Kristi Noem blames Biden Afghanistan ‘abandonment’ for National Guard shooting: Full interview

[0:00] Secretary Noem, welcome back to Meet the Press. [0:02] Thank you, Kristin. I appreciate you inviting me on. [0:07] Thank you so much for being here at the conclusion of just a devastating week. [0:12] I do want to start with the investigation into the attack on those two guards members. [0:18] What is the latest you can tell us about the attack, the suspect, [0:23] Ramanula Lock and Wall, and what you have learned about the motive, Madam Secretary? [0:28] Well, we know that this individual came into the country under Operation Allies Welcome [0:35] and during the Biden administration and that disastrous withdrawal that we all watched [0:40] unfold in 2021. He's been in this country and was in the Washington state area. [0:46] We do know that we're talking to his contacts and going through information, continuing to gather [0:52] that as we go forward. But we're going to use every tool at our disposable to bring him to justice [0:58] and make him pay for what he has done, not just to America, but how he's devastated these families [1:03] and taken the lives, the life of one of our soldiers and devastatingly injured another one [1:09] that we're still praying for each and every day. I just, my heart goes out to Andrew and Sarah's [1:15] families. I can't imagine what they're going through. And President Trump is absolutely dedicated to [1:19] making sure that he's bringing this individual to justice. And anyone that he would have talked to, [1:24] anyone that he knows that would have known about this plan and this attack, [1:29] he will absolutely bring in and there will be consequences and they will pay. [1:36] Yeah. And our condolences to the family of the guards member who did pass. I do want to go back [1:42] to this question, Madam Secretary. Do you know what the motive was at this point? Do you believe the [1:49] suspect acted alone? You know, we're still going through all of that information and I'll let the [1:56] FBI and DOJ reveal new information. But I will say, we believe he was radicalized since he's been here [2:02] in this country. We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state. And [2:06] we're going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members, [2:11] talked to them. So far, we've had some participation, but anyone who has information on this [2:18] needs to know that we will be coming after you and we will bring you to justice. We absolutely [2:23] will persecute you because we do know that we will never allow this to continue to happen in [2:27] our country. Allow individuals who came to our country that were unvetted by Joe Biden, [2:33] allowed to run free and loose, we are going to bring them to justice and make sure that they're [2:37] returned out of this country if they aren't here for the purposes of being an American. [2:43] I want to follow up with you. I mean, you say something very notable. You say he was radicalized [2:48] here. This suspect, we should note, was a member of the CIA-trained strike force. According to [2:54] former intelligence and military officials, he would have undergone extensive vetting during his [2:59] tenure there. And afterwards, it is worth noting, Citizenship and Immigration Services, [3:04] an agency which is a part of DHS, approved the suspect's asylum application in April of this year. [3:12] Why did the Trump administration grant the suspect asylum in April? Did you know then that he was [3:19] moving toward radicalization? Well, Kristen, you need to remember that when this [3:27] abandonment of Afghanistan happened, the Biden administration put people on airplanes, [3:32] brought them to the United States without vetting them. They brought them into our country and then said [3:37] they would vet them afterwards. And then at that time, to do a good job of vetting people, [3:42] you need to have cooperation of that government that is from their country. You have to have a [3:47] stable government that will give you information, contacts, background information, and biometrics [3:54] that you may need to identify that individual, their dates of service. All of that vetting information [3:59] was collected by Joe Biden's administration that was used and in the process. So President Trump, [4:04] thankfully, has completely changed that. We are now using all social media content. We're going after [4:11] what they have been doing with their contacts, their biometric data information we are collecting. [4:17] Now, when we've had individuals under this administration, we know who they are, why they [4:21] are here and going through that. Unfortunately, this individual, that entire process happened under Joe [4:27] Biden's watch. Well, but just to be very clear, I want to go back to what happened on the Trump [4:31] administration's watch. He was extensively vetted in order to serve alongside U.S. service members as a [4:37] part of the CIA-trained strike force. But in terms of what happened on the Trump administration's watch, [4:42] just to be very clear, what vetting did the Trump administration do before giving the suspect asylum? [4:49] The vetting process, Kristen, happens when the person comes into the country. And Joe Biden [4:56] completely did not vet any of these individuals, did not vet this