After weeks of public scrutiny, personal scandal, and bad press over her handling of the Department of Homeland Security, President Donald Trump has fired Secretary Kristi Noem, tapping Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin as her potential replacement.
Noem is the first member of Trump’s second-term Cabinet to be removed from their position. In a statement posted to Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that he was “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 (DHS), effective March 31, 2026.”
“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,” the president wrote. “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”
Noem responded in a post to social media, thanking Trump for naming her “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas” while touting how she will be able to “build on the partnerships and national security expertise, I forged over the last 13 months as Secretary of Homeland Security.”
Mullin told reporters outside of the Capitol that he “wasn’t expecting the call,” that he and Trump are “great friends,” and that “we still gotta go through a little thing called confirmation.”
The dismissal comes days after Noem was berated by lawmakers on Capitol Hill over a series of disastrous blunders by her department, including the killings of two American citizens by border patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and apparent attempts by DHS to stifle investigations into the shootings. Noem has also been under fire for extravagant spending at the department, while placing restrictions on FEMA disaster relief funds.
Reuters reported that Trump was upset over Noem’s comments during hearings before the House and Senate Oversight Committees regarding multi-million dollar contracts granted to the husband of her former deputy press secretary. Noem defended the $220 million dollars in spending on ads, which prominently featured her, as well as the potentially unethical distribution of the contracts, affirming to lawmakers that Trump had approved the spending.
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“I never knew anything about it,” Trump later told Reuters.
Noem was also grilled by lawmakers about her alleged affair with temporary government employee and former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski. In recent weeks, Lewandowski and Noem have been accused of abusing DHS resources and generally creating chaos at the department.
Neom’s disastrous performance at the hearing seems to have been the last straw for the president.
Mullin, whom Trump tapped as Noem’s replacement, has been a Republican senator from Oklahoma since 2023. He is a loyal Trump supporter, and is often on TV defending the president’s agenda — most recently the war against Iran. Mullin tried to justify the war to reporters earlier this week in part by insisting it is not an actual war. When he was told that Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and even Mullin himself had described the offensive as a “war,” Mullin claimed “that was a misspoke.”
From Rolling Stone US
