Posted Originally on September 1, 2025 | Sundance

The gaslighting and games of pretending in/around Washington DC never changes.  Before there was the obvious cognitive decline of Joe Biden, there was the obvious cognitive incapacity of Robert Mueller.  However, both acuity compromises were ignored because the agenda the figureheads represented was more important than their obvious compromise.

We talked about it throughout the special counsel timeframe that held his name.

Robert Mueller was a figurehead with no structural direction or control over the Trump-Russia special counsel probe.  Factually, Andrew Weissmann was in control over the special counsel investigation, albeit with daily support from the entire Lawfare network.

[SIDEBAR: I have always wondered why no journalist has ever asked President Trump about the meeting with Robert Mueller, organized by Rod Rosenstein, on the day before the special counsel was appointed.  How did Trump feel about Rosenstein when he realized the meeting with Mueller was a ¹set up? (or did he realize it?).]

According to Sharyl Attkisson’s lawsuit (full pdf) Rod Rosenstein, as the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, was in charge of the Obama 2011 and 2012 operation to monitor journalists specific to Ms. Attkisson’s reporting on Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.  Robert Mueller was FBI Director at the time.  This is the timeline when Obama began using the NSA database to conduct domestic political surveillance.

The family of Robert Mueller is now saying the corrupt FBI Director turned Special Counsel has Parkinson’s disease and cannot be of any assistance to congress or anyone else. [SEE HERE]

NEW YORK TIMES – Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel who investigated ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago, his family said in a statement on Sunday.

In recent months, Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, has had difficulty speaking and experienced mobility issues, people familiar with his condition said. As a result, a congressional committee has withdrawn a request for Mr. Mueller to give testimony this week in its inquiry into the government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigations. (more)

¹BACKGROUND – Through a FOIA request Judicial Watch received Rod Rosenstein’s email communication around the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller [See Here].

The content of the emails between Rosenstein and Mueller further confirms when Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House on May 16th, 2017, the purpose was for Mueller to preview his target, President Trump.

At the time of the FOIA discovery many focused on the email from May 12, 2017, where Rosenstein said to Mueller, “I assume you realize”… “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions”; however, that conversation was widely misinterpreted.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to visit Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 13th, 2017. The specifics of the “boss” not knowing concerned keeping prior private conversations between Rosenstein and Mueller out of the discussion with Sessions.

(Source pdf)

When we inserted the Rosenstein email release into our CTH timeline the picture was clear.

Perhaps the most important aspect was how DAG Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to the White House on May 16, 2017, to interview President Trump.  The decision to appoint Mueller as special counsel was pre-determined prior to the White House visit:

♦James Comey was fired at approximately 5:00pm EST on Tuesday May 9th, 2017. The next morning, less than 15 hours after Comey was fired, Rosenstein contacted Robert Mueller about the special counsel appointment.

During the congressional testimony of Robert Mueller, Representative Andy Biggs noted evidence of a phone call between Mueller and Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday May 10th, 2017, at 7:45am.  Listen carefully at the 2:26 point of the video.

From the FOIA release we could see that following the 7:45am phone call Rod Rosenstein received contact info from Mueller’s asst (8:09am), and Rosenstein emailed his assistant at 8:13am with instructions to contact Mueller’s asst and set up a meeting for Friday May 12th:

Marcia Murphy from the Office of the DAG, then followed through and set up a meeting for 8:00am, Friday May 12th at Main Justice, between Rosenstein and Mueller:

Following that May 12th 8:00am meeting with Mueller, Rod Rosenstein then met with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe – According to McCabe:

… “[Rosenstein] asked for my thoughts about whether we needed a special counsel to oversee the Russia case. I said I thought it would help the investigation’s credibility. Later that day, I went to see Rosenstein again. This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel.” (link)

Later that night (May 12th), at 9:15pm Rosenstein then emails Robert Mueller: “I assume you realize the boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

That email is directly related to a meeting scheduled on Saturday May 13th between Rosenstein, Mueller and Jeff Sessions, which is confirmed in the Andy Biggs questioning.

