Kristi Noem is out, and Hakeem Jeffries has a few choice words to add
President Donald Trump has fired Kristi Noem from her position as Department of Homeland Security Secretary. All of this comes after mounting pressure against ICE and the deportation operation that President Trump’s administration has undertaken.
Trump has said that he will nominate Senator Markwayne Mullen from Oklahoma as her replacement on social media. But, that doesn’t mean that Noem is completely out of the game. The administration reassigned for to “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.” So, we’re firmly in making stuff up as we go along territory. It could be argued that we’ve been here for a while. Still, the decision to get Noem out of there signals just how vociferous the blowback against ICE has been.
Just the latest example of conservative voices scrambling to get on the same page about a rash decision made by this administration. Noem appeared at a press conference while people in the room wondered if she knew about the firing. She had already been fired by President Trump, but that kind of chaos is par for the course. Hakeem Jeffries said, “ICE Barbie is gone. Good riddance.” Long after that doomed press conference ended, she would pen a statement on Twitter thanking the president for the reassignment. It would be easy to liken that blurb to the Wojak of the guy crying behind a mask of him smiling. Everything is so surreal now, but a new person steps into one of the most publicly loathed positions in American politics.
“Thank you @POTUS Trump for appointing me as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas,” she wrote. “@SecRubio and @SecWar are incredible leaders and I look forward to working with them closely to dismantle cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren. (citations needed)”
Kritsti Noem out at DHS after tumultuous tenure
Noem’s role as a part of the Trump administration’s deportation agenda is nothing short of essential in understanding how we all got here. She played a massive part in peddling ideas about border security, migrant crime, and drugs that permeated the political sphere in 2024. One problem, the realities of late 2025 and early 2026 see those concerns as tertiary at best for a large swath of the country. Folks are facing rising costs across the board. From energy to housing and beyond the affordability crisis is what people actually care about.
So, as public sentiment against ICE curdles even further, someone had to take the fall for all of this heat. However, it doesn’t seem like Markwayne is going to be much more successful than Noem was during her tenure there. In fact, other members of Trump’s cabinet probably should start looking around and updating their Linkedins. Though the former DHS figurehead is the first cabinet secretary to get the axe in the second Trump administration, she probably won’t be the last. Remember the first term saw 14 secretaries walk the plank during various stages of that tenure. It’s going to be a bumpy ride folks.
More than most figures in the administration, she bore the brunt of Alex Peretti and Nicole Goods Murders in Minneapolis. People from all across the political spectrum were calling for some consequences for the ICE officials responsible for putting those agents into the streets of Minnesota. Noem was a much easier choice to sacrifice up to a gnashing public than anyone higher up. It doesn’t hurt that she had a propensity for wasting money on vanity ads and luxury jets either. There’s never a dull moment in “Trumpworld,” and the week isn’t over yet, sadly!
(featured image: Gage Skidmore)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
