Kristi Noem’s Cruella De Vil tag was already a political scar, but after a fresh blast of pop-culture mockery and a real-world fiasco, it just got meaner. The nickname took off in spring 2024 when strategist Matthew Dowd, reacting to Noem’s now-infamous story about shooting her young hunting dog, cracked on MSNBC, “Don’t take Dalmatians to South Dakota anytime soon.”
That dog tale, recounted in Noem’s 2024 book No Going Back, sparked national outrage and weeks of headlines. Noem defended the decision as a hard farm call, but critics across the spectrum weren’t buying it. Animal advocates, late-night hosts, and even some conservatives torched her judgment.
This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.
Watch for the part of my interview that @CBS tried to… pic.twitter.com/28fsGZug48
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) August 31, 2025
Enter South Park, which recently cranked the satire to 11. In the August episode “Got a Nut,” the show portrayed Noem as a ruthless, image-obsessed ICE boss who shoots dogs and suffers a grotesque cosmetic meltdown. Noem fired back, calling the show “petty” and “lazy,” but the jabs only amplified the bit.
Meanwhile, Noem’s day job is producing its own meme fuel. The Department of Homeland Security had to publicly torch a viral rumor that she was backing a reality show where migrants would “compete” for U.S. citizenship. DHS branded the story “completely false” in a May statement, and the department’s unusually blunt pushback only highlighted how fast such rumors can take root.
And now there’s a new, nastier label chasing her around Washington: ICE Barbie. The nickname resurfaced as critics mocked Noem’s glossy photo-ops and hard-line deportation theatrics, then stuck after a diplomatic embarrassment with Argentina blew up into a headline-splashed mess. Noem inked a splashy statement of intent on a visa-waiver deal during a July trip, but the signing allegedly blindsided other senior officials, and the rollout collapsed just as an Argentine delegation was flying in. Internally, it was called “embarrassing.” Externally, it looked like style over substance.
The pile-on has a rhythm now: a controversy, a viral nickname, a pop-culture dunk, repeat. And the source material keeps coming. The dog-shooting episode is still defining Noem’s national persona, with a single passage in her memoir detonating a would-be VP audition and reshaping how voters heard her name. South Park simply pressed that bruise harder, turning “Cruella” from a one-liner into a running gag.
To be clear, Noem isn’t exactly shrinking from the spotlight. Since becoming Secretary of Homeland Security in January 2025, she’s leaned into high-visibility enforcement and headline-grabbing messaging, drawing cheers from hardliners and jeers from almost everyone else. That visibility, plus the television ridicule, is how a cutting nickname metastasizes into a brand problem. The Cruella De Vil tag was bad, “ICE Barbie” is worse, because it marries the cruelty charge to a caricature of vanity, and it’s arriving alongside policy stumbles big enough to make diplomatic waves.
Bottom line is in politics, nicknames stick when they rhyme with the news. Between the dog saga that won’t die, the DHS rumor-mill fiasco, and South Park’s savage portrayal, Noem’s critics have all the raw material they need. If she wants to shake the labels, the fix isn’t a better clapback, it’s fewer unforced errors and a lot less fodder for the animators.
