‘South Park' Portrays Kristi Noem as a Puppy-Shooting, Face-Melting ICE Villain
In the episode, titled 'Got a Nut,' school counselor Mr. Mackay loses his job due to President Donald Trump cutting the Department of Education's budget, so he decides to sign up to join ICE ('I'm proud to work for ICE,' declares one masked ICE recruiter, ironically). Mackay watches an orientation video from Noem in which she says, 'A few years ago, I had to put my puppy down by shooting it in the face, because sometimes doing what's important means doing what's hard.' (Noem previously admitted to killing her 14-month-old dog for exhibiting aggressive behavior.)
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This is followed by Noem shooting several other random puppies in the face, which becomes a running gag throughout the episode. Mackay and his ICE squad then descend on the Dora the Explorer live show to arrest people in the crowd. 'Remember only detain the brown ones!' Noem shouts. 'If it's brown, it goes down!' Another running gag is Noem's face repeatedly melting, only to be patched up by a beautician support team.
Mackay's success as an ICE agent earns him an invitation to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which is portrayed as a Fantasy Island parody — with Trump and Mr. O'Roarke and Vice President J.D. Vance as a tiny subservient Tattoo (Vance has since commented on X about episode, 'Well, I've finally made it').
Mackay realizes the high price for his success — a threesome with Trump and Satan — is too much to pay. Krypto the Superdog from Superman swoops in to seemingly save the day — only to be shot dead by Noem as well.
The episode also took on right-wing podcasts with fourth-grader Clyde becoming a supplement hawking 'own the libs'-style 'master-debater.'
Noem responded to the episode on Friday, saying, 'It's so lazy to make fun of women for how they look. Only the liberals and the extremists do that. If they want to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can't. They just picked something petty like that.' Noem added that she didn't watch the episode personally.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security posted an image on X from South Park's preview that depicted an ICE raid, along with a link to a recruitment site to join U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The official South Park X account shot back: 'Wait, so we ARE relevant? #eatabagofdicks.'
The comment refers to the White House's official statement that was issued in response to the show's scathing 27th season premiere last month, which claimed: 'Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows. This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.'
The show's blockbuster 27th season return last month delivered nearly 6 million cross-platform viewers and the largest audience share for the animated comedy in 25 years. The episode also received more social media posts than any other in the show's history.
Aug. 8, 8:40 a.m. Updated with Noem's response to the episode.
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