Kristi Noem tears into predecessor Alejandro Mayorkas on ‘Pod Force One’ for opening southern border: ‘Don’t know how he slept at night’

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted her predecessor in an exclusive interview with “Pod Force One,” out Wednesday, claiming Alejandro Mayorkas opened the southern border to drug and human traffickers.

“I don’t know how he slept at night,” Noem told The Post’s Miranda Devine, suggesting that Mayorkas took his “direction” from the Biden White House, where Vice President Kamala Harris served as “border czar.”

“I don’t know how he slept at night knowing the vulnerabilities he was creating for this country and the people he was letting in and allowing to undo us,” the 53-year-old said.

Under former President Joe Biden, the number of border crossings broke all-time records and more than 8 million migrants entered the US — including criminals, known gang members and hundreds of others on terror watchlists.

“I think one of the biggest disservices they did to the country was not fulfill the mission of what the department was established for; it literally is to secure the homeland,” Noem went on.

“And he opened the doors and said, ‘Come on in. If you are from an evil foreign government or a terrorist organization or a gang, you’re more than welcome, and we’re going to ignore our laws and treat you better than we do the American citizens.’”

House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February 2024 for having willfully refused to comply with federal immigration laws and lying to Congress about the US border being “secure.”

“They didn’t even try to close the border,” Noem said on the podcast.

“That’s what I think. Knowing you were doing nothing and watching, if you watched, the inhumanity of what was happening at the border.”

The Democrat-controlled Senate voted against holding an impeachment trial, acquitting Biden’s border enforcement official.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has overseen the deportation of more than 300,000 migrants who illegally entered the country, the majority of whom are believed to have criminal records.

Another 2 million in the US interior have rap sheets.

More than 320,000 kids were also lost under the Biden administration after entering the US as unaccompanied minors and being shuttled from housing nonprofits — given billions of dollars in federal grants — to sponsors, some of whom were unvetted and also had alleged criminal and gang ties.

At least 7,300 reports of migrant children being trafficked were never even investigated, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, which partnered with DHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to house them.

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“We knew children were going missing,” Noem said.

“We knew they were raping our girls at the border and trafficking our little boys. And they knew all that was going on and watched.”

“[They] watched the same child cross the border over and over again with a different group of adults and they just went to bed at night,” she went on.

“And as a mom and a grandma, that’s the stuff that I don’t know how they did that. I don’t know how they sat there and facilitated that.”

The Trump administration has since rescued 13,000 children and HHS is still processing thousands of reports alleging trafficking, fraudulent sponsorships of the kids or other alleged abuse.

Elsewhere in the interview, Noem shared that she spent time with Border Patrol agents who had been “demonized” after being falsely accused by Biden, Mayorkas and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2021 of whipping migrants entering through Texas with their horses’ reins.

“I went down there and rode horse with them for a day, because, well, obviously I like to ride horses, but I went right away as soon as I was sworn in to go spend time with them, because they were so demonized,” the DHS chief said.

“And their leadership did that to them.”

Mayorkas was informed by an aide that there was no evidence the agents “strapped” Haitian migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border after a photographer who was present shared his account — but didn’t contradict Biden’s false claims or alter his own statements about the incident.

“Our nation saw horrifying images that do not reflect who we are,” Mayorkas had said at the time, while Harris claimed the agents’ actions reminded her of “times of slavery.” 

Noem told “Pod Force One” she “just wanted them to know that their previous leadership had ridden over them, but I was going to ride with them, and I was going to be a part of helping them do their jobs again.”