Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted CBS News on Sunday, accusing the network of editing her Face the Nation interview about Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the alleged MS-13 gang member deported to El Salvador earlier this year by the Trump administration.
“This individual was a known human smuggler, a MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors, and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off, he was so sick in what he was doing and how he was treating small children,” Noem said in the full, unaired clip. “So he needs to never be in the United States of America and our administration is making sure we’re doing all that we can to bring him to justice.”
Noem claimed on X that CBS clipped her remarks. “This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety,” she wrote.
CBS pushed back, telling The New York Post: “Secretary Noem’s Face the Nation interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards. The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted early Sunday morning at CBSNews.com.”
A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador due to threats from local gangs, but the Trump administration nonetheless flew him and hundreds of other alleged gang members to a megaprison in the country earlier this year. Officials cited the 2019 court proceeding in designating him an MS-13 member, though Abrego Garcia and his attorneys have denied the allegation.
Democrats have defended Abrego Garcia, calling his removal “wrongful” and noting he was held for weeks at the notorious CECOT prison before being transferred to a lower-security facility.
Watch the clip below:
This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.
Watch for the part of my interview that @CBS tried to… pic.twitter.com/28fsGZug48
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) August 31, 2025
President Donald Trump filed suit in October 2024 against CBS and its parent, Paramount, charging that a 60 Minutes interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris had been cut and spliced to damage his election prospects.
By July 2025, Paramount agreed to settle for $16 million, the funds earmarked not for Trump himself but for his future presidential library. There was no apology, no admission of wrongdoing — only a transaction, and the tacit acknowledgment that the clash between a president and a network had left its mark.