The Mueller Timeline:

♦Sunday May 14th – James Comey transmitted copies of Memos 2, 4, and 6, and a partially redacted copy of Memo 7 to Patrick Fitzgerald, who was one of Comey’s personal attorneys.  Fitzgerald received the email and PDF attachment from Comey at 2:27 p.m. on May 14, 2017, per the IG report.

♦Monday May 15th, McCabe states he and Rosenstein conferred again about the Special Counsel approach. McCabe: “I brought the matter up with him again after the weekend.”

On this same day was when James Rybicki called SSA Whistleblower to notify him of Comey’s memos. The memos were “stored” in a “reception area” and in locked drawers in James Rybicki’s office.

♦Tuesday May 16th – Per the IG report: “On the morning of May 16, Comey took digital photographs of both pages of Memo 4 with his personal cell phone. Comey then sent both photographs, via text message, to his special government employee, Daniel Richman.  Richman’a job was to use the memo to leak to media.

Back in Main Justice at 12:30pm Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Jim Crowell and Tashina Guahar are all part of this meeting.  I should note that alternate documentary evidence, gathered over the years, supports the content of this McCabe memo.  Including texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:

[Sidebar: pay attention to the redactions; they were placed by DOJ officials in an effort to protect Rod Rosenstein for his duplicity in: (A) running the Mueller sting operation at the white house on the same day; (B) the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, which was pre-determined before the Oval Office meeting.]

While McCabe was writing this afternoon memo, still May 16th, Rod Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to the White House for a meeting in the oval office with President Trump and VP Mike Pence.

After six days of phone calls, emails and in person meetings, this visit to the White House was clearly Rod Rosenstein introducing Robert Mueller to the target of the investigation.  Rosenstein already knew he was going to appoint Mueller; and Mueller, along with the small group in the FBI, already knew Mueller was going to be appointed.

Later that night (May 16th), following the Mueller visit, there was a debriefing session back at Main Justice.  This evening meeting appears to be Lisa Page, Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe; along with Tashina Gauhar again taking notes.

♦ Wednesday May 17th, 2017:  Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe go to brief the congressional “Gang-of-Eight”: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner.

… […] “On the afternoon of May 17, Rosenstein and I sat at the end of a long conference table in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. We were there to brief the so-called Gang of Eight—the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Rosenstein had, I knew, made a decision to appoint a special counsel in the Russia case.”

[…] “After reminding the committee of how the investigation began, I told them of additional steps we had taken. Then Rod took over and announced that he had appointed a special counsel to pursue the Russia investigation, and that the special counsel was Robert Mueller.” (link)

Immediately following this May 17, 2017, Go8 briefing, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein notified the public of the special counsel appointment.

According to President Trump’s Attorney John Dowd, the White House was stunned by the decision. [Link] Coincidentally, AG Jeff Sessions was in the oval office for unrelated business when White House counsel Don McGahn came in and informed the group.

Jeff Sessions immediately offered his resignation, and Sessions’ chief-of-staff Jody Hunt went back to the Main Justice office to ask Rosenstein what the hell was going on.

Resources/Citations:
FOIA Info – McCabe Memos
FOIA Info – Archey Declarations
Timeline

RUSSIAGATE – THEY HAD NOTHING – This investigative ‘small group’ were the people inside Main Justice (DOJ) and FBI headquarters who redacted the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages; removed messages and communication antithetical to their goals; kept key documents and information away from congress; stalled any effort to expose the unlawful aspects of “SpyGate’ and the fraudulent foundation behind the Carter Page FISA application; and undermined any adverse discoveries in the leak investigations (ex. James Wolfe).

The DOJ/FBI investigative small group didn’t change when Mueller arrived, they just reorganized the focus of their effort based on lawfare leadership from Andrew Weissmann and new objectives.  Those same people who created the Trump-Russia collusion/conspiracy case of 2016, evolved into creating the Trump obstructing justice case of 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Everything Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein were doing in late 2017 and throughout 2018 was intended to drag-out the Russia conspiracy narrative as long as possible. There was really no Trump-Russia investigation taking place.

