00:00Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my
00:07Forbes colleague, money and politics reporter, Kyle Conmullins. Kyle, thanks so much for joining
00:12me. Always great to be here, Brittany. Thanks for having me. Your most recent reporting studies the
00:19net worth of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. And there was a story that came out two
00:25months ago that you highlight at the beginning of your reporting where she was robbed in D.C.
00:29and she was carrying in her purse, which was taken, $3,000 worth of cash. So my first question
00:34was, who has that much cash on them? Why does a government employee have that much cash on them?
00:39And how much is she worth? And you have the answer actually to that last question.
00:44So kick it off. How much is the DHS secretary worth? Yeah, Brittany, I wish I could tell you
00:52why she had $3,000 of cash on her. That's a question we're going to leave to someone else
00:57to figure out. But I can tell you, Forbes is now estimating Kristi Noem is worth about $5 million.
01:03And so that might give you at least one small answer as to why she had $3,000 in cash on her.
01:08She's got the money. And so before we get into her fortune, take us back to the very beginning
01:14because she comes from humble beginnings. She did not come from a political family and she did not
01:19begin her career in politics. Talk to us about it. Yeah, Kristi Noem grew up on a family farm in South
01:26Dakota. She writes in her first autobiography, she had this huge variety of animals that she
01:31kept on the farm, including what she describes as a herd of 20 to 30 cats. As a cat lover myself,
01:38I get it. I would love to have more cats. I only have so much space in my apartment. I guess in
01:43South Dakota, you got a little more room. She got married early, went off to college and was eight
01:48months pregnant and still in college when her dad died in a farming accident on the family farm.
01:53Really, really tragic situation. He was trying to break a crust on top of a grain silo and fell in
02:01and died. It was a horrible situation. She dropped out of college in order to keep the farm running.
02:08She and her husband worked on that farm for years after that. They also ran a lodge that was attached
02:15to the farm. Then he moved into insurance and she ended up going into politics.
02:22Then all in all, since we are focused on the money aspect of this, how lucrative was that farming
02:27business for the Noem family? We don't have an exact figure here, but we know that the family farm was a
02:34pretty substantial asset for them. It was enough that actually when her dad died, they were hit by the
02:39estate tax. She has talked about that in her congressional testimony. She talked about that
02:44as a reason why she looks to repeal the estate tax today. She believes that it hits farmers more than
02:49most. We also know that, like I said, her husband left farming in the early 2000s with Brian Noem to
02:57start a career in insurance, leaving the sector. Today, that farm, that family farm, it's operated by
03:04her siblings and they bought out her share after she went into politics. Let's talk about her ascent
03:10into politics because she first started in local politics. She served in the South Dakota House of
03:14Representatives. What did that paycheck look like and what did her responsibilities in that job look
03:19like? Well, all politics in South Dakota, I think, are local politics to some extent. It's not a very
03:26high population state. The sense I get from reading her books and from talking to folks there is that
03:33there were, you know, small, tightly knit communities there. Her job in the South Dakota
03:38House of Representatives, it's a part-time job like most state legislatures. So she was continuing to
03:44work on the side in addition to working in the legislature. And that only paid about $12,000 a year
03:51in 2007. While she was in the state capitol for her first 40-day session, she actually stayed with a
03:59friend because she didn't make sense to get an apartment for that amount of time. And that, yeah,
04:06that basically sums up the state legislative job. That's how it works in most states, actually.
04:11And so then she ascended to the national stage. She won a seat in Congress. So talk to us about her
04:16tenure in the House and the paycheck attached to that job.
04:19Yeah, she won South Dakota's only seat in Congress in 2010. And then like everyone in Congress, except
04:28for congressional leadership, she made $174,000. That salary has not changed since that point, by the
04:35way. So it's been losing value every year due to inflation. So that's pretty big salary for somebody
04:40going from $12,000 a year as a South Dakota state representative, all the way up to $174,000 as
04:45Congress won. She seemed to make a pretty big splash early. She was the freshman representative
04:50to Republican leadership. This was also in 2010. This was the Tea Party wave. So Republicans went
04:56from being in the extreme minority in the House to a very large majority in the House. And she built a
05:02reputation for supporting agriculture, for supporting tax cuts. Ultimately, she served four terms in the
05:07House of Representatives before running for governor of South Dakota in 2018.
05:11Then she won the governor's seat. And she actually took a pay cut for that job. As you said, she
05:17wasn't making as much as her congressional salary of $174,000. First, how much was she making? And
05:23second, were there any perks to that job because she did take that pay cut?
05:27Yeah, so she moved from, you know, back to out of DC back to South Dakota, her salary dropped to $113,000
05:35as governor that first year in 2019. And, you know, we're talking about a lower, lower cost of living
05:42situation in South Dakota versus in Washington, DC having to maintain an expensive apartment in an
05:46expensive city. But that was still a pay cut. But that chief executive role did come with some perks.
