New Hampshire

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem confirmed as U.S. Homeland Security secretary • New Hampshire Bulletin

Published

1 year ago

January 25, 2025

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem confirmed as U.S. Homeland Security secretary • New Hampshire Bulletin

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem will be the nation’s next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination Saturday.

The 53-year-old Noem, a former congresswoman, will lead one of the federal government’s largest departments, with 260,000 employees and a budget in excess of $100 billion. Its responsibilities include border protection, disaster response, cyber and airline security, and protecting dignitaries.

The bipartisan vote to confirm Noem was 59-34, with her fellow South Dakota Republicans, Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Mike Rounds, casting two of the votes in favor.

Speaking against Noem’s confirmation on the Senate floor, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, warned that the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants Noem could carry out on behalf of President Donald Trump will harm the nation’s economy. Among the industries most affected, Durbin said, could be one of vital importance to Noem’s home state: agriculture.

“In many instances, they will be removing the very workers that pick the crop,” Durbin said.

Speaking in favor of Noem, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the United States is a nation of immigrants, but “we’re also a nation based on the rule of law, and we have not seen that immigration law enforced over the last four years.”

“So I’m going to be voting for Governor Noem, because she’s committed to enforcing our immigration laws,” Grassley said.

SD’s lieutenant governor elevated

Noem ascends to the Homeland Security post after serving as South Dakota’s first female governor. She was serving her second four-year term after being reelected in 2022.

Noem resigned from that job Saturday and was succeeded by her lieutenant governor, Republican Larry Rhoden, who became the state’s 34th chief executive and will fill the remainder of Noem’s term through 2026. Rhoden will choose a new lieutenant governor, subject to confirmation by the South Dakota Legislature, which is in the midst of its annual lawmaking session. Rhoden’s office released a statement Saturday saying details on a ceremonial swearing-in will be announced soon.

Noem’s Saturday confirmation vote capped a rise into national prominence that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her decision as governor to avoid ordering widespread shutdowns in South Dakota caught Trump’s attention during his first term, and he accepted Noem’s invitation to a Fourth of July weekend fireworks display at Mount Rushmore in 2020. That helped cement a relationship Noem had begun with Trump while she served as a four-term member of the U.S. House from 2011 to 2019.

Noem was widely thought to be in consideration for Trump’s running mate last year, until her April book release abruptly ended that speculation.

The Guardian obtained an advance copy of the book, “No Going Back,” and revealed passages Noem wrote about fatally shooting a misbehaving hunting dog and an unruly goat. The Dakota Scout, a South Dakota media outlet, challenged Noem’s claim in the book that she had met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and she retracted it.

Noem faced withering scrutiny during a national book tour and became the butt of jokes on late-night television. Yet, less than three months later, she had a prime speaking slot during the Republican National Convention. Shortly after Trump’s election win in November, he announced Noem as his pick to lead Homeland Security.

Noem’s role in border issues

While serving as governor, Noem sent National Guard troops multiple times to assist Texas in securing its border with Mexico, and called a joint session of the Legislature to deliver a speech about the border. In her new role as Homeland Security secretary, Noem will be pivotal in carrying out Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Noem appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last week for her confirmation hearing. She said “border security must remain a top priority.”

“As a nation, we have the right and the responsibility to secure our borders against those who would do us harm, and we must create a fair and a lawful immigration system that is efficient and is effective and that reflects our values,” Noem said.

Trump kick-started his immigration plan shortly after he took office Monday.

In part of a barrage of executive orders this week, Trump moved to end birthright citizenship in the United States. But on Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the plan, which was met with a flurry of legal challenges.

Trump also declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, and earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would immediately send 1,500 active duty troops to secure the area.

Noem is the fourth of Trump’s Cabinet nominees to earn Senate confirmation, after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau contributed to this report.

This story was originally published by South Dakota Searchlight, which like the New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

Source link

Click to comment

New Hampshire

Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters

Published

9 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters

As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.

“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.

“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”

Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.

“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.

He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”

Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear speaks with voters in Keene, New Hampshire, on March 7, 2026.

Anne Bryson

For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.

“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”

Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.

CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.

On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks with political commentator Jack Cocchiarella at an event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on March 5, 2026.

Anne Bryson

Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.

29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.

“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.

While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.

“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,

“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.

“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.

Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.

“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.

Source link

New Hampshire

Mass. man nabbed after allegedly driving over 100 mph in N.H.

Published

21 hours ago

March 9, 2026

Press Room

Mass. man nabbed after allegedly driving over 100 mph in N.H.

Local News

Police say the Attleboro man was driving 104 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 202 near in Rindge, New Hampshire.

A Massachusetts man was arrested late Wednesday night after police say he was driving more than 100 mph on a New Hampshire roadway.

Officers with the Rindge Police Department stopped a vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 202 near Sears Drive in Rindge following a report of a car traveling at excessive speed, according to a statement from Chief Rachel Malynowski.

The vehicle, a 2020 Kia Stinger, was spotted traveling at 104 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, Malynowski said.

The driver, a 21-year-old man from Attleboro, was arrested and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, according to police.

He is scheduled to be arraigned April 5. If convicted, the man faces a fine of at least $750, in addition to the court’s penalty assessment, and a 90-day license suspension, Malynowski said.