It was always the “obstruction” investigation that could lead to the desired result by Mueller’s team of taking down President Trump through evidence that would help Pelosi and Nadler achieve impeachment.  The “obstruction case” was the entirety of the case they were trying to make from May 2017 through to March 2019.

SPYGATE – Just as the New York Times reported, in its final days in office, the Obama Administration expanded the power of the National Security Agency (NSA) to share globally intercepted personal communication with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying any privacy protections.

The new rules were issued under section 2.3 of Executive Order #12333 after approval by two Obama Administration officials: Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Director of National Intelligence Director, James Clapper.

The new rules, which were issued in an unclassified document titled: “Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the National Security Agency (NSA),” significantly relaxed longstanding limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations.

These operations remain as largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. Surveillances include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls, and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The changes initiated by the Obama Administration in its waning days empowered far more government agents and officials to search through raw intelligence data. As a direct consequence of the change in policy, that the prospect of intel leaks grew exponentially.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed the new rules permitting the NSA to disseminate raw signals intelligence information on January 3, 2017 after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper signed them on December 15, 2016.

The targeting of Donald Trump required surveillance and spying.

The surveillance of Donald Trump never stopped.

The aspect that changed was the team extracting the information.  Hence, (FBI) Raw NSA extraction => (FBI) Crossfire Hurricane => (FBI) Robert Mueller => (FBI) Impeachment => (FBI) Mar-a-Lago Raid => (FBI) Jack Smith.

Posted originally on August 31, 2025 | Sundance

Former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, 81, is hospitalized with a fractured vertebrae and multiple cuts and bruises, including injuries specifically to his left arm and lower leg, after his rent-a-car was hit from behind while traveling in New Hampshire.

[SOURCE]

NEW YORK – “The accident occurred after he re-entered his vehicle, which was then hit from behind at high speed.”

Ragusa said Giuilani, who was mayor from 1994 through 2001, is recovering and in good spirts.  “The mayor is in great spirits. He’s a beast. He survived 9/11,” Ragusa said.

We are all praying for a speedy recovery.

Lord Jesus Christ, thank You, that You hear and answer our prayers. You sent out Your disciples with the command to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and drive out demons. They were able to do this because of Your mighty power working in and through them. 

We ask for that same power to touch the life of Rudy Giuliani and provide the healing and recovery he needs. Nothing is impossible for You. Please guide his doctors and caregivers. You have done more than we ask or even imagine. Extend Your healing touch to Rudy Giuliani, Lord.  In Your powerful name.  ~Amen.

Posted originally on August 31, 2025 | Sundance

Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears on CBS Face the Nation to discuss ongoing efforts to remove illegal aliens from our nation. The conversation starts with CBS Ed O’Keefe asking about upcoming ICE efforts scheduled to take place in Chicago.

When Ed O’Keefe begins discussing FEMA and the Noem initiative to control costs, he makes the mistake of asking Secretary Noem if she could give him an example of cost cutting.  O’Keefe immediately regrets the question as Secretary Noem begins outlining examples of waste fraud and abuse in FEMA spending. The video and transcript are below. WATCH:

[Transcript] – We begin today with Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who’s joining us from Florida.

Madam Secretary, thanks for being with us.

KRISTI NOEM (U.S. Homeland Security Secretary): Absolutely, Ed. Thank you for inviting me.

ED O’KEEFE: Yes. Well, we have a lot to discuss.

And we want to start with this, because we’ve learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning on expanding operations in the coming days to Chicago. When are those operations expected to start? And you said in recent days that you’re using the recent deployments in Los Angeles as a model. What does that mean?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, we’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we’re upholding our laws.

But we do intend to add more resources to those operations. I won’t disclose the details because they are law enforcement and investigative folks that are on the ground there, and I want to make sure we keep their security our number one priority.

But we will continue to go after the worst of the worst across the country, like President Trump has told us to do, focusing on those that are perpetuating murder and rape and trafficking of drugs and humans across our country, knowing that every single citizen deserves to be safe.

