Kristi Noem Ran DHS Into the Ground. That’s Not Why She Got Fired.

Kristi Noem just found Trump’s red line, becoming the first cabinet member to be fired in his second term. But it wasn’t for the reasons you’d think.

It wasn’t because of her disastrous handling of the immigration raids in Minneapolis that left two Americans dead, or for reflexively calling them “domestic terrorists,” kicking off a propaganda campaign the Soviets would have called “heavy handed.” It wasn’t for egregious obstruction of internal investigations. It wasn’t for the obvious personal self-dealing, or doling out contracts worth hundreds of millions to friends and family, or sowing chaos and dysfunction inside her Department of Homeland Security.

That incompetence and corruption are practically pre-requisites for employment in this administration at this point.

Kristi Noem committed the one mortal sin that gets you booted from this administration: she ran afoul of Trump.

Kristi Noem’s Rap Sheet

Handling of ICE raids in Minneapolis

Noem oversaw the violent and chaotic ICE raids in Minneapolis that terrorized the immigrant community, decimated local businesses, and brought thousands of people into the streets to defend their neighbors.

Noem’s immigration raids swept up American citizens and legal immigrants, leading to their violent arrests, and wrongful deportations. She turned American cities into scenes from 1984, with an untrained secret police force brutally targeting people.

FEMA

Noem was also in charge of running FEMA into the ground. She delayed assistance to California after last year’s fires and North Carolina following Hurricane Helene in 2024 with her decree that all contracts over $100,000 be reviewed by the agency. The bureaucracy ground the recovery to a halt, leaving Americans in the lurch as they tried to piece their lives back together.

Chaos Inside the Agency

Noem’s DHS was an absolute mess. Unofficial political advisor and Noem’s not-secret-at-all boyfriend Corey Lewandowski wielded outsized influence inside the agency, for some reason. Likely, the two held their strategy sessions, away from the prying eyes of their respective spouses, on the private jet complete with bedroom suite Noem claimed to use for deportations. She spent $172 million on two of those jets during a government shut down.

The DHS inspector general - a Trump appointee - said Noem obstructed investigations and blocked access to evidence 11 times. It’s not like she had anything to hide.

At one point, Noem had a Coast Guard pilot fired for leaving her favorite blanket on a plane, only to reinstate him shortly after realizing there was no one who could fly the plane back.

Corruption and Self-Dealing

Noem awarded a $143 million contract to a company owned by her assistant secretary’s husband. That was part of the $220 million ad campaign that was ultimately Kristi Noem’s undoing. And when questioned about the $220 million during congressional testimony, Noem said - under oath - that Trump had personally approved it.

Trump immediately retorted, “I didn’t know anything about it.”

That moment is what sealed her fate. She flew too close to the sun, and her extensions melted in the heat.

But it wasn’t just that she’d lied about the President on national television, forcing him to contradict her. Kristi Noem succumbed to a terminal case of Main Character Syndrome.

Those ads that Trump definitely did not approve were all about Kristi Noem. Here, we had Kristi Noem, in full glam, atop a horse in front of Mount Rushmore. Kristi Noem, in full glam, demanding immigrants self deport on screens in airports. Kristi Noem, in full glam, the star of her own DHS show. She appeared at the border in full glam and a flak jacket. At an El Salvador in full glam and a flak jacket. Doing ridealongs on ICE raids filmed like action movies in full glam and a flak jacket.

Kristi Noem tried to upstage the President. And Trump would never stand for that.

You can run an agency into the ground, and trample all over Americans’ constitutional rights, and use government funding like it’s your own personal slush fund. But you absolutely cannot steal Trump’s spotlight.

This Time is Different

We’re a year into Trump’s second term, and this is the very first firing of a Cabinet level official. If you’ll think back to Trump 1.0, that Cabinet had a revolving door. It was a circus. All you had to do was look at Trump the wrong way and you’d be out the door with a bankers box in hand with a picture of your kids.

Trump 2.0 is different. He stocked his Cabinet with absolute loyalists. They may be incompetent, they may be comically cruel or evil or corrupt, but they are die-hard Trumpists, and that’s what got them the job. It’s fealty above all here. That’s the pattern.

Which is why it’s so telling that Noem got fired. She did it all right, until she crossed the line and went against the Godking.

Noem Doesn’t Deserve all the Credit

Kristi didn’t lose her job in a vacuum. After the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and her immediate launch of the propaganda campaign against them, Americans poured into the streets to protest her and her policies. Attorneys filed suit and judges ruled against her and her cronies inside the agency. And journalists and independent media amplified those stories and images and built the narrative that ended with her up against the wall, lying through her teeth.

That pressure matters.

Noem’s firing is a win, but it won’t stop here. Her replacement is MAGA maniac and former MMA fighter Markwayne Mullin, and I don’t expect a nuanced reexamination of the decisions made or, frankly, a sane approach to anything going forward.

I called out Noem’s disgusting lies from the moment they happened, unlike certain media outlets that tried to cover it up or smooth it over (Bari Weiss, we’re looking at you). Legacy media is becoming more and more compromised by the day, which is why independent media is absolutely critical right now. Pressure matters; I intend to keep applying it.