Trump Weighs Moving on From Noem
The DHS secretary has overseen the president’s most controversial domestic initiative. But her future is increasingly in doubt.
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM has been at the center of the Trump administration’s marquee domestic policy: overhauling the federal government’s immigration bureaucracy to better serve the president’s vision of ongoing mass deportations.
But even as she’s carried out these tasks with abject fealty to her boss, her standing in the administration has grown less stable.
For weeks, a rumor has been circulating in political circles that Noem may soon be on the outs. It briefly surfaced in a CNN report a few weeks back that listed her first among the cabinet officials who could be caught in a year-end turnover, noting that while Trump himself has been happy with Noem, top White House officials have grown frustrated with her tenure—specifically, her employment of her divisive and combustible chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski.
Noem has downplayed any tensions or concerns. And in a text to me, Lewandowski called bullshit on any talk of turnover. “None of that is true,” he said Thursday evening.
But in conversations with three former DHS officials—who served in both the Biden and Trump administrations and are still in touch with current staff—it was made clear that Trump is indeed considering moving on from Noem. Two of those officials said they believed such a move could happen “really soon,” relaying that they’ve been told Noem has been taking on less of a role in directing department memos. But they and the third official also cautioned that the situation is fluid. Trump could decide to let Noem oversee the launch of new enforcement operations planned for January and February. And, as always, the president’s views are fickle and often heavily influenced by the latest person to grab his ear.
Still, there are a few factors that make the possibility of a Noem exit likely.
The first is that Trump may want to begin the New Year with a clean slate, hoping that fresh blood could improve either the execution of his signature mass deportation policy or—more importantly—the public’s perception of it.
The second is that a prominent, if slightly faded, Republican governor may be soon on the job market, ready to burnish his MAGA credentials with a Trump appointment.