ED O’KEEFE: Part of what distinguished the Los Angeles operations, however, is that National Guard troops were there, in essence, protecting or backing up those federal agents as they conducted operations.

Is that what we should expect to see in Chicago?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: You know, that always is a prerogative of President Trump and his decision. I won’t speak to the specifics of the operations that are planned in other cities, but I do know that L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action.

And that city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state. And 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.

ED O’KEEFE: I just want to clarify one thing you said there. You said L.A. wouldn’t be standing if not for these federal deployments?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: So many of those homes and businesses that were in downtown L.A. 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 that President Trump was willing to send resources and people in, in order to enforce the law. And, Ed, since then, we have arrested 5,000 dangerous illegal criminals out of L.A. and removed them from our country and had them face justice for their crimes.

ED O’KEEFE: So, as you know, we spoke with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker about all this. And I asked him what he’d say to you about these forthcoming plans. Let’s play that and let you respond after.

(Begin VT)

ED O’KEEFE: If she were to call you, what would you say? What’s your message to her?

GOVERNOR J.B. PRITZKER (D-Illinois): Well, I tell her that what she’s doing is inflaming passions and causing disruption that doesn’t need to be caused.

We have people that have lived, yes, in the state of Illinois, in the city of Chicago for decades, working here, paying taxes. They’re law-abiding members of our communities, friends, neighbors. And why are we arresting them? Why are we making them disappear?

Indeed, they’re even disrupting the lives of people who are attempting to go through a legal process to stay in this country, who’ve been invited to a hearing, and then they’re arresting them in the hallways on their way to that hearing.

So this is dangerous. They shouldn’t be doing it. It’s anti-American. It’s un-American. And I would tell her to maybe check herself for, what does she really believe?

ED O’KEEFE: She’s also critical the fact that Chicago is one of the cities that doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration operations, and she was quoted as saying that Illinois – quote – “refuses to have our back.”

GOVERNOR J.B. PRITZKER: Well, that’s not true. In fact, there were police officers who made sure that there was nobody interfering or attacking or causing problems for the ICE officials that were here.

People have a right to express themselves. People have a right to their First Amendment, you know, freedom to express. And we protect that too in the city of Chicago. So it’s not true that the nobody has their backs.

What we won’t do, however, is engage in what is a federal effort. That is to say, they have their job, immigration. We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city. And, by the way, we’re succeeding at that job. But when they bring people in and don’t coordinate with us, they’re going to cause enormous problems.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: Madam Secretary, your response?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, for 13 consecutive years, Chicago had more murders than any other American city. In fact, just last year, in 2024, they had three times the amount of murders that L.A. did, five times more than New York City.

So he can talk about what a great job he’s doing as governor, but he’s failing those families who will no longer have their child with them, their mother or their father or their cousin, aunt, and uncle that are gone forever because of the violence that’s happening in Chicago.

So I was a governor for many years. So I recognize the responsibilities that you have on your shoulder when you’re a governor. And I will tell you, as a governor, when I had to make tough decisions, and when I had disagreements with the Biden administration or challenges my people were facing, I called up the Biden administration.

I went and talked to them. I asked for meetings. I fought for my people. This seems like it’s more about Governor Pritzker’s ego now, rather than actually protecting his people. If he has one murder in the city of Chicago, he should be calling President Trump and saying, what’s your ideas? What can we do?

They don’t even honor our detainers in Chicago. They don’t go out there and work with us to make sure we’re bringing people to justice. And, instead, he goes on TV and he attacks me, when we’re doing exactly what those people need, is, they need someone to help them get the dangerous criminals off their streets.

And if he has one, two, five or 10, those victims and their families deserve to walk in freedom on those streets and not have to worry about what’s going to happen to them on their way to their jobs.

ED O’KEEFE: Sure.

Are you planning, beyond Chicago, to expand these kinds of operations to other cities? There have been reports, for example, that Boston may very well soon be next.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: I think there’s a lot of cities that are dealing with crime and violence right now.

