Kristi Noem testifying before congress. AP.
Kristi Noem is out at DHS and will be replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. AP. Noem will still have a role in the administration, in a newly created post the "Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas", which will focus on security in the Western Hemisphere. However, it cannot be viewed as a promotion and is a fairly stunning fall for one of Trump's major allies. Noem had faced rare bipartisan criticism. Democrats did not like her actions in Minnesota and disagreed with her attempts to call Alex Pretti and Rene Goode as terrorists. However, Republicans were critical of her as well, most notably criticizing a $220 million ad campaign that was supposed to encourage illegal immigrants to leave but was seen as self-promotion for Noem. Noem was caught in a lie about that ad campaign as she had said that Trump had signed off on the campaign while he did no such thing. She has also been criticized for how she spent DHS money and slow pace in approving FEMA funds.
My Comment:
The departure of Kristi Noem is the first major departure from the Trump administration at the cabinet level. Compared to Trump's 1st term his cabinet has been very stable and everyone else has remained since being confirmed. It's a major improvement over Trump's 1st term where he had a real problem with incompetent or disloyal cabinet members.
As for Noem, I never really liked her at DHS. Before heading to DHS, she was a governor and she had a major scandal after she confessed to putting down a dog when it became vicious. Though she made the argument that doing so wasn't uncommon in South Dakota, it was terrible optics and showed that she didn't have very good political instincts. Indeed, it's a major reason why Trump didn't pick her for VP.
Those bad political instincts struck again during her tenure. Her $220 ad campaign heavily featured herself, and it backfired spectacularly. Instead of encouraging illegal immigrants to leave, it seemed a lot more like self-promoting her as a tough woman yet again.
This is the first time I have seen this advertisement and I absolutely see the point. The focus is all on Noem. She looks good riding on a horse and there is a ton of focus on who she is and not much on the actual focus of the advertisement, getting illegal aliens to go back home. It absolutely has the tone as if she is running for something, despite already having a high ranking position. It was, in short, pretty inappropriate for a sitting cabinet member.
The media was talking about other scandals, and I do think she does deserve some criticism for that too. Though I generally approved of the DHS operations in Minnesota and do consider Alex Pretti and Rene Goode to be domestic terrorists, the way Noem handled both backfired. Noem went for flashy, high profile, raids which enraged the left and allowed them to frame the operation of tyranny. And though Pretti and Goode were horrible people that were doing horrible things, Noem called them terrorists before any kind of investigation could have proven that.
In short, I think she has terrible political instincts and seems to care a lot more about her image than actually being competent. She does have some talent, but it's overshadowed by the fact that she just doesn't seem to understand how her actions will look to the general public and that's fatal for a cabinet member in charge of one of Trump's main platforms. Indeed, she made it look to Democrats that she was cracking down far too hard, while many Republicans have been whining that she wasn't doing anywhere near enough. That's a clue that she lost the plot.
Markwayne Mullin should be a very good replacement, and one that Democrats may regret getting rid of Noem for. Mullin is respected in the Senate and is very likely to be confirmed. And he has a reputation of a fighter, both metaphorically and literally as he was an MMA fighter. If nothing else, he has to have better political instincts than Noem.
Finally, I have to say that I do dislike the Noem archetype. Though she is a pretty strong Republican she is the same kind of person like Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene or Pam Bondi. All of them seem to fit the "Girl Boss" archetype, where it's more important to look good and look tough than actually be competent and it seems all of them were promoted beyond their actual abilities. There are plenty of strong Republican women who actually are hard workers and are incredibly competent but I don't like these girl bosses no matter what party they are. Noem and her ilk are just the AOC and Ilhan Omar of the right...
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