Trump fires DHS Secretary Kristi Noem

Breaking news into CNN. Christy Noem is out as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. We have a team of reporters on this. Let's start with Kristen Holmes at the White House. Kristen, it was, what, like 10 minutes ago that you were reporting that her job was in

jeopardy and now it's official.

Yep.

President Trump has announced that he has fired the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Christy Noem. This is the first cabinet position that he has fired during his second term. Of course, the only other high profile ouster we've had like this was when Mike Walz serves as the head of the National Security Council. He was the national security advisor. So President Trump just posted this on True Social. He said, I am pleased to announce

that the highly respected United States Senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, effective March 31st, 2026. And Boris, just so you know, this is one of the names that we had heard. He was floating in these conversations he was having with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The current secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results, especially on the border, will be moving to be special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, our new security initiative in the Western Hemisphere. We are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Christy

for her service at Homeland. Again, this is a huge deal for us. This is the first time he is firing a cabinet member. He has been incredibly reluctant this term to fire, to shuffle any of his staff, any of his officials because of the perception of his first term when he was in office, that it was a revolving door. However, as we reported, we were told that the catalyst for this was essentially this appearance that she made, this hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which she claimed President Trump had signed off on a $200 million ad campaign that featured her asking illegal immigrants to self-deport.

President Trump has now said publicly he didn't do that. And of course, all of this is amid the fallout that we saw from Minnesota, from Minneapolis. And there had been pushback on the Hill and from many of President Trump's allies that Kristi Noem was not the right person for the job. But many of them had been careful to walk a very thin line, not getting too far out there. But, clearly, we are told now that this hearing put Trump over the edge in terms of his anger factor.

And now he has fired Noem, replacing him with, replacing her, excuse me, with this Oklahoma senator.

All right, Kristen, this is huge news as we are getting this, that Trump is replacing Kristi Noem as DHS secretary and moving her to a special envoy position, which is certainly a demotion and something that is meant to give her a little cover

as she is getting ousted here. Kristen, thank you so much. the White House. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's definitely a demotion and something that is meant to give her a little cover as she is getting ousted here. Kristen Thank you so much. If you could stand by for us there

at the White House, let's go to

Priscilla Alvarez, who has been tracking this. For us. What are you learning? Well I have been had been talking amongst themselves over the last several weeks and months, anticipating that the secretary may be out soon, given a series of missteps that they perceived she had done over the last several weeks. And one of those in particular, many of those in particular, are stemmed in what happened in Minneapolis. Recall, of course, that surge of federal agents for that immigration

enforcement operation where two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal agents. And it was the secretary who came out in that immediate aftermath calling them domestic terrorists, something that she was grilled on during the congressional hearings this week, but that also shocked Homeland Security officials that she would so quickly draw conclusions over such incidents. And recall too that President Trump in the aftermath of those shootings had dispatched White House Border Czar Tom Homan to try to resolve the issues on the ground. It

was the most high profile rebuke over the course of the last year of the Secretary and the way that she was managing the department and the immigration enforcement mission. Now, of course, the White House said at the time that she was in lockstep with Tom Homan, but it was also clear internally that there had been long-simmering tensions there. So all of this to say that it had been building over some time now, what was happening in

the department, the management of the department between her and her chief advisor, Corey Lewandowski, who was serving as a special government employee. There had been multiple concerns from within the department about the way that she was handling things, even most recently when she said that she was suspending TSA pre-check, and then the department had to reverse that within hours. So this has been just a shock for a lot of Homeland Security officials who even though

they thought the writing was on the wall with her leaving at some point, the fact that it has happened now in the wake of these hearings just has them all scrambling.

Priscilla Alvarez, please stand by. Let's go to Manu Raju who's live on Capitol Hill. Manu, I promised that at some point I would ask you about the situation with Kristi Noem and these hearings. Clearly, they were disastrous.

Yeah, and no question about it. And there had been a lack of support for Kristi Noem throughout, and a growing number of Republicans expressing frustration, concern, and actually, frankly, not even saying if they would support

her continuing in the job. And no doubt that echoed at the White House and President Trump clearly had some of those similar concerns as well. But I want you to listen to what some of the Republicans told me just in the last day about whether they would continue supporting Kristi Noem staying in that job. Do you have confidence in secretary noem?

would you vote for her again if you had a chance? do you have confidence in her? I'm not going to answer that, that's not my decision but you voted to confirm her. That's not my decision, that's up to the president I want to be a team player uh... and I want to secure the, and I want to enforce our immigration laws,

but I'm tired of trying to explain behavior that is inexplicable to me.

If you had a chance to vote for her again, would you?

I'm not going to answer that, Manu. You can try a thousand times, mate. Lots of luck to

you. Mark Way Mullin almost certainly would get the support of a majority of United States Senators to be confirmed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate tends to look favorably upon its own. He has served in this body for three years. He's a former House member for about ten years. He's a former mixed martial arts fighter as well and he's also been a staunch defender of President Trump's agenda. It is unclear exactly when it was informed to Mueller that he would be Donald Trump's pick because he did speak to

reporters at about 1230 this afternoon. He was asked about these rumors about Trump floating his name as replacement. At that point, he said he had not spoken to Trump all week. And then he went to his hold up in the number two Senate Republican's office, John Barrasso. He was not seen for some time. He left the Capitol without commenting, perhaps taking a call from the president at that point. So a surprise to many here and maybe even to Senator Mullen.

Guys.