And so we haven’t taken anything off the table. We’ve been making sure that we have the resources and the equipment to go in. We’ve been working to partner with every single agency that we can. We have hundreds and hundreds of agreements with local law enforcement, sheriffs, city administrators that – and mayors across the country that want to solve problems.

I would encourage every single big city, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, whatever they are, if they want to help make their city safer, more prosperous, allow people the opportunity to walk in freedom, like the people of Washington, D.C. are now, and enjoying going out to eat at night and not having to worry if they’re going to be a victim of a carjacking or a robbery, they should call us.

ED O’KEEFE: You mentioned there are a bunch of cities in Democratic- controlled states with Democratic mayors. And there have been a lot of questions asked about that focus.

There are Republican cities with major crime issues as well, and we haven’t heard about plans to deploy, say, to Dallas or to Oklahoma City, or to cities in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi that have considerable crime rates, in some cases higher, percentage-wise, than those other cities you mentioned.

Are there plans to go to red states and Republican-controlled cities in this kind of way?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Absolutely.

ED O’KEEFE: OK.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Every single city is evaluated for what we need to do there to make it safer. So we’ve got operations that, again, I won’t talk about details on, but we absolutely are not looking through the viewpoint at anything we’re doing with a political lens.

ED O’KEEFE: One of the most-high profile examples of someone who’s been rounded up by ICE in recent months is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the fate of his situation is still up in the air.

He’s awaiting trial on human smuggling charges set for January in Tennessee, but your department is also working to get him deported to Uganda. If he broke the law in this country, as the administration alleges, shouldn’t he be held here and face charges here, instead of being deported?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, prosecution decisions are always made by the Department of Justice and – and Pam Bondi’s department. So we will let them do that.

Although this individual does have criminal charges pending, he has charges pending against him civilly as well. And the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure that he doesn’t walk free in the United States of America.

ED O’KEEFE: But I heard you say that we’re going to let the Justice Department do that. Does this mean that – does that mean the push to deport him to Uganda is off?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Oh, we will still continue to pursue all options.

ED O’KEEFE: OK.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: We will make sure that he’s not released into this country. So, regardless of that, yes, absolutely.

He’s not an American citizen, and he shouldn’t be here. And especially because of his dangerous criminal activities, we should ensure that we leave every avenue on the table.

ED O’KEEFE: Got it.

So, among other things, you oversee FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as we hit the peak of hurricane season. And we’re marking the 20th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina this weekend 20 years ago. Is the federal government prepared to respond to a major disaster at this moment?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: We are absolutely more prepared than the last administration and doing a much better job responding to the disasters we’ve already experienced since President Trump has been in the White House.

We’ve had over a dozen, close to 20 different disasters throughout the country just since President Trump has been the president of the United States. And we have deployed resources twice as fast as FEMA ever has in the past, gotten people on the ground over 100 percent quicker than any other administration has.

In fact, with the disasters that we saw that were so horrific and devastating in Texas and New Mexico, North Carolina, we’ve had people on the ground within hours responding to those families that were in crisis.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

I bring this up because part of what you’re suggesting there is in dispute from a handful of current and former FEMA employees who wrote to Congress this past week raising concerns about the agency’s ability to respond to forthcoming natural disasters.

One of the specific concerns they have is this decision that now has you reviewing any cost of $100,000 or more that FEMA plans to make. Can you give me an example of a charge of $100,000 or more that you’ve rejected?

😂SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Yes, absolutely.

We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars to a one- woman firm to deliver to us 30 million meals, and she delivered only 50,000 to us. And it was a – one person that the state – federal government had contracted with in order to deliver 30 million. And I don’t know how they ever expected one person to do that.

We – we had a person that was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to book meetings…

ED O’KEEFE: OK. 🤣 [O’Keefe crying ‘uncle’ – but Noem doesn’t stop]

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: … that – of less than 10 to 15 people, and with no meetings that we saw that were productive or couldn’t be done by sending an e-mail.

Over and over again, we’re looking at these contracts and looking at the fact that, are they duplicative, are they just supporting woke ideologies, DEI, or are they actually delivering disaster response, which is what FEMA job is, is to put in place operations to support states and local governments to take care of people.

