Kristi Noem has been ousted from her position as homeland security secretary. On Thursday, President Trump announced on social media he’d be firing Noem and replacing her with Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Mullin is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Noem had faced intensifying calls to resign or be impeached over her disastrous handling of Trump’s immigration raids nationwide and the unchecked violent use of force by her federal agents, leading to the fatal shootings of at least four people, including U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, whom Noem then falsely labeled as domestic terrorists.
Noem was also widely accused of corruption. Last year, she was photographed wearing a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona that sells for about $50,000 as she toured El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison, where Trump had deported hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants. She posed in front of an overcrowded cell where dozens of men imprisoned at CECOT were seen wearing nothing but white shorts.
Noem also oversaw a multimillion-dollar self-promotional DHS advertising campaign. Trump told Reuters in an exclusive interview Thursday that he hadn’t signed off on the $220 million campaign. We’ll have more on Noem’s ouster after headlines.
This all comes as the Department of Homeland Security remains under a partial shutdown after Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-led bill to fund DHS. Noem’s firing was announced shortly before the vote. Earlier, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut had reportedly said “it might be easier for us to negotiate” on DHS funding if Noem was fired.
