Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lashed out at South Park’s “lazy” and “petty” parody of her just days after ICE used the show to promote its own recruitment drive.
Speaking to Glenn Beck on his radio show, Noem said Thursday that she hasn’t seen the episode, claiming she was “going over budget numbers and stuff,” but criticized South Park nonetheless.
“It never ends, but it’s so lazy to constantly make fun of women for how they look,” the 53-year-old said.
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“It’s always the liberals and the extremists who do that. If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can’t, they just pick something petty like that,” she added.
South Park’s parody of Noem depicted her as an ICE agent in full glam who loves posing for the camera, killing puppies, using Botox, and arresting anyone suspected of being Hispanic.
Since joining Trump’s Cabinet earlier this year, Noem has staged photo ops at deportation raids and at El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where she posed for photos in front of a cell full of prisoners.
South Park has had the Trump administration in its crosshairs since its latest season premiered late last month, taking aim at President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and the administration’s policies, including its anti-immigration crackdown.
Responding to his own portrayal as a “manbaby” who oils Satan’s behind for the president, Vance wrote, “Well, I’ve finally made it.”
The official X account for the Department of Homeland Security had previously used a screencap taken from South Park to promote its recruitment efforts, prompting the South Park X account to hit back with, “Wait, so we ARE relevant?”, a reference to the White House dismissing the program as irrelevant and a “fourth-rate show.”
It has since remained tight-lipped, and has not publicly referenced the portrayal again. A DHS spokesperson earlier shared a statement that it first released before the episode aired.
“We want to thank South Park for drawing attention to ICE law enforcement recruitment: We are calling on patriotic Americans to help us remove murderers, gang members, pedophiles, and other violent criminals from our country,” the statement said. “Benefits available to new ICE recruits include an up to $50,000 signing bonus, student loan forgiveness, and retirement benefits.”
The Comedy Central show’s season 27 opener, which depicted Trump complaining about his micropenis while in bed with Satan, netted the program its biggest premiere since 1999, making it the most-watched show on all cable channels that day.
Glenn Beck was also parodied on South Park, an episode he referenced in his interview with Noem, telling her that it took him a year to learn about the episode, eventually watching it with his son.
The episode, “Dances with Smurfs,” aired in 2009, and featured Eric Cartman taking a leaf out of Beck’s book to use his position as reader of the school announcements to accuse the student body president of, among other things, wanting to kill Smurfs.
