Donald Trump’s unorthodox Cabinet spent the last 13-plus months testing the wisdom of a president prioritizing loyalty over experience.
That came to a head this week when someone finally got the ax.
Trump announced Thursday afternoon that he is replacing embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. The move comes after a brutal pair of hearings this week in which Noem was pressed by Democrats and even some Republicans on the Trump administration’s unpopular immigration crackdown and other matters.
Noem epitomizes how Trump’s Cabinet has often complicated his message and created sideshows that draw attention to some of the administration’s worst vulnerabilities.
Trump was angry with two days of testimony Tuesday and Wednesday – particularly Noem’s assertion, which he denies, that the president was aware of an expensive DHS ad campaign that featured her.
GOP Sen. John Kennedy focused on the $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem and resulted in a lucrative subcontract for the husband of a now-former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, according to ProPublica. The Louisiana Republican repeatedly asked Noem whether Trump had signed off on the idea, and Noem repeatedly indicated Trump had.
(DHS has claimed the ad campaign led to many self-deportations. But the department’s credibility is in tatters given its many false claims, and its claims about self-deportations appear vastly inflated.)
Kennedy concluded that this was “hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do.”
It was apparently difficult to believe for a reason, because Trump said it didn’t happen.
“I never knew anything about it,” he told Reuters in a phone interview Thursday.
He followed that up with a post on social media announcing Noem’s replacement. (He praised her “spectacular results” and announced she’s getting a new job — special envoy for the Shield of the Americas.)
But it’s not just Noem who’s stepping on rakes.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday caused a stir – and inspired some White House clean-up work – by claiming that the media focused too much on soldiers killed in the Iran war. Trump has often made off-color comments about the sacrifices of service members, but that takes on new significance in the war Trump has now chosen.
(And this comes after his role in “Signal-gate” produced a harsh inspector general’s report in December that said he had jeopardized a mission and soldiers’ lives.)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has struggled mightily to explain the administration’s justification for the war – or at least, to do so in a way that’s consistent with the other things members of the administration (and Trump) are saying.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer appeared to be in something of a competition with Noem for which of them can be the subject of more exposés. Chavez-DeRemer’s now include one earlier this week from the New York Times which described a Labor Department in crisis.
The New York Times previously reported that her husband had been banned from the department’s headquarters amid sexual assault allegations. (A criminal investigation into that matter has been closed.) And this week, two of her top aides have been forced out amid an investigation into misconduct at the agency, the Times reported.
“The secretary remains focused on advancing the president’s America First agenda and carrying out the department’s mission to support American workers,” a Labor Department spokeswoman told the Times.
The administration’s many missteps on the Jeffrey Epstein files also continue to cause it major problems.
On Wednesday, five Republicans on the House Oversight Committee joined with Democrats to take the highly unusual step of issuing a subpoena to Attorney General Pam Bondi to explain her department’s mishandling of the Epstein files. Apparently Bondi’s highly combative and dismissive recent testimony didn’t satisfy the Republicans who actually care about this issue.
We also learned this week that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will testify voluntarily after facing his own pressure to do so. Lutnick has played a subtly significant role in deepening the administration’s Epstein morass.
That’s not just because of his false claims about having distanced himself from Epstein two decades ago, but also his comments late last year indicating he believed Epstein lured people into getting massages and then blackmailed them. Those comments flatly contradicted what the Justice Department had said, as well as Trump’s declared desire to move on from the story.
So to sum up, Trump’s Cabinet has played a significant role in making his Epstein files problem worse, in turning his winning issue of immigration into a liability, and in further muddling an already muddled message about an unpopular war.
And that’s to say nothing of the increasing questions some secretaries are facing about potential misconduct and self-dealing.
The screw-ups come even as the administration has appeared internally sensitive to Cabinet members creating political problems.
The White House held a midterm messaging and strategy session in February in which Cabinet members were told that they were likely to be impeached if Democrats win the midterms.
The Cabinet officials were told that, while Trump will say what he will say, they need to not go off-script.
“This is a team sport,” an administration source summarized the tenor of the meeting to CNN’s Kristen Holmes.
And it’s pretty clear the American people don’t have much regard for his Cabinet.
A Gallup poll in December showed four members of it were more than 20 points underwater in their approval ratings, including Bondi and Hegseth. The Pew Research Center in January showed Hegseth 15 points underwater. And a poll a month ago from Quinnipiac University showed voters wanted Noem removed by a wide margin, 58%-34%.
None of those numbers are normal for Cabinet secretaries. Or, to put it a different way, none of those numbers are normal for Cabinet secretaries who are typically allowed to stick around.
And now Noem is the first out the door.