And so that evaluation has saved us hundreds of millions of dollars within FEMA. And within the Department of Homeland Security, it has saved us $13 billion already. And we’re going to consider – continue to make sure that we’re accountable to taxpayers.

ED O’KEEFE: At least 20 of the people who signed this letter were current FEMA employees, and they’ve been placed on administrative leave.

And I had heard you in previous interviews suggest that those that are making accusations against the agency should put their names on the criticisms of the allegations. So, now they have, and they’ve been placed on administrative leave.

And I’m curious if it’s now the policy of DHS that any time an employee puts their name on something, publicly criticizes you or the president’s leadership, that they should anticipate being put on leave or fired.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: This – this letter was signed by many people anonymously. There was some who had their names on there.

And those who had their names on there were temporary contract employees who had worked for the Department of Homeland Security for less than a year, individuals who are not long-term FEMA employees, who – who grab ahold of the mission to be there, to go and serve individuals and to – are deployed across the country, and have for years to make sure they’re responsive to families in their time of need.

So, absolutely, every employee will be evaluated as to if they’re doing their job and if they’re doing it appropriately.

ED O’KEEFE: All right, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joining us this Sunday from Florida, thank you so much. Lots to discuss. We appreciate it.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Posted originally on August 31, 2025 | Sundance

Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears on CBS Face the Nation to discuss ongoing efforts to remove illegal aliens from our nation. The conversation starts with CBS Ed O’Keefe asking about upcoming ICE efforts scheduled to take place in Chicago.

When Ed O’Keefe begins discussing FEMA and the Noem initiative to control costs, he makes the mistake of asking Secretary Noem if she could give him an example of cost cutting.  O’Keefe immediately regrets the question as Secretary Noem begins outlining examples of waste fraud and abuse in FEMA spending. The video and transcript are below. WATCH:

[Transcript] – We begin today with Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who’s joining us from Florida.

Madam Secretary, thanks for being with us.

KRISTI NOEM (U.S. Homeland Security Secretary): Absolutely, Ed. Thank you for inviting me.

ED O’KEEFE: Yes. Well, we have a lot to discuss.

And we want to start with this, because we’ve learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning on expanding operations in the coming days to Chicago. When are those operations expected to start? And you said in recent days that you’re using the recent deployments in Los Angeles as a model. What does that mean?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, we’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we’re upholding our laws.

But we do intend to add more resources to those operations. I won’t disclose the details because they are law enforcement and investigative folks that are on the ground there, and I want to make sure we keep their security our number one priority.

But we will continue to go after the worst of the worst across the country, like President Trump has told us to do, focusing on those that are perpetuating murder and rape and trafficking of drugs and humans across our country, knowing that every single citizen deserves to be safe.

ED O’KEEFE: Part of what distinguished the Los Angeles operations, however, is that National Guard troops were there, in essence, protecting or backing up those federal agents as they conducted operations.

Is that what we should expect to see in Chicago?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: You know, that always is a prerogative of President Trump and his decision. I won’t speak to the specifics of the operations that are planned in other cities, but I do know that L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action.

And that city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state. And 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.

ED O’KEEFE: I just want to clarify one thing you said there. You said L.A. wouldn’t be standing if not for these federal deployments?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: So many of those homes and businesses that were in downtown L.A. 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 that President Trump was willing to send resources and people in, in order to enforce the law. And, Ed, since then, we have arrested 5,000 dangerous illegal criminals out of L.A. and removed them from our country and had them face justice for their crimes.

ED O’KEEFE: So, as you know, we spoke with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker about all this. And I asked him what he’d say to you about these forthcoming plans. Let’s play that and let you respond after.

(Begin VT)

ED O’KEEFE: If she were to call you, what would you say? What’s your message to her?

GOVERNOR J.B. PRITZKER (D-Illinois): Well, I tell her that what she’s doing is inflaming passions and causing disruption that doesn’t need to be caused.

We have people that have lived, yes, in the state of Illinois, in the city of Chicago for decades, working here, paying taxes. They’re law-abiding members of our communities, friends, neighbors. And why are we arresting them? Why are we making them disappear?

