Kristi Noem survived many crises. Then she crossed a Trump red line

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was not fired after federal agents in Minneapolis shot and

killed two American citizens

.

She was not ousted when a chief judge in Minnesota said her immigration agency had violated more court orders than some federal agencies do in their entire existence.

Nor did it happen when she described a Veterans Affairs nurse shot by her agents as a domestic terrorist or when she falsely claimed he had brandished a weapon before he was pinned down and killed.

Rather,

Ms Noem was ousted

shortly after she appeared to cross one of the few red lines of the Trump White House: She appeared to shift responsibility for her own political problems back to President Donald Trump.

During a

congressional hearing

on March 3 and 4, Ms Noem was asked if Mr Trump had approved a more than US$200 million (S$256 million) government advertising campaign in which she was prominently featured.

Ms Noem said Mr Trump had tasked her with “getting the message out to the country”.

Asked if Mr Trump had signed off on the campaign before the ads aired, she responded: “We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in this position and sworn in and confirmed. And since then as well.”

Ms Noem’s comments suggested Mr Trump had signed off on a massively expensive ad campaign that even some in her Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found cringeworthy – with Ms Noem on a horse at Mount Rushmore.

And by indicating Mr Trump had ownership of the messaging campaign, Ms Noem rattled Mr Trump out of one of his comfort zones, which is as a spectator to his own policies. Shortly after her statement, Mr Trump told Reuters he did not know about the contract.

The decision to remove her was another reminder that Mr Trump’s barometer for his Cabinet is not just measuring policy actions on the ground, as much as an appearance of disloyalty and political optics.

In making her the first Cabinet official to be pushed out of a job in his second term, Mr Trump did not condemn the mass deportations and aggressive tactics Ms Noem enthusiastically embraced under the watchful eye of Mr Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr Trump’s immigration agenda.

He did not signal a shift for the department, which administration officials have said will continue to advance the same goals under Mr Markwayne Mullin, who was tapped to replace Ms Noem.

The decision instead appeared driven by an eagerness to distance Mr Trump from the person who had become politically untenable.

“The loyalty is absolutely the key,” said Mr Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, which is under the umbrella of the DHS.

“It’s a good rule of thumb to never throw your boss under the bus, and with (Mr Trump) in particular, I think it’s the cardinal sin, and she certainly violated that.”

The DHS declined to comment on March 6 on the ouster of Ms Noem, who will lead the department until the end of the month.

Asked about Mr Trump’s reasoning for pushing out Ms Noem, the White House referred to a statement from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Mr Trump was “grateful” to Ms Noem for her work to reduce illegal crossings at the border to record lows and that Mr Trump’s immigration agenda “will continue without interruption”.

The White House did not answer other questions about why Mr Trump did not know the details for the commercial campaign for one of his favourite policies – deportations – or why he did not inquire for more details about commercials playing on television for months.

The Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, did not respond when asked if the office approved of the advertising campaign.

One Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Mr Trump’s growing frustration with Ms Noem, claimed that the decision stemmed in part from her answer on the ad campaign.

But the person said it was also a culmination of a number of factors, including her handling of the fallout of the operation in Minnesota, what some in the White House perceived as a mismanagement of her staff and her disputes with other department leaders.

But it was also the latest example of Mr Trump, whose aides conducted loyalty tests for candidates seeking top government postings, trying to distance himself from his administration’s immigration actions when they have become increasingly politically toxic.

Mr Trump earlier this year told The New York Times he was “not happy about” an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at a Hyundai facility in Georgia in 2025, in which agents

detained hundreds of South Koreans

on hand to help build a new battery plant.

His anger did overlook that he ultimately runs ICE as head of the executive branch and that he directed Ms Noem to oversee a massive deportation campaign to remove millions of immigrants who were in the country illegally.

Mr Trump has said he is interested in comprehensive immigration reform, though he has not pushed his administration to work with Congress on any meaningful immigration legislation.

When asked about his administration’s decision to suspend refugee admissions for almost everyone around the world besides white South Africans, Mr Trump said he had not “seen that”. His top State Department aides welcomed some of the first refugees when they arrived in Washington.

And when Ms Noem made the unfounded claim that Mr Alex Pretti, the nurse fatally shot by Customs and Border Protection officers in Minneapolis, had committed an act of domestic terrorism, Mr Trump followed up days later by saying he thought a “softer touch” was needed in the city.

It will now be up to Mr Mullin to walk the tightrope as Mr Trump’s homeland security secretary, a position that saw a rotating cast of acting officials lacking Senate confirmation for much of Mr Trump’s first term.

Current and former officials say he will have to balance Mr Trump’s demands for loyalty with a DHS suffering from funding struggles and low morale.

Ms Janet Napolitano, the DHS secretary during the Obama administration, said she hopes Mr Mullin is able to help the department come out of a year of controversies and problems, including by restoring the gutted sub-agencies focused on cybersecurity and disaster relief.

“I hope he appreciates that the secretary of DHS is a massive, massive job from an operational and management perspective, and that he understands that this job is not just to be in videos but to really help reconstitute the department,” Ms Napolitano said.

She also said it was important that the White House recognise that the DHS is not “the department of immigration”.

Multiple officials in the rank and file of the DHS described a celebratory atmosphere in some corners after Ms Noem’s exit. But some were cautious as to what comes next.

“Oftentimes an administration will appoint change agents or leaders to break the mould and get things moving, then look to others to build a plan to carry that office into the future,” said Mr Matthew Hudak, a former senior Border Patrol official.

He said it was “clearly problematic to be spending hundreds of millions on questionable programmes and procurements, as well intentioned as they may be”.

Mr Kerlikowske said Mr Mullin faced a tall task, particularly as “morale is in the dumpster and the vast majority of personnel throughout DHS want nothing to do with the current focus on arrests and deportations”.

But he also expressed concern, given Mr Trump’s measure of success for his Cabinet.

Mr Trump, he said, was focused on recruiting leaders “that will bring chaos and attempt to alter the face of the federal government”. NYTIMES