Markwayne Mullin will be nominated as the next US Secretary of Homeland Security in Washington at the end of March, after Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he wasfiring Kristi Noemfrom the post and moving her into a new envoy role, according to a statement on his Truth Social platform.
The news came after months of mounting controversy around Noem's leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including adeadly immigration operation in Minneapolisand a bruising row over a taxpayer-funded advertising blitz. In January, federal agents shot and killed two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, during 'Operation Metro Surge' in Minneapolis.
More recently, Trump was reported to be angered when Noem told lawmakers that he had signed off on a roughly $200 million DHS media campaign in which she fronted appeals urging migrants to self-deport. Bloomberg, citing a source, reported that the president did not appreciate being tied publicly to the figure.
Trump announced that Noem's removal as secretary will take effect on 31 March. In the same breath, he moved to reassure his base that thehardline immigration agendawould continue without interruption, writing that he was 'pleased' to elevate Markwayne Mullin, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, into the DHS hot seat.
'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),' Trump posted, adding: 'I thank Kristi for her service at 'Homeland.''
Trump's solution to the Noem problem is not to change course, but to change personnel. He has offered Kristi Noem a soft landing as a special envoy for what he calls a new 'Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere', a role that he has described in broad terms but not yet defined in formal detail. Her shift is being framed by the White House as a reassignment rather than a demotion, although the reality is that she is losing one of the most powerful jobs in the US government.
Into that vacuum steps Markwayne Mullin, a political loyalist with a very different life story from the woman he is poised to replace. If the Senate confirms him, he will inherit an agency at the centre of Trump's mass deportation drive, battered by lawsuits, congressional scrutiny and public anger over aggressive tactics on American streets.
Noem's exit is the first Cabinet change of Trump's second term, underscoring how unforgiving this White House can be when a secretary's political cost begins to outweigh their usefulness. The clash over the $200 million ad campaign appears to have been a tipping point. Bloomberg reported that Trump was 'upset' that Noem had told Congress he approved it, and the president later insisted he had not personally signed off on the project.
Whatever the private conversations, the public result is clear enough. Noem is out, Mullin is in, and the machinery of DHS is expected to keep turning.
For many outside the United States, Markwayne Mullin is hardly a household name. Inside Republican circles, though, he has long been seen as a rising star with a biography that ticks several boxes for a Trump-era conservative.
Source: International Business Times UK
