‘You’re Fired!’: Trump Dumps Kristi Noem For Mark Mullin As DHS Secretary

Kristi Noem now has the dubious distinction of being the first Cabinet member to be fired in Trump Takes ‘America’ 2.0. The president of people who think those obnoxious AI videos featuring negative caricatures of Black women acting out in public are real announced his decision in a social media post on Thursday. 

Noem has had a particularly rough week as she has faced tough questions from both sides of the aisle in separate committee hearings with both chambers of Congress. 

Viral videos circulating online have shown her being grilled by Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.), and others about immigration operations conducted by the ICE and Border Patrol, advertising spending, a fancy jet, and whether or not she is romantically involved with Corey Lewandowski. 

The separate hearings did not go well for Noem at all, and she came out of them looking like someone who toes the company line even when they know it goes directly against their best personal interests. 

And that’s just what happened. The things she said in those hearings have Donald Trump trying to distance himself from the mess she is leaving behind at DHS, and that’s just like Donald Trump to do that, and Kristi Noem, the dog killer, should have seen this coming.

Trump said in a Truth Social post that he is tapping Oklahoma’s junior Senator Mark Mullin to replace Noem. 

From the New York Times:

Mr. Trump announced the change on social media, along with a new, and previously nonexistent, role for Ms. Noem: special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which he said would be a new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Trump is close with Mr. Mullin, a Republican, and speaks with him regularly.

And:

But her tenure had been marked by a string of controversies, and her fate had been the focus of speculation among Mr. Trump’s allies for several weeks. On Thursday, the president contradicted remarks that Ms. Noem made under penalty of perjury in her hearing before a Senate panel on Wednesday: that Mr. Trump had signed off ​on a border security advertising campaign featuring Ms. Noem.

“I ​never knew anything about it,” ​Mr. Trump told Reuters. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment, and referred a reporter to Mr. Trump’s comments to Reuters.

Ms. Noem has faced scrutiny ​from lawmakers about the campaign, on which the government spent $220 million. The firm handling it was connected to the husband of Ms. Noem’s former spokeswoman.

Mullin is a member of the Cherokee Nation, KOCO reports, and a former mixed martial arts fighter who was inducted into the Oklahoma Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016. 

More from KOCO:

Mullin was sworn into the Senate in January of 2023. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District, for 10 years.

Oklahoma’s junior senator grew up in Westville, where his family founded Mullin Plumbing. He took over the business from his father before entering the world of politics.

Mullin has made headlines during his time on Capitol Hill, including most recently during Trump’s State of the Union address, when he tried to grab a sign from Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Texas’ hands.

Well, Kristi Noem, I hope it was all worth it. 

SEE ALSO:

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Grilled By Republican Senators

Kristi Noem Still Won’t Admit ICE Engages In Racial Profiling

Body Cameras Won’t Change Anything For Kristi Noem Or ICE

Kristi Noem Gets Ate Up In House Judiciary Committee Hearing Too