Trump Eyes a Noem Exit as DHS Chaos Boils Over
Trump’s most loyal foot soldier on immigration may be the next to walk the plank.
Rumors that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is on the verge of getting pushed out have gone from background chatter to something closer to an open secret. Despite her unblinking loyalty to Trump’s mass-deportation agenda, her sway inside DHS has slipped—and fast. Multiple former DHS officials say she’s been sidelined from key memos and could be gone “really soon,” though nothing is ever final until it filters through Trump’s ever-shifting mood.
The White House line, of course, is “nothing to see here”—and Corey Lewandowski, the human tire fire Noem insists on keeping as her top adviser (and boyfriend), texted that any talk of turnover is “None of that is true.”
Sure. Meanwhile, people actually working inside DHS describe a department hollowed out by mass firings, gutted oversight offices, and a morale level best measured in geological terms. One current senior official didn’t bother to sugarcoat it: “Things are fucked…‘I’m just hoping the new secretary gets here in time.’”
And waiting in the wings? Glenn Youngkin—fleece vest Republican, MAGA-adjacent, and soon out of a job in Virginia. Trump likes him, and he’s been floated as a potential replacement, though supposedly he’d prefer something where you don’t have to answer for Stephen Miller’s deportation fantasies. But whether it’s Noem, Youngkin, or some other loyalist, the policies won’t change; the architect is Miller, and everyone else is just executing his blueprint.
Meanwhile, lawmakers like Sen. Ruben Gallego are hammering Noem over waste—like the two Gulfstreams she green-lit for $172 million—and over policies Americans increasingly reject. As one veteran immigration advocate put it, there’s a “race to get an astronomical amount of money out the door before Democrats take over the House,” with private prisons, ICE hiring sprees, and propaganda contracts flowing like a busted hydrant. Rick Swartz, a Reagan-era immigration hand, summed it up: Noem “takes glee in what she’s doing…their Achilles’ heel if their glee becomes the genesis of the backlash.”
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Editor: At this point DHS feels less like a federal agency and more like a reality show where the prize is surviving Stephen Miller’s group chat. If Noem really is circling the drain, the only shock is that it took this long for Trump to tire of a secretary who let Lewandowski cosplay as acting director while the department burned down around her.