Former South Dakota Governor and current DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in a February 2026 podcast with Patrick Bet-David, alleged that agency staff installed spyware on her phone and laptop, as well as on the phones and laptops of other Trump political appointees, to secretly record meetings on behalf of the deep state.
For context, Elon Musk’s team aided in detecting these bugs, leading to polygraphs, firings, and regular office security sweeps. She also uncovered hidden secure rooms with classified files on controversial topics, now with attorneys. This exposes claimed deep-state sabotage against the administration’s security reforms.
Breaking down the details, Kristi Noem declared, “[He] came into this office, it was, you know, Elon and his team were extremely helpful to me. They helped me identify that some of my own employees in my department had downloaded software on my phone and my laptop to spy on me, to record our meetings.”
Expressing her shock, the Trump official added, “They had done that to several of the politicians, and so we ended up bringing in people, and that was something: if you didn’t have those technology experts here in the department looking at all our laptops and phones and recognizing that kind of software, it would still be happening today.”
Interjecting, a journalist asked, “What happened to the individual who had your phone that was being spied on?” Answering confidently, DHS Secretary Noem answered, “What happened to those individuals? Fired, fired, brought in, polygraphed, fired. ”
“Yes, many of them out of that, that arm of the department that is in charge of security on laptops, phones, also, you know, that’s enough. We had to, we had to sweep my office on a regular basis to make sure that there’s not listening devices in it, it’s, it’s very, it was very prevalent,” she said to add more context about what is being done and has been done to combat the problem
Concluding her comments, DHS Secretary Noem added, “I think that what happened at this department was that individuals had gotten away with for years, spying on people who were politically appointed, and trying to stop an administration that was coming in and trying to fix this country and keep us safe.”
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Watch the worrying clip here:
Speaking about a similalry concerning issue in a podcast appearance, Noem stated, “I just found the other day a whole room on this campus that was a secret skiff secure facility that had files… nobody knew existed. There was individuals working there [who] had secret files on some of these most controversial topics.”
“It’s very uh it was very prevalent and I think that what happened at this department was individuals um had gotten away with for years spying on people who were politically appointed and and trying to stop an administration that was coming in and trying to fix this country and keep us safe,” she went on to explain, commenting on the frightening nature of what she had gone through and what it meant.
Featured image credit: a sgreengrab from the embedded video