individual, waited until he got into [5:01] the United States. And then that application for asylum was opened under the Joe Biden administration, [5:07] when he was the president in the White House and allowed that to go forward with the information [5:12] that they provided. That's the Biden administration's responsibility. This is the consequences [5:17] of the dangerous situation he put our country in when he allowed those people to infiltrate our [5:22] country during that abandonment of Afghanistan. And that's why I'm so grateful we have a president [5:27] now that isn't going to allow it to happen, that he now has put in place measures under his watch at [5:33] the Department of Homeland Security that we are bringing in new information on vetting, [5:38] new information to use, such as what do they do on Facebook? What do they do on TikTok and other [5:44] social media platforms? And who are they talking to? Who are their conversations with? And we use their [5:50] biometric data information now to track to make sure they are who they say they are, and they're here for [5:55] their right intentions. And we are going to talk about some of the steps the president's taking, but I just want to be very clear about [6:00] this because his asylum was approved in April of this year on the Trump administration's watch. [6:06] So just to be very clear, was there a vetting process in place to approve that asylum request? [6:13] Yeah, the vetting process all happened under Joe Biden's administration. [6:18] But was he vetted when he was granted asylum? [6:21] Are you saying he wasn't vetted when he was granted asylum? [6:23] Vetting is happening when they come into the country, and that was completely abandoned under Joe Biden's [6:31] administration. That's the that's the irresponsibility that has completely devastated our country, [6:37] Kristen, put us in such a dangerous position. I don't think people realized when Joe Biden was in [6:42] the White House exactly how he was allowing our country to be infiltrated with people that we [6:47] didn't know who they were. Some of them we did know were dangerous and we went after as soon as they [6:52] came into this country. But under this program, we could have up to 100,000 people that came in [6:59] from Afghanistan that may be here to do us harm. President Trump is absolutely dedicated to getting [7:05] them out of our country. Okay, we have a lot more to get to. I want to talk about how the [7:08] administration is responding. President Trump on Thursday promised to quote, permanently pause [7:14] migration from all third world countries. Is the administration ending all legal immigration [7:21] into the United States? The president is absolutely determined to stop all processes at this [7:29] point in time from third world countries, until we can have a thorough opportunity to go through [7:34] these individuals know that they're here for the right intentions, and that they even should be in [7:39] our country to begin with. He's putting Americans first, their safety first. And these third world [7:44] countries don't have stable governments, they can't sustain them, they can't tell us who they are. And [7:49] that's really the consequence of of what we're seeing unfold with the violence on our streets is [7:55] because these countries that people have been traveling to our shores from for so many years [8:00] under the Biden administration, their governments didn't tell us who they were, we don't have a [8:04] proper vetting process. So that's one of the things I'm so grateful for is that President Trump has been [8:09] bold enough to say, you know what, we're going to stop. We're not going to allow this to continue until we [8:14] have a process in place that ensures that it actually has integrity for people that will protect us and keep us [8:19] safe. Well, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services posted Friday that the agency, [8:23] quote, has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to [8:30] the maximum degree possible. For people fleeing violence and persecution who were hoping for [8:37] protection here in the United States, one of the hallmarks of this country, is the United States now [8:43] closed to them officially? They will be properly vetted. They will have new standards put in [8:51] place, applied to them to ensure that they're here for that purpose. When will the asylum [8:55] process start again? Nobody's coming here until we're sure that they're going to be someone who truly [9:00] deserves that program, deserves that opportunity. And under the last administration, that just wasn't [9:06] happening. We had all kinds of people come in and use those programs for nefarious purposes and it's [9:11] going to stop. Okay, when will the asylum process start again? Well, it'll start when we know that we [9:18] have dealt with the backlog that we have, Kristen. One of the things that nobody's talked about yet [9:23] is that Joe Biden left us with a backlog of 1.5 million asylum cases. They allowed so many people [9:30] to abuse that program that they didn't even process the paperwork. So people who maybe, as you would [9:35] say, could have credibly claimed this, they weren't even getting processed for years and years because [9:41] they were allowing it to be abused in such a way. So that backlog