuclear armistice Thursday, warning that “if any country resumes nuclear testing Russia would follow suit,” reported the Associated Press.