BREAKING: Trump Axes His Puppy Killer
Kristi Noem is out at the Department of Homeland Security, partly for a very silly reason. The department will remain under the control of Stephen Miller.
Donald Trump has fired Kristi Noem – his monstrous Homeland Security secretary – for what may be the stupidest reason possible.
Noem wasn’t fired for putting masked federal agents on the streets to racially profile and kidnap people, or for running a department that has repeatedly violated Americans’ constitutional rights, or for overseeing agencies whose employees have senselessly murdered US citizens in cold blood, on video.
Instead, Noem was apparently fired for telling Congress, under oath, that Trump approved her department’s $220 million ad campaign – a suite of ads in which Noem repeatedly demonized immigrants while lavishing praise on the president.
It was not the only reason she was canned but it certainly was a last straw of sorts. She has, after all, been pissing off other senior Trump appointees for months now, and some of her high-level colleagues have been leaking against her for a while, trying to drum up support for an ouster.
On Thursday, news outlets reported on how President Trump was “pissed” that Noem told the Senate this week that the president had approved her department’s glitzy ad campaign. On Thursday morning, Trump advisers were telling Zeteo that Noem was days not weeks away from being fired or “resigning,” given how, as one adviser put it, “disappointed” the president was.
By Thursday afternoon, the Trump advisers were proven wrong. It wasn’t days. It was a few hours. Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday afternoon that he intends to replace Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,’” Trump wrote.
Noem’s firing came shortly after Trump spoke with Reuters about the DHS ad campaign. “I never knew anything about it,” he insisted.
It’s an amazing statement, because that means the president is publicly claiming his soon-to-be- former DHS secretary lied under oath before Congress. It is also a statement that is, well, just completely wrong.
Noem said last February, at a CPAC dinner, that the ad campaign was Trump’s idea – and that he demanded she thank him in the ads.
“I want you to do [ads] for the border, and I want you to do those everywhere, not just in the United States, but I want them around the world,” Noem recalled Trump saying. “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.”
Noem has been telling this anecdote for more than a year, including in public and while live-streamed. As far as Zeteo can tell, not once, including when we discussed her very specific account with the White House, did Team Trump ever object to any of her characterizations. Indeed, the White House and its president and senior staff were treating it as uncontroversial fact.
When we asked Trump’s White House about the DHS ad campaign last year, a White House official told us: “It is normal for an agency head to thank their principal – in this instance the president of the United States – for their policies and leadership.”
The White House official added that the ad campaign had been made “to directly communicate the administration’s message on immigration: We will find you, and we will deport you.”
We’ll note here that Noem separately told Congress that “officials followed the competitive bid process” for the ads. But officials skipped a traditional competitive bidding process, citing “an unusual and compelling urgency” for the ads, while handing the work over to two Republican consulting firms.
Trump may be removing Noem, at least in part, for a very dumb reason, but there’s plenty of reason for her to go.
For one thing, she should never have been hired. Noem is an avowed puppy killer – she wrote in her book about shooting and killing her family’s young, not-yet-trained dog before Trump selected her to lead DHS. According to a forthcoming book by Julia Ainsley, Trump saw this backstory as an asset, and it was part of why he selected her… even though he was initially repulsed by the story and used it to mock her behind her back.
DHS, under Noem’s leadership, has been an absolute disgrace. The department has carried out Trump’s brutal mass deportation campaign – which in many ways is a domestic war against the American people.
Her department has placed masked, violent federal agents on the streets of the USA to racially profile, kidnap, detain, and deport people; abuse and surveil US citizens protesting its activities; and occasionally kill Americans. She and her department baselessly smeared the US citizens whom DHS agents executed as “domestic terrorists,” a label they’ve routinely thrown around to defend agents’ actions.
The department has acted without concern for basic human rights or the Constitution. DHS sent hundreds of immigrants to an infamous torture prison in El Salvador, without due process, in defiance of a judge’s order, before Noem traveled there for a photo-op standing in front of prisoners while wearing a $50,000 Rolex watch.
And she did it all with her top adviser and alleged romantic partner, former Trump campaign chief Corey Lewandowski, playing the cushy role of sidekick, enforcer, and opportunistic Noem cheerleader throughout her stint atop DHS.
All this to say, Noem should never be entrusted with public service again.
Unfortunately, Trump said he’s naming her “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new initiative to be detailed soon.
But when it comes to DHS, Trump administration policy, and the president’s armed secret-police force and ethnic-cleansing campaigns, Noem’s humiliating downfall won’t change all that much.
According to numerous sources familiar with the matter, Noem was the DHS secretary in name only. She, like so many other top officials in Trump’s government, primarily did what White House policy architect Stephen Miller told her to do.
It has been the Stephen Miller DHS since January 2025. It will continue to belong to him, no matter where Noem ends up.
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I've read many times that Noem should not have been hired because she was a puppy killer.
But exactly this, of course, was one reason she was hired. The cruelty is the point, as they say.
This is theatre. She was just doing whatever Miller said. Miller and Trump are the most responsible parties.