President Trump made one of the first big Cabinet shakeups of his second term on Thursday, announcing Kristi Noem would no longer serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
In a Truth Social post, the president said the former South Dakota governor will be moving on to a newly created “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas” position, while Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin will take over the role of DHS secretary effective March 31.
“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security,” Trump wrote, in part. “The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.'”
The Final Straw?
Noem’s tenure at DHS was not without controversy – especially in the wake of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis – but reports indicate President Trump made the decision to replace her after two days of combative hearings on Capitol Hill during which she was grilled by Democrats and Republicans alike.
In one fiery exchange, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) scolded Noem over a multi-million dollar DHS ad campaign that she featured prominently in. “How do you square that concern for waste, which I share, with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently,” the senator asked.
Noem defended the campaign, saying it was part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. “Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from with putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally, that they needed to leave, or we would detain them and remove them, and they’d not get the chance to come back to America the right way,” she responded. “That has been extremely effective.”
The senator took issue with Noem’s assertion about the effectiveness. “Well, they were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy retorted. “I mean, I personally, to me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot. And I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth, it’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the President, as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”
When Kennedy pressed Noem on whether Trump personally signed off on the campaign, she initially said her team “went through the legal processes, did it correctly, worked with OMB [the Office of Management and Budget].”
The senator doubled down, asking, “Did the president know you were going to do this?” At that point, Noem responded, “yes.”
On Thursday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn said that part of her answer has “come back to haunt her.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was not happy that Noem told senators he approved the ad campaign, telling lawmakers and advisors he hadn’t.
While Noem claimed the project “went out to a competitive bid,” Kennedy said his own research suggested the firm selected had ties to the secretary. Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee the following day, the former governor contradicted her previous claims and said one of the contracts did not go through a competitive bidding process. DHS and the inspector general are now reportedly looking into the contract and awarding process.
Too Much Trouble
Megyn noted that a Thursday morning Punchbowl News report cited multiple Republicans who had spoken with the president who said the GOP was divided on whether removing Noem now would be a good thing considering the ongoing DHS shutdown and concern over a potentially difficult Senate confirmation fight for any successor.
Megyn’s guest, Emily Jashinsky, believes the latter could be a real concern. “[Mullin] is someone who could maybe get Senate confirmed because he is from the Senate, but I don’t think there’s a shot now anyone else gets Senate confirmed for that position,” she speculated. “You end up with an interim, which is… not ideal, especially when this is one of your priorities and it looks like you are taking an ‘L’ on one of your priorities during a midterm cycle. It looks like you gave Dems a scalp, basically.”
Jashinsky said that while her own sources indicated Trump was largely happy with Noem’s immigration enforcement strategy that went beyond Border Czar Tom Homan’s ‘worst first’ approach, she said that was not necessarily enough to outweigh the public relations battle she was facing.
Ultimately, Megyn said the president was “nice” to give Noem “a soft landing” with the special envoy gig, but the message was clear. “He gave her a soft landing and the chance to save face [by suggesting] that this is just a lateral move – that’s not a lateral move. This is definitely a firing and a demotion,” she noted.
“But the president has to do what he has to do. He has to have confidence in those around him,” Megyn concluded. “And I’m sure after all the bad press around the messaging around Minnesota and then this, it was probably just too much.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Jashinsky by tuning in to episode 1,266 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.