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The firing of Kristi Noem, briefly explained
Trump shows his Homeland Security secretary the door.
Cameron Peters is a staff editor at Vox.
Welcome to The Logoff: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is out of a job.
What happened? Noem was fired on Thursday in a social media post by President Donald Trump, shortly after reports emerged that he was considering making a change.
In his post, Trump said that Noem will become the “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas” — ostensibly part of a to-be-announced “security initiative,” but functionally an attempt to save face.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to depart during Trump’s second term. That’s a change of pace from his first term, which saw a level of turnover unprecedented in recent administrations.
Why was Noem fired? Noem was bad at her job in a way that was embarrassing for Trump and the administration, and put her on the wrong side even of Republicans loyal to Trump.
In particular, her testimony before a Senate committee this week seems to have been a breaking point: Noem was pressed on a $220 million DHS ad campaign, which she said Trump had approved — a statement that reportedly infuriated the president.
What did Noem do at DHS? It may not have been what ultimately cost her her job, but Noem’s DHS tenure was a managerial disaster, plagued by corruption allegations.
She also oversaw and defended some of the cruelest policies of Trump’s second term, including illegal deportations, widespread brutality by immigration agents, and the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis.
Who gets the DHS job now? Trump said on Thursday that Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin “will become” DHS secretary as of the end of this month. That’s not quite how it works — Mullin will first need to be nominated to the role and confirmed by the US Senate, on a timetable that’s not up to Trump — but he’s highly likely to end up with the job in the near future.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
I loved, and am deeply envious of, this Washington Post story about Paris’s annual baguette competition, the Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française (it’s a gift link). The winner of the competition — this year, a boulangerie called Fournil Didot — gets to supply bread to the French president’s residence, the Élysée Palace, for a year.
Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
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