05:51It helped her build her national profile. First and foremost, that's always very important for a,
05:55you know, politician with potential national ambitions. She also started doing extensive travel.
06:01She was a big Donald Trump supporter, big MAGA supporter. And so especially after he left office,
06:06she became a big surrogate for him and not and was also traveling plenty as governor herself. But not
06:12all of her travel was related to just being governor. And a recent Associated Press investigation found
06:17that taxpayers in South Dakota covered over $150,000 of travel costs mostly related to security that was
06:23not related to her work as governor. And so now she has arguably her highest profile job to date.
06:30President Trump nominated her to serve as his DHS secretary. She got confirmed. She now serves in that role.
06:36Talk to us about her job now and how much she's making as a cabinet official.
06:41This is her highest salary yet. She's back in D.C. and she's making about $235,000 a year. That is also a salary
06:48that's been frozen for several years. I believe it was during the pandemic that executive level salaries in the
06:54executive branch were frozen. So the cabinet cabinet hasn't seen a raise in a little while now. But that's
07:00again, $235,000 a year is her salary these days. And so not too bad. But we know that that doesn't
07:06make up all this $5 million fortune. So I want to talk about her other revenue stream. So let's talk
07:12about the books. Because about a year ago, if you remember, she was floated as a potential but serious VP
07:18contender. She came out with a memoir. And the biggest headline from that memoir is she shot her
07:23family dog, Cricket, as well as a goat, the family's goat, in a gravel pit. So she ended up not being
07:30picked as VP. But I am curious, how much did that book make her and any other books that she penned?
07:37So that book was actually her second book. Her first book seemed to flop pretty badly. It came out in
07:432022. And it only sold less than 1000 copies, according to the data that we got from Cercana
07:50Bookscan, which is an industry data service. The second one, it came out, like you said, as she was
07:54under consideration for vice president, Trump's ticket. It was also it had these very inflammatory
08:00anecdotes, very controversial anecdotes about shooting a dog shooting a goat. And that one sold
08:06much better. That, you know, all press is good press, as some folks say. And she sold over 30,000 copies
08:13of that second book. So while we don't know exactly how much she made from her advance or
08:16anything, part of that is South Dakota financial disclosure, which is she was governor at the time.
08:24The disclosures are just not particularly complete. Not due to her fault. That's just the state
08:29disclosures. They're some of the least transparent in the country. You know, she we don't know exactly
08:35how much she made from but we do know that that's a pretty decent selling book. She sold over 30,000 copies.
08:39And you and I have talked before when you cover the net worths of political figures. And you've
08:46found before that spouses sometimes help boost the fortune of the couple. And that seems to be the
08:52case here. Chrissy Noem's husband, Brian, you call his business, quote, the key to the Noem's family's
08:58finances. How so?
09:01Well, his insurance business is their biggest single asset and their biggest single revenue
09:06generator. He started off working in insurance in the early 2000s at Bryant State Bank. He later
09:12bought the insurance agency from the bank and took it independent, operated it himself. Over the past
09:17two years, we know from Chrissy Noem's financial disclosures, he brought in over $1.1 million just for
09:23himself between salary and profit over the last, again, that's a two-year figure. Forbes estimates that
09:30if he went to sell the agency, he'd probably get a conservative $2 million for it. And part of that
09:36is the fact that he is part of what makes the company so valuable. He's the man, you know, these small town
09:41insurance agencies are often built on one or two really good insurance agents, and the relationships
09:46that those agents are able to build. And so if he, the value he could get for selling the company would
09:52probably depend partly on whether or not he stayed on as a, as a broker or as a, as a salesman or not
09:58after he sold the company, uh, or not.
10:02And so then aside from the very lucrative insurance company, what other assets do the gnomes have?
10:09It's a bit of an eclectic mix. We've got a carwash that Bryant opened a couple of years back. Um, that
10:14one still doesn't appear to be making money, but we're not, we're not, uh, based on gnomes disclosures,
10:18but we have, we're not sure yet. Um, we've got their home and land in South Dakota. Um,
10:24they've got about 200 acres there. Uh, they've got gnomes, two pensions. They're not worth a ton,
10:29um, especially for state pensions only worth about $70,000. Uh, we've got, uh, multiple cash and
10:35investment accounts. Um, they've been putting money into retirement accounts over the years. Um,
10:39we've got some livestock and farming equipment that they keep on their home and land, uh, there,
10:43and they have a loan to their 28 year old daughter's yoga studio. Uh, and she, she operates a yoga
10:50studio in South Dakota. They gave her a loan. That's declared as an asset on Kristi Noem's financial
10:54disclosure. Kyle, per usual, I appreciate the conversation. Thanks for the reporting.
11:01Always great to be here, Brittany. Thanks again.
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