Kristi Noem out as DHS Secretary; Trump announces Sen. Markwayne Mullin as replacement

Washington — President Trump announced Thursday that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would leave her role later this month after she’s faced intense criticism that came to a crescendo this week, and he announced her replacement.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 

The Senate would need to confirm Mullin to the post. 

The president said Noem “has served us well,” citing her “spectacular results” on the border. He said she will be moving to a role as special envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative he said the administration will be unveiling. 

After the president’s social media announcement, Noem went ahead with a speech in Nashville at the Major Cities Conference, taking the stage soon after the president announced she was being replaced.

In a post on X, Noem later thanked the president for appointing her to the new role, while touting “historic accomplishments” made during her tenure at DHS. 

Criticism over spending, tactics in immigration crackdown

But Noem has been under fire for months, especially as Democrats in Congress refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security after the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti amid the Minneapolis immigration crackdown. 

The president’s decision earlier this year to put border czar Tom Homan, an internal rival of Noem, in charge of winding down the Minneapolis operation underscored his displeasure with her performance, two administration officials told CBS News. 

Since then, ICE has sought to more heavily focus on arresting immigrants in the U.S. illegally who also have criminal records, while indiscriminate and roving Border Patrol operations in major U.S. cities, once led by vocal commander Gregory Bovino, have been largely halted. 

The final straw appeared to come during her testimony before the Senate earlier this week, where she faced sharp criticism not only from Democrats, but also Republicans.

In particular, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana questioned the secretary about her decision to spend $220 million on an ad campaign aimed at reducing illegal immigration. He wanted to know “how do you square that concern for waste — which I share — with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?” 

And he pointed out that she had hired “people who had formerly done your political work back in South Dakota.” Noem told Kennedy, “That’s not correct,” and he shot back, “I think it is.” 

He went on to say that “It puts the president in a terribly awkward spot: It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here are some ads I cut and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”

“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million, running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked her.

Noem said, “Yes, sir. We went through the legal processes — did it correctly.”

The ad campaign has also come under scrutiny over how the contract was awarded. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, questioned Noem during a hearing a day later about why it didn’t go to competitive bidding. He noted that the media company is affiliated with a former political director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He said it’s registered to a political operative in Virginia and was incorporated eight days before the contract went out. 

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona in November issued a news release calling for an investigation into the contract, noting that a large portion of the contract — $143 million — had been awarded to Safe America Media, which “secretly funneled a significant portion of its award to the Strategy Group, a company with very close ties to Secretary Noem and other senior DHS officials.” The CEO of the company, Benjamin Yoho, is married to the former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

Noem testified that she and the president had a conversation about running the advertisements before she was sworn in and have talked about it since then. But Kennedy told CBS News that the president called him after the hearing, and said of Mr. Trump and Noem that “his recollection and her recollection are different.”

“He was pissed,” Kennedy said about the call her received from the president, adding, “Well, he called me the night of hearing okay about 9:30 and he was not a happy cowboy.”

Even within DHS, Noem was facing mounting criticism, in particular from senior administration officials, and there were growing calls for action to be taken. 

Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to Noem and former Trump campaign manager, had an “acrimonious” conversation with the president Tuesday after Noem’s testimony before the Senate, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation. The conversation was related to Noem’s exchange about the $220 million ad campaign. The sources did not know if allegations about a personal relationship between Lewandowski and Noem, which came up during her House testimony, was part of the conversation with Trump.

In January, Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois introduced articles of impeachment against Noem, accusing her of obstructing congressional oversight of immigration enforcement efforts and abusing her position for personal gain.

During her testimony to Congress this week, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina heavily criticized the DHS secretary for her handling of immigration enforcement. He said “time after time” he’s been disappointed with Noem’s leadership, calling it a “disaster.” Tillis also tore into Noem for killing her dog, Cricket, a decision she wrote about in her 2024 book. 

“A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years,” Tillis said. “You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training, and then you had the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices. It’s in your book. We could play it if we had time. At that same lunch hour, you killed a goat. And you killed the goat because you said it was behaving badly. … My point is, those are bad decisions, made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis.”

On Capitol Hill, soon after Mr. Trump’s post, Mullin said he found out about the nomination “a little bit before you guys did.”

“We’re excited about the opportunity,” Mullin said.

Asked by reporters Thursday about the president’s selection of Mullin to replace Noem, Tillis said, “I can’t think of anybody I’d more proudly want to support to come in and clean up her mess.”