By Katherine Tinsley
5:17pm PDT, Jun 25, 2025
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Kristi Noem gave some seemingly tone-deaf advice to Americans who are becoming more concerned about the U.S. joining forces with Israel in its war with Iran.
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While attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Customs and Border Protection training center in West Virginia on Monday, June 23, Kristi Noem was asked about the ongoing conflict abroad: "What's your message to Americans who are seeing what's going on overseas and are concerned about an attack on the homeland?" one reporter asked.
"You know what I would tell the people that live in this country is to be grateful that they woke up this morning in the United States of America," Noem replied. "We, because we woke up here, are more blessed than 99 percent of the people in the world because we live in a country where freedom and liberty is embraced."
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Kristi Noem later defended Donald Trump's targeted airstrikes: "That's what our president was protecting by going after specific nuclear sites in Iran," she said. "That was something that was nonnegotiable, and he did not do anything except take out the potential for that nuclear weapon to be utilized. … I believe that the president worked aggressively to make sure that we are safer and will be into the future as well."
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Donald Trump administration and their response to Iran: He told CBS' Face the Nation that the country is on a "very precise mission" and that the airstrikes were not "an attack on the Iranian people."
"This wasn't a regime-change move," he insisted.
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Donald Trump defended his decisions in a Truth Social rant: "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" he wrote.
