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Kristi Noem Slams ‘South Park’ Mockery — Then Turns Around and Uses It to Promote ICE

The homeland security chief tried to spin an insult into a recruitment tool.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t care for her latest turn as animated fodder on “South Park” — but within 24 hours, she was happily repurposing the cartoon version of herself to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruit new agents.

This week’s episode took aim at Noem with an especially biting caricature: gleefully killing dogs and sporting a face so saggy it required endless Botox injections. On Thursday, she vented about the episode to conservative host Glenn Beck, dismissing the focus on her appearance as “so lazy” and proof the show had no real critique of her actual work — though, in reality, it took jabs at that too.

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The “South Park” creators responded in their own way, swapping the show’s profile image on X for her exaggerated, drooping-faced likeness.

By Friday, however, Noem’s tune had changed — or at least her marketing instincts had taken over. She posted a far more flattering still from the episode to social media, pairing it with a message aimed at driving ICE recruitment.

In less than 48 hours, what started as a savage cartoon takedown had been rebranded into a Homeland Security marketing tool — proof, perhaps, that for Noem, no press is truly bad press, as long as it can be spun into a win for her agenda.

Noem appeared to be taking a page from the JD Vance–Charlie Kirk playbook — the one where you pretend an insulting “South Park” portrayal is actually some kind of compliment. Both men have previously spun the show’s mockery into self-promotion, and Noem seemed eager to follow suit.

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It’s not even the first time the Department of Homeland Security has leaned on the cartoon’s imagery this week. On Tuesday, the agency’s official channels used a different “South Park” still in a post aimed at boosting ICE recruitment.

Whether this brand of insult-as-marketing genius will actually move the needle is anyone’s guess. What’s certain is that Noem’s post quickly earned a flurry of social media jabs — many pointing out the obvious: if you have to pretend satire is praise, the joke’s still on you.

Published inNEWS