Kristi Noem has long shown an unhidden willingness to let the public see what she will do with a firearm in her grasp.
This week, she demonstrated that again, and this time she didn’t rely on a memoir to convey the message.
The former Homeland Security secretary, who has spent much of 2026 dodging headlines about her firing and the aide who accompanied her on the farewell tour, hopped online to share what she clearly regarded as a feel-good moment.
Noem published six photographs, a note of appreciation to friends, and the phrase “super fun” in a Sept. 21 post that continues to draw backlash days later.
As viewers zoomed in, she veered off on one detail and then returned to defend herself, only to end up fanning the flames.
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The caption accompanying her Instagram post began with a seemingly innocent note.
“Finally had a little time to post a few pictures of my archery elk,” the 54-year-old wrote. Noem credited a “super fun hunt with Patrick, Randy, Jason, and Taylor” and added that “the strategy and work paid off.”
The images depicted a scene that few were eager to witness.
Noem kneels behind a towering bull elk with one hand gripping its antlers. Her compound bow rests against the animal’s flank, directly above an open wound still stained with blood.
Her stance repeats across the carousel as members of the hunting party take turns beside Noem, all of them grinning. Instagram even flagged the post as sensitive content.
But Noem wasn’t prepared to yield the concluding word to her critics. She replied in the comments section, and it wasn’t a conciliatory gesture.
“For those of you who choose to be ignorant and uninformed and critical, of course this beautiful animal will nourish our family and many others we will share with,” she wrote. She added that she had learned to hunt from her father and brothers.
Then she turned on her detractors: “Shame on you who desecrate and don’t understand the stewardship responsibilities God has given us. Go to a store and shop for anything that hasn’t been harvested and you will find bare shelves and your family will starve.”
Not long after, the ability to post comments was restricted.
Before the restriction, however, replies had already surged. Many of them came from people she would have a hard time calling uninformed.
“Why post something like this? You have little perception of how you are seen in the world,” one person wrote. Another kept it brief: “Literally no one wants to see this.”
“Heartbreaking to see such a magnificent animal lose its life for sport,” a third commented. “Wildlife deserves our respect and protection, not to be treated as a trophy.”
Some of the strongest pushback came from within her own party. “I’m a conservative as well but I don’t like this,” one follower wrote. “I understand hunting is necessary. But no need to glorify it with a dead animal teed up as a trophy to celebrate.”
A self-described conservative Christian challenged the caption itself, arguing that you can’t call a kill “super fun” and then call it stewardship.
Not everyone piled on, though. Fellow hunters congratulated her on the bull’s size, and one simply asked if it was a 6×6.
For many readers, however, the photos reinforced a reputation Noem had crafted for herself. In her 2024 memoir, “No Going Back,” she described shooting her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, Cricket, in a gravel pit after deciding the dog was untrainable. The confession followed her even as she was floated as a potential Trump running mate.
The timing didn’t help either. According to NPR, Trump dismissed Noem in March after a 13-month tenure defined by his mass deportation push and the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
There was also the $220 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign that put her face front and center. Instead of sending her home, Trump gave her a brand-new title… Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, his anti-cartel coalition in the Western Hemisphere.
That assignment pulled her back into the president’s orbit the very next day. On Sept. 22, Trump convened the coalition’s second meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he vowed to deploy “unmatched military might” against cartels. Noem posted that she was “so proud to stand with” Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The elk photos remain online.
Her personal life hasn’t quieted either. In August, new photos stoking fresh speculation about Noem and Corey Lewandowski appeared, months after a lawmaker asked her point-blank in a congressional hearing whether the two had been intimate.