needs to be cleared up. The individuals [9:46] who are here in this country on that program need to be vetted under our standards that we're implementing [9:51] under President Trump to ensure that they even should be in our country. And if they're not, [9:54] removed immediately. Will you deport people with pending asylum claims, Madam Secretary? [10:02] We will if they should be. Absolutely. Yes, we are going to go through every single person [10:07] that has a pending asylum claim, has an asylum claim here in this country. You know, one of the [10:12] requirements of asylum is that you have to come in every single year for a checkup and an interview [10:17] process and a re-vetting. And that is something that we're going to expedite and happen immediately [10:23] with anyone who does have that asylum claim today and ensure that they deserve to still be in this [10:27] country, that they still have the purposes for which they claimed that asylum in place and that [10:33] they're not here being radicalized and perpetuating dangerous criminal activity against our Americans. [10:38] All right. President Trump wrote on Thursday, quote, [10:41] only reverse migration can fully cure this situation. On Friday, DHS posted, quote, [10:48] re-migration now. As you probably know, this term has been used in different situations, [10:53] but including by the far right in Europe to call for the mass deportation of non-white immigrants. [10:59] How specifically does the Trump administration define re-migration? [11:04] Well, President Trump has been working towards cleaning up the mess that Joe Biden left us ever [11:12] since he came into the White House. But how do you define that word, Secretary Noem? [11:16] How do you define that word? Well, first of all, we have criminal illegal aliens we've been targeting [11:22] since day one. We have removed millions of people from this country already just in the few short [11:26] months that President Trump has been president by making sure we're going after criminal illegal aliens [11:31] that are murderers, rapists, and criminals, and getting them out of our country, bringing them to [11:36] justice, and then encouraging people to go home. If you're here illegally and breaking our laws, [11:41] you can leave now and you may get the opportunity to come back someday. But if you wait until we detain [11:46] you and we will deport you and you'll never get the chance to come back to America and visit us or [11:51] become a citizen. We're going to continue to do that, go after those criminals, go after those [11:56] individuals that came in under programs that were broken on the Biden administration and people who [12:01] were in place and leadership in that crazy, crazy four worlds we lived through, four years we lived through [12:08] before President Trump came in. Thank God we have a president now that recognizes that letting all [12:13] of these people into our country that we don't know who they are is dangerous. That we let in terrorists, [12:19] we let in criminals, we let in mentally unstable people. They shouldn't be here, they're going to [12:23] leave and President Trump is going to ensure that Americans become first and the priority and that [12:28] they're going to be safe on their streets again. Secretary Noem, let me turn to my final topic. In a filing in [12:34] federal court this week, the Justice Department said that when the administration was ordered back [12:39] in March to stop sending detained migrants to a mega prison in El Salvador, you personally made [12:46] the final call to continue the flights anyway. Is that correct? Do you acknowledge that? You know, [12:53] we have court filings going on and decisions that are going forward. I'll let them continue to play [12:58] through that process. But did you make that call? I'm proud of President Trump and his leadership and the [13:02] decisions that that we have made and the decisions that are made on deportations where flights go and [13:08] when they go are my decision at the Department of Homeland Security and we will continue to do the right [13:13] thing and ensure that dangerous criminals are removed. So that you're saying that it was your [13:17] decision. It sounds like the judge wanted to ensure that people were given due process. He said very [13:24] clearly, quote, any plane containing these folks that is going to take off for us in the air needs to be [13:29] returned to the United States. But those people need to be returned to the United States. However, [13:35] that's accomplished. I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied [13:41] with immediately. Did you defy the court's order, Madam Secretary? No, Kristen. And that's one of the [13:49] things that we continue to face across this country is activist judges who are using radical decisions [13:56] that have no standing and no grounds to try to stop what President Trump is doing to protect America [14:02] and to keep us safe. So we'll continue to do the right thing, continue to work and do protect [14:08] Americans no matter what radical judge comes out and tries to stop us. We'll do the right thing and know [14:13] that we're on the side of the law, the side of the Constitution and the side of the American people. [14:18] All right. Secretary Noem, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.