The hosts of The View were divided over how intelligent Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is on Wednesday, with co-host Sunny Hostin declaring Noem is “not that smart.”
The conversation came up after Noem incorrectly defined habeas corpus while testifying to senators on Tuesday about Trump bypassing the courts to carry out his mass deportations. “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” Noem said confidently before she was cut off by New Hampshire’s Democrat senator Maggie Hassan, who told Noem, “That’s incorrect.”
“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people,” Hassan clarified.
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The hosts of the daytime talk show unpacked the moment during their “Hot Topics” segment Wednesday. “Kristin Noem may be a puppy killer—she’s not dumb,” Trump’s former White House Communications aide Alyssa Farah Griffin said after the clip of Noem’s embarrassing testimony rolled. “She knows what habeas corpus is. She served in Congress for several terms.”
The show also rolled part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s testimony, during which he declared “The judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.” Hostin declared, “He’s lying,” as Griffin insisted his take was “more nuanced.”
He is right, Griffin said, “that a court can’t simply intervene to say ‘We don’t like your policy,’” but “when the courts can intervene is when your foreign policy denies people a constitutional right like due process.”
Behar brought the conversation back to Noem, however, because she wanted to know from Hostin and Griffin “whether it’s possible she knows what habeas corpus is.”
“I don’t think she does at all,” Hostin said as Griffin interjected, “I think she does. She gave the answer that Trump wanted.”
“I don’t think the puppy killer knows,” Hostin insisted. “I think the puppy killer is not that smart, and I also think she is not a lawyer—she does not know…The average person doesn’t know it and I don’t think Kristi Noem knows it.”