Indeed, they’re even disrupting the lives of people who are attempting to go through a legal process to stay in this country, who’ve been invited to a hearing, and then they’re arresting them in the hallways on their way to that hearing.

So this is dangerous. They shouldn’t be doing it. It’s anti-American. It’s un-American. And I would tell her to maybe check herself for, what does she really believe?

ED O’KEEFE: She’s also critical the fact that Chicago is one of the cities that doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration operations, and she was quoted as saying that Illinois – quote – “refuses to have our back.”

GOVERNOR J.B. PRITZKER: Well, that’s not true. In fact, there were police officers who made sure that there was nobody interfering or attacking or causing problems for the ICE officials that were here.

People have a right to express themselves. People have a right to their First Amendment, you know, freedom to express. And we protect that too in the city of Chicago. So it’s not true that the nobody has their backs.

What we won’t do, however, is engage in what is a federal effort. That is to say, they have their job, immigration. We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city. And, by the way, we’re succeeding at that job. But when they bring people in and don’t coordinate with us, they’re going to cause enormous problems.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: Madam Secretary, your response?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, for 13 consecutive years, Chicago had more murders than any other American city. In fact, just last year, in 2024, they had three times the amount of murders that L.A. did, five times more than New York City.

So he can talk about what a great job he’s doing as governor, but he’s failing those families who will no longer have their child with them, their mother or their father or their cousin, aunt, and uncle that are gone forever because of the violence that’s happening in Chicago.

So I was a governor for many years. So I recognize the responsibilities that you have on your shoulder when you’re a governor. And I will tell you, as a governor, when I had to make tough decisions, and when I had disagreements with the Biden administration or challenges my people were facing, I called up the Biden administration.

I went and talked to them. I asked for meetings. I fought for my people. This seems like it’s more about Governor Pritzker’s ego now, rather than actually protecting his people. If he has one murder in the city of Chicago, he should be calling President Trump and saying, what’s your ideas? What can we do?

They don’t even honor our detainers in Chicago. They don’t go out there and work with us to make sure we’re bringing people to justice. And, instead, he goes on TV and he attacks me, when we’re doing exactly what those people need, is, they need someone to help them get the dangerous criminals off their streets.

And if he has one, two, five or 10, those victims and their families deserve to walk in freedom on those streets and not have to worry about what’s going to happen to them on their way to their jobs.

ED O’KEEFE: Sure.

Are you planning, beyond Chicago, to expand these kinds of operations to other cities? There have been reports, for example, that Boston may very well soon be next.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: I think there’s a lot of cities that are dealing with crime and violence right now.

And so we haven’t taken anything off the table. We’ve been making sure that we have the resources and the equipment to go in. We’ve been working to partner with every single agency that we can. We have hundreds and hundreds of agreements with local law enforcement, sheriffs, city administrators that – and mayors across the country that want to solve problems.

I would encourage every single big city, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, whatever they are, if they want to help make their city safer, more prosperous, allow people the opportunity to walk in freedom, like the people of Washington, D.C. are now, and enjoying going out to eat at night and not having to worry if they’re going to be a victim of a carjacking or a robbery, they should call us.

ED O’KEEFE: You mentioned there are a bunch of cities in Democratic- controlled states with Democratic mayors. And there have been a lot of questions asked about that focus.

There are Republican cities with major crime issues as well, and we haven’t heard about plans to deploy, say, to Dallas or to Oklahoma City, or to cities in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi that have considerable crime rates, in some cases higher, percentage-wise, than those other cities you mentioned.

Are there plans to go to red states and Republican-controlled cities in this kind of way?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Absolutely.

ED O’KEEFE: OK.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Every single city is evaluated for what we need to do there to make it safer. So we’ve got operations that, again, I won’t talk about details on, but we absolutely are not looking through the viewpoint at anything we’re doing with a political lens.

ED O’KEEFE: One of the most-high profile examples of someone who’s been rounded up by ICE in recent months is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the fate of his situation is still up in the air.

