It hasn’t escaped voters’ notice that Trump or one of his proxies identified three Democratic governors—California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, and Maryland’s Wes Moore—as contenders for the 2028 presidential election, then shortly after targeted the cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore.

Trump illegally deployed the military to Los Angeles to quell largely peaceful protests against masked abductions by Noem’s Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

But in a Sunday appearance on Face the Nation, Noem tried to spin an entirely different narrative not rooted in reality. She also repeated disproven right-wing rhetoric about Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 after the law enforcement murder of George Floyd.

White nationalists of MAGA claimed cities were burned, but no such widespread destruction ever occurred. And the majority of violence and destruction was done by the same White supremacist groups that attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump’s DHS Secretary falsely claimed:

“L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action then. That city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state.”

“So, the citizens who live there, the small business owners in downtown L.A., they’re thankful that President Trump came in with federal law enforcement officers and helped support keeping those streets open, keep their homes and businesses from burning down, and made sure the law and order was restored.”

You can see Noem make her unsubstantiated claims here:

Noem—who did so poorly dealing with the Indigenous people in her state while GOP governor that she was banned from setting foot on tribal land by every Tribal Nation in South Dakota—doubled down on her lies when challenged by Face the Nation host Ed O’Keefe.

Noem stated without any form of evidence:

“So many of those homes and businesses that were in downtown and in those areas were dealing with riots and violence and coming in and bringing those federal law enforcement officers in was incredibly important to keeping peace.”

“And so we are grateful President Trump was willing to send resources and people in, in order to enforce the law.”

Noem and her ICE agents—who have earned the nickname The Gestapo from the general public for their masked, badge-less, ID-less, warrant-less activities—may have been grateful, but that doesn’t translate to the majority of the citizens of Los Angeles feeling the same way.

People weren’t buying what Noem was selling, including Governor Newsom.

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They await a decision from the Northern District Court of California over the White House’s troop deployment.