Kristi Noem Hearing: Why Dodging a Yes-or-No Question Is Always the Wrong Move

Hey there. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. This is an episode where we are going to do what we like to do here on this podcast. Take a real crisis, uncover some of the human failure underneath them, and then figure out what the crisis can teach the rest of us. I want to talk about a moment that stopped me mid Scroll today, Wednesday, March 4th, at the time of this recording. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, sitting in a congressional hearing, being asked a direct yes or no question. A question I have been wondering for a while now. When is someone going to ask it? The last 7 days I've been traveling for a client. So when I was on the plane yesterday and I could finally really catch up in the news and go deep, I was watching a lot of the clips. Of Kristi Noem testifying before Congress, because as the Homeland Security Secretary, she now is under intense bipartisan scrutiny, not just Democrat, bipartisan, over two fatal shootings of the US citizens by ICE in Minneapolis. And of course, her broader mass deportation crackdown and also a partial shutdown of DHS funding. There was even some deep, deep scrutiny and judgment around an over $2 million ad campaign where we saw Kristi Noem at all these airports. So far, senators in both parties have grilled her for initially branding the dead protesters as domestic terrorists. That includes Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, And despite video and eyewitness accounts that completely undercut that claim, she still, as she testifies, refuses to retract or apologize while insisting that she relied on these chaotic early reports from agents on the ground. Everything that she has been saying doesn't make sense, or if it makes— everything she's been saying makes sense in her mind because she is following, no doubt, talking points. I mean, you can see it in her head, how her head is working. But everything is about undercutting a claim, refusing to retract, refusing to apologize, refusing to say anything to Alex Pretty or Renee Goode's family. She called Alex Pretty a domestic terrorist. That's what Senator Klobuchar was asking her to say, and she just refused to admit it, even though we all saw on the video that she did. That's the setup. But today in this hearing, it got worse because there was one of the biggest dodges that I've seen that put yesterday's dodges to shame. Because that's what I really want to talk about in today's episode, because what happened in that room today is one of the clearest demonstrations of how not to handle a hard question. And the lesson applies to anyone, not just cabinet secretaries. It applies to all of us. If you're cornered or if you know someone and they are Kristi Noem-ing you, I want to give you some advice for that. So let's get into it. To understand why that hearing room was primed and ready, you need to know what had been happening in the weeks before. Now, Noem has had a rumored relationship with Corey Lewandowski. He is her alleged boyfriend. He's also, I have air quotes, a special government employee working at the White House. They are both married to other people. Kristi Noem's husband was there for the testimony about Corey Lewandowski, and Corey Lewandowski lives in New Hampshire with his wife. This is his wife's second marriage because she used to be married to a man who was killed on 9/11. He was originally from, I believe, Lowell, Massachusetts. So she is not just a widow, but she's a tragic widow. And this woman is married to Corey Lewandowski. And there have been so many whispers around Washington, D.C. about these two together. The relationship, to put it diplomatically, one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. They've been spotted together at parties, leaving each other's apartments. Also now that they live on military housing. They're essentially just moving into where Coast Guard housing should be. The situation has become such an open joke that Noem was actually mocked online for bringing her husband to the White House event instead of Lewandowski. So that's the backdrop. Now, here's an incident that I think made the whispers louder into an open conversation that ended up in the hearing Today, I briefly mentioned this on a social media post a couple weeks back when Noam's deputy press secretary, Trish McLaughlin, stepped down, air quotes again. So we don't know what happened behind that, but I had mentioned very briefly that there was an incident with Noam and Corey Lewandowski on a government trip, and it involved a Coast Guard plane. So her plane— so now she gets to fly around. Coast Guard plane, DHS, Coast Guard— the United States Coast Guard and FEMA fall under DHS. Her plane had maintenance issues and she had to switch aircraft like mid-trip. During that switch, allegedly a bag got left behind on the first plane. It was reported that it was a blanket. But now there are reports saying that it was a bag, and I didn't see this widespread, but I'm just going to tell you what I read in a website. So this is from The New Republic, and the headline is, turns out Kristi Noem's plane freakout wasn't over a blanket. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's blanket fiasco may not have been about a blanket at all. The so-called Ice Barbie allegedly had her rumored beau expired special media expired special employee Corey Lewandowski fire a Coast Guard pilot last May after Nome neglected to bring her favorite weighted blanket onto the second flight of one of her trips. But three DHS insiders— and there we go, there's always leakers. And can I tell you, the Coast Guard now under DHS, a lot of leaks are coming out of the Coast Guard. And when there are leaks out of an organization or a business— I'm telling you this, and I know this in my job because I deal with it all the time— that speaks to a negative, seriously in crisis culture problem. So in this case, we have 3 of them. So they say DHS insiders. I'm gonna say most likely one, if not all, are from the Coast Guard, because those people said that the spectacle was— and those three said, those three leakers, those three moles said it wasn't about a blanket, but rather a mysterious bag with potentially embarrassing contents. So quoting one of the insiders, quote, this was never about a blanket. The blanket was a cover story for what really happened. The whole thing was really about the bag that was left. So the insiders were unable to shed light on what was inside the bag, But reports— but because of the reports that leaked out about how Cory Lewandowski acted around it brings a lot of scrutiny to this whole interaction. A commanding officer for the Coast Guard, Keith Thomas, who was flying the plane, was fired. And Thomas was told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. But moments later, Lewandowski had to backtrack on Thomas's terminated employment, though he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do any admission of wrongdoing. But instead, they needed to tap the pilot to fly her around again because no one else was available to fly them home. And that was in the Wall Street Journal. So this affair is considered a very poorly kept secret. Secret. Now, of course, I'm paying attention to the story because of my connection to the Coast Guard. I know so many people in the Coast Guard, and I know so many people retired from the Coast Guard, and I know Coast Guard pilots in the Coast Guard. So this story is a very believable story. So when you have behaviors like this, it leaves contempt and it leaves anger and it leaves people wanting retribution. Because I happen to know, and I know this from my direct messages, there are a lot of people in the Coast Guard who I do not like how the administration is treating the Coast Guard. And I'm not saying this— yes, there is some bias there, but my goodness, these are the people out there. They are saving lives. They're protecting our coast. They were doing so many things. So for a Cory Lewandowski to fire a pilot like that is absolutely ridiculous. By the time Noem walks into that hearing room yesterday, the committee already has a full picture of her. All the things that she's done at DHS, everything happening in Minneapolis, her making all these wild comments from different locations. If you followed my social media posts, there was one about her making a comment in Texas about something that's happening in Minnesota. Remember, she was wearing that ridiculous hat. But this rumored affair with a man on the government payroll, the man firing a military officer without authority, a cover story about a blanket that insiders have now blown up, this mysterious bag. Trust has been eroding for weeks, months around Kristi Noem. But now when things get messy, that's when leadership— and let's call it in this case the administration, President Trump— they have to start looking for fall guys when things get bad. And there's no question here, at least in my mind, from what I'm seeing and just reports that I'm reading and how they're starting to circle the wagons, that Kristi Noem is now the administration fall person. And the question about Corey Lewandowski was coming. It was only a matter of time. So there she is, a congressional hearing, cameras on, and committee members who have been throwing every single thing at her, and all these things are sticking to her. Now we have one congresswoman asking a question. It wasn't a complicated one. It wasn't a trick.

So, Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure as Director of Department of Homeland Security, have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?

The person asking the question was Congresswoman Sydney Kamlauger Dove. She is a congresswoman representing the state of California, a Democrat. Secretary Noem had two choices: yes or no. Here's what she said instead.

Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today. Reclaiming— and ma'am, one thing that I would tell you is that he is a special government employee who works for the White House.

She talks for 4 minutes without once saying yes or no, and the congresswoman, to her credit, did not let it go.

Federal government— so reclaiming— it is okay for you to be appointed by the president. It is okay for you to be appointed by the president, um, making decisions over your position. So what I would say is that what we do at the Department of Homeland Security every single day, without any hesitation, every single day, is to protect this A one-sentence denial ends this full stop.

3 words. No, I haven't. Story over. Or no. News cycle moves on.

Someone is asking you or any federal official is sleeping with their subordinate. That should be the easiest. You should be wanting to answer that question.

Is garbage.

Because it is not about your sex life. It is about your judgment. That kind of garbage is about reclaiming my time so that I can hear my account.

Here's what the non-answer communicated, whether she intended it to or not. I heard the question. I understood the question. I chose not to answer it. That is the only information people take away from a dodge that's obvious. Not innocence, not offense, just the confirmation that there was something she didn't want to say. When I look at a crisis, I always start with the human driver. Always. The thing underneath the tactical mistake. Because the decision to dodge that question didn't come from nowhere. It came from a very specific mindset. The driver here is contempt. Contempt is different from the other crisis drivers I talk about, like narcissism. That's self-obsession. Fear is self-protection. Contempt is directional. It's about a target. It says you don't deserve a straight answer. This question is beneath me. The fact that you're even asking tells me everything I need to know about you. Watch the tell in Noam's response. She didn't say, "I prefer not to discuss that." She said, "Tabloid garbage." She performed offense. She looked at that question and decided the right move was to make the asker look small. That's not deflection, that's contempt. And contempt is the only crisis driver that makes you look worse the harder you push back. So every time she called it garbage, she answered the question she was trying to avoid. And here's the thing about contempt in a crisis. It feels powerful in the moment, standing up, pushing back, refusing to dignify the question. It feels like strength, but it reads as guilt. We've all been asked a question we didn't wanna answer. But if you're listening to this podcast, I bet you answered honestly. And I bet you've dealt with people who refuse to answer it. They make the question the problem. They performed the offense. They redirected. They gave you a speech about something adjacent and hoped that you would forget what you originally asked. And you know that never works. Not once. Not in a congressional hearing. Not in a kitchen conversation with someone who supposedly cares about you. Not in a performance review with a manager who already knows the answer. Think about the last time someone asked you something direct and uncomfortable. And you can't think about the last time you asked someone directly something that was uncomfortable and they came back with, "I can't believe you're asking me that question." How did that land with you? Did it end the conversation? Did it tell the person? Did it tell you exactly what you needed to know about that person? That type of speech doesn't protect a person. It confirms what someone else is already worried about. The hard thing, the thing that takes discipline, is separating how you feel about a question from how you answer it. I tell this to clients all the time. I said it all week. I did 5 days of training in 7 days, and I said this in every single one of my trainings. Noam clearly felt contempt for that question. Maybe it was genuine. Maybe the question felt unfair to her. That feeling is allowed, but that feeling is not the response. The response is a response. And the response she chose made her look like someone with something to hide, whether she does or not. But I think she does. And the fix is so simple. She could have said this: "No, I have not. Next question." It's done in 30 seconds. The story moves on. But instead, we have this clip and we have this podcast episode. So here's what I want you to think about this week. Is there a question that you've asked someone at work, at home, in your head, and they've been responding with a speech instead of an answer? That speech isn't protecting the person, it's just making your question louder. Pay attention to those conversations. Pay attention to the dodge. All right, that's it for this week's episode. Thanks so much for listening. If this resonated, please send it to someone who needs it. And please come back next week because we keep going.