He’s awaiting trial on human smuggling charges set for January in Tennessee, but your department is also working to get him deported to Uganda. If he broke the law in this country, as the administration alleges, shouldn’t he be held here and face charges here, instead of being deported?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Well, prosecution decisions are always made by the Department of Justice and – and Pam Bondi’s department. So we will let them do that.

Although this individual does have criminal charges pending, he has charges pending against him civilly as well. And the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure that he doesn’t walk free in the United States of America.

ED O’KEEFE: But I heard you say that we’re going to let the Justice Department do that. Does this mean that – does that mean the push to deport him to Uganda is off?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Oh, we will still continue to pursue all options.

ED O’KEEFE: OK.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: We will make sure that he’s not released into this country. So, regardless of that, yes, absolutely.

He’s not an American citizen, and he shouldn’t be here. And especially because of his dangerous criminal activities, we should ensure that we leave every avenue on the table.

ED O’KEEFE: Got it.

So, among other things, you oversee FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as we hit the peak of hurricane season. And we’re marking the 20th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina this weekend 20 years ago. Is the federal government prepared to respond to a major disaster at this moment?

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: We are absolutely more prepared than the last administration and doing a much better job responding to the disasters we’ve already experienced since President Trump has been in the White House.

We’ve had over a dozen, close to 20 different disasters throughout the country just since President Trump has been the president of the United States. And we have deployed resources twice as fast as FEMA ever has in the past, gotten people on the ground over 100 percent quicker than any other administration has.

In fact, with the disasters that we saw that were so horrific and devastating in Texas and New Mexico, North Carolina, we’ve had people on the ground within hours responding to those families that were in crisis.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

I bring this up because part of what you’re suggesting there is in dispute from a handful of current and former FEMA employees who wrote to Congress this past week raising concerns about the agency’s ability to respond to forthcoming natural disasters.

One of the specific concerns they have is this decision that now has you reviewing any cost of $100,000 or more that FEMA plans to make. Can you give me an example of a charge of $100,000 or more that you’ve rejected?

😂SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Yes, absolutely.

We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars to a one- woman firm to deliver to us 30 million meals, and she delivered only 50,000 to us. And it was a – one person that the state – federal government had contracted with in order to deliver 30 million. And I don’t know how they ever expected one person to do that.

We – we had a person that was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to book meetings…

ED O’KEEFE: OK. 🤣 [O’Keefe crying ‘uncle’ – but Noem doesn’t stop]

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: … that – of less than 10 to 15 people, and with no meetings that we saw that were productive or couldn’t be done by sending an e-mail.

Over and over again, we’re looking at these contracts and looking at the fact that, are they duplicative, are they just supporting woke ideologies, DEI, or are they actually delivering disaster response, which is what FEMA job is, is to put in place operations to support states and local governments to take care of people.

And so that evaluation has saved us hundreds of millions of dollars within FEMA. And within the Department of Homeland Security, it has saved us $13 billion already. And we’re going to consider – continue to make sure that we’re accountable to taxpayers.

ED O’KEEFE: At least 20 of the people who signed this letter were current FEMA employees, and they’ve been placed on administrative leave.

And I had heard you in previous interviews suggest that those that are making accusations against the agency should put their names on the criticisms of the allegations. So, now they have, and they’ve been placed on administrative leave.

And I’m curious if it’s now the policy of DHS that any time an employee puts their name on something, publicly criticizes you or the president’s leadership, that they should anticipate being put on leave or fired.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: This – this letter was signed by many people anonymously. There was some who had their names on there.

And those who had their names on there were temporary contract employees who had worked for the Department of Homeland Security for less than a year, individuals who are not long-term FEMA employees, who – who grab ahold of the mission to be there, to go and serve individuals and to – are deployed across the country, and have for years to make sure they’re responsive to families in their time of need.

So, absolutely, every employee will be evaluated as to if they’re doing their job and if they’re doing it appropriately.

ED O’KEEFE: All right, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joining us this Sunday from Florida, thank you so much. Lots to discuss. We appreciate it.

SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.

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