Some fascinating color as Mullen leaves Capitol Hill, potentially taking a call from the president, refusing to comment about Trump considering him for DHS secretary, and just moments ago, Trump confirming that the new DHS secretary

is Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma.

International lead Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is back on Capitol Hill today, facing bipartisan criticism for her job performance. Yesterday from senators, today from House lawmakers, both often focusing on the aggressive, many would say overly aggressive, immigration crackdown in Minnesota and elsewhere.

One Republican senator giving her a particularly harsh assessment. What we've seen is a disaster. Under your leadership, Ms. Noem, we're beginning to get the American people to think that deporting people is wrong. It's the exact opposite.

The way you're going about deporting them is wrong. I read your book last week, and honestly, some of the parts of it impress me, but some of it distresses me. And I'll give you a good example of one that does. The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old.

You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training and then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices. And North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis joins me now live in studio. Senator, let me ask you, why bring up the story of her killing Cricket?

I mean, I thought it was a bizarre story too, but like, you think it's actually relevant?

I think it's relevant because if you read it, I would recommend people do it. I bought the book, I got the audio book, I read it for the committee prep, but she tries to suggest that a 14 month old dog that's only halfway through what most people who train dogs, particularly for hunting purposes,

is necessary to have that dog be reliable. So she gets angry at a dog that she puts into service long before it should, and then goes and kills it in the backyard. And before that dog is dead, she made a bad decision there. She fielded it too soon without training.

Then she goes back to the farm, grabs a family goat and shoots it because it made her mad. That is not, that's a thought process. Look, the fact that she acted precipitously on limited information, not really understanding that she had put something into a situation it was not ready for, felt a lot like some of the decision making that was done in Minneapolis. Like calling Renee Good and Alex Pretty domestic terrorists. Immediately jump into that. So rationalizing, she was rationalizing

killing a dog behavior because it didn't perform properly, but she was wrong. She could have had that dog perform properly. Her then rationalizing that these were terrorists was the expedient. It was the easy way out. I want leaders behind President Trump that do the hard work so that they're preserving the Republican majorities in Congress and the president's legacy. She's far from that.

One of the interesting things about the Preddy and Goods situations is that she immediately

came out and said things that were false, that we saw on video were not true. No credo. The reason why I ask her who Tom Holman reports to, because I knew the answer. And she said he reports to the president. If there is no better example of a vote of no confidence

is somebody who was in front when the Preddy incident occurred, and now she, who is the head of Homeland Security, is replaced by somebody for a Homeland Security mission who doesn't actually even work is the head of Homeland Security, is replaced by somebody for a Homeland Security mission who doesn't actually even work for the Secretary of Homeland Security. That's a vote of no confidence in my opinion by the President.

So your Republican colleague, Senator Kennedy, was also critical. He was here earlier and he was specifically critical about a multi-million dollar ad campaign that DHS ran. And the Secretary told him it had been a competitive bid process for the contractors who produced it and the president had approved of the ad campaign. Democratic Senator Joe Neguse questioned her about the contractor that made these ads, Safe America Media, today. Take a listen.

Where is Safe America Media headquartered? I don't know. I don't know either, Madam Secretary. We can't find it. We can't find a website. The company is registered to a political operative in Virginia. Do you know, just by way of example, whether this company that received a hundred forty three million dollars in taxpayer dollars, has it ever done work for the government before? I don't know. I can't. The answer is it has not. And do you know why we know that because it was incorporated eight days

Eight days before this contract went out You want the American people to believe? That this is all above board

And we should know one of the reasons why one of the other reasons why people are so suspicious of this is one of the sub Contractors affiliated with that contract is a company run by the husband of her former spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin. What do you make of all this? Well, like I mean, let's also. I was sitting right next to John

when he was asking the questions and I don't think people picked up on how proud she was of making any decision over $100,000 in FEMA across her desk and any decision for Homeland Security

over 15 million across her desk. How can you go from saying that you scrutinize everything in excess of 15 millions, and in the same 10 minute period, say I didn't know any of the details of a $200 million purchase.

This is somebody that is out of her depth, and apparently only situationally interested in transactions over $15 million, except when it involves her family members or friends. So one of the other things you asked for before you ran out of time yesterday, Charlotte's Web, that's the immigration enforcement operation in Charlotte, North Carolina run by DHS. You

have been waiting for more than a month for basic answers from her about this.

You're a United States Senator. Did she ever give you answers?

No, even worse than that. One of the reasons why I was angry is that an hour before, after waiting a month, I was told I wasn't going to get the data. I asked for anonymized data that recorded the incidents, the outcome, whether a person was illegally present or not, were they detained? Just the oversight responsibility of the legislative branch. Yeah. She says that she's got a world-class law enforcement organization. I could go to a

small town in North Carolina and they could produce incident reports immediately for me. So, she either doesn't have it or she doesn't like what it's going to say. And my suspicion is is that she had a very low success rate in that hearing. She made it a point to reserve the first few rows with victims of people, family members and survivors, angel families for people who were harmed by these people that I want deported. She was

trying to say that, but for her, that wouldn't happen. I think because of her, not enough of them are being apprehended because her and Stephen Miller are more worried about hitting artificial numbers that sound big, but when you dig below the surface, like I want to do with Charlotte's Web, I want to understand what their success rate was. And if they're successful, they should be moving heaven and earth to give me that information. The fact that they're stonewalling makes me really concerned with what I'm

gonna find. And if I don't get the information by March 19th, And if I don't get the information by March 19th, then I'm going to hold up more processes than I already am for Homeland Security.