DHS Secretary Noem accuses CBS of 'deceptively' editing her 'Face the Nation' interview

Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem accused CBS News of “deceptively” editing her interview on Sunday’s edition of “Face the Nation,” including comments she made about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who was deported and later returned to the U.S., and about the approximately 5,000 “illegal aliens” that DHS arrested in Los Angeles earlier this year. 

In a statement released on Sunday, DHS said CBS “deceptively” and “selectively” edited the secretary’s answers, cutting about four minutes, or 23%, from the nearly 17-minute interview when it aired on the Sunday show. 

CBS responded saying that they edited the interview for timing purposes only, and that the full interview and transcript of the interview were posted on their website the same morning the interview aired, according to The Hill. 

Regarding Abrego Garcia, DHS said that this 25 second comment was cut from the on-air interview, which, they say “deprived the American people from hearing the truth about MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia:”

“This individual was a known human smuggler, MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was um 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. So, uh, 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.”

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge last week to issue a gag order against Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to bar them from making “baseless public attacks” against their client.

Regarding Noem’s answer to a question about DHS’ arrest of 5,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles, the following was cut: 

“...And many of these individuals were people who have, you know, conducted horrific um horrific activities against American citizens, trafficking of children and pedophiles. And so that's uh one of the things that the people of a LA can be grateful for is that they don't have those bad actors, those people on their streets anymore because of the work of President Trump and his administration.”

This criticism from DHS follows the settlement in July in which Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump accusing the network of selective editing of an interview with then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired shortly before the presidential election. Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle the lawsuit, which upset a number of veteran CBS News reporters.