U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took heavy fire from viewers on Sunday after she failed to answer a question by a CNN host, who called it out on air.
During a discussion with Noem, CNN's Jake Tapper brought up the ICE agent who killed a Minnesota mom by shooting her in the face. Noem suggested that, because the woman was potentially nearing the officer with her vehicle, the use of force was justified.
That led Tapper to play video from Jan. 6 MAGA rioters hurting police, and ask her how they should handle such a situation. She largely repeated her initial comments but didn't appear to address the footage.
"When people are physically harming them, they have the authority to arrest those individuals," she said, to which Tapper replied, "The president pardoned every single one of them."
"President Trump has been so focused on is making sure that when we're out there, we don't pick and choose which situations are in which laws are enforced and which ones aren't," she added.
That enraged some viewers, including podcast host Chad Hartman, who said, "Pretty simple, she is incapable of answering direct, specific questions unless she uses her talking points and defends Trump no matter what, even when the evidence clearly doesn’t support what she is saying. Trump defends law enforcement when it suits him and they agree with him."
Ex-prosecutor Ron Filipkowski said, "In other words, she doesn't want to answer that very simple question because the truthful answer to it unravels the admin's entire preposterously false narrative that these shots were made by an officer in fear of his life."
Award-winning author Jennifer Erin Valent said, "When practiced, unabashed liars like Noem even struggle to come up with answers and just rehash bogus, canned talking points, you know just how egregious is the offense they’re struggling to defend."
Legal expert Maya Wiley said, "Noem might as well have said, 'Don’t believe your lying eyes…and ignore all of ours.' This brutal bandwagon is trying to roll all over our rights and they don’t care who they hurt."
The Human Rights Campaign's Brandon Wolf chimed in, "You simply cannot reason with a bunch of power hungry liars who will sit there and gaslight you to your face."
Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta also weighed in, saying, "GOP LOGIC Attacking cops is fine as long as it’s for Trump."