For those who are rooting for President Trump and his agenda, Kristi Noem was a growing liability on multiple fronts. From poor leadership to scandalous levels of luxury spending on private jets to a gaudy self-promotional ad buy to allegedly lying about what she told the President, Noem was a liability with virtually no upside.
Her firing as head of the Department of Homeland Security finally eliminates the liability while elevating Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to the role.
Noem botched the surge into Minneapolis to remove criminal illegal aliens, resulting in federal agents killing two Americans. The optics and her poor response required President Trump to send in border czar Tom Homan to clean up Noem's mess made by Noem's designated leader of the surge, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino.
We can blame the paid, violent, insurrectionist protesters all we want, but these professional troublemakers are a part of the landscape at the moment and should have been accounted for in the strategy. Note how quickly things improved when Homan arrived and took over from Noem.
And then there was her decision to spend $220 million in taxpayer money on ads that, put nicely by some Republicans, "featured her prominently." Really, they were more like ads promoting Noem than DHS work. The infamous glam cowgirl ad generated unnecessary backlash. It literally shows her riding with a herd of buffalo. It's hard to know what she was thinking.
Finally, there were Noem's testy confrontations during her testimony before Congress, not with Democrats so much as with Republicans. Noem and Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy got into it over that ad campaign when he grilled her about whether Trump had seen it and approved it. She said the President had. Trump said he hadn't.
Following her testimony, the president had an acrimonious phone call with Corey Lewandowski, a senior Noem advisor. Trump then called several Republican members of Congress and got strong support for change at the top of DHS. When you've lost the support of your own party in Congress, problems only multiply.
It was the last straw. Considering the political delicacy of removing millions of illegal aliens let in during the dark Biden years, the last thing the Trump administration needs is an incompetent diva heading DHS.
But if the fickle Senate can confirm him, Mullin could be the perfect antidote to the brief Noem tenure.
Mullin is a former undefeated MMA fighter and successful small businessman from Oklahoma. Trump describes him as a "MAGA Warrior," and someone with the "wisdom and courage" to advance the America First agenda.
As a member of the Cherokee Nation, Mullin is the only Native American in the Senate. He has been a strong supporter of President Trump's agenda, including what the media calls a "hardline" on immigration, which reasonable Americans call enforcing the law. He is closely aligned with the President and will avoid self-promotion and unforced errors.
Plus, Mullin is not afraid to mix it up outside the ring. In 2024, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien tweeted an offer to duke it out with Mullin, saying the Senator was putting on a tough-guy act in Congress. During a hearing featuring O'Brien following the tweet, Mullin craftily called him out, standing up and offering to back his words right there in the committee room.
Socialist committee Chairman Bernie Sanders was hilariously apoplectic over it, but Mullin made the point that this was another union thug. He won't back down from Democrat insurrectionists. In Mullin, President Trump has a man who will fight aggressively but wisely for the Trump deportation agenda.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children,seven grandchildren, and a rapacious hunger to fight for America on their behalf. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
