Kristi Noem had the best border numbers in American history leading Homeland Security.
Then she sat down in front of the Senate – and said something that sent Trump into a rage.
Nobody who heard it thought she'd survive the week.
Kristi Noem Testified Trump Approved a $220 Million No-Bid Ad Contract. He Said He Never Knew.
Noem had spent $220 million in taxpayer money on a border security ad campaign that featured herself prominently – running on television across the country, produced through no-bid contracts awarded to firms with direct ties to her political operation.
When she sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Sen. John Kennedy – one of Trump's closest allies on Capitol Hill – went straight for it.
"It's just hard for me to believe," Kennedy told her in the hearing room, "knowing the president as I do, that you said, 'Mr. President, here's some ads I've cut, and I'm going to spend $220 million running them,' that he would have agreed to that."
He was right.
Kennedy walked out of that hearing room and Trump was already calling. Kennedy told reporters the president was "mad as a murder hornet."
Then Trump called Reuters directly. "I never knew anything about it," he said.
By Thursday afternoon, it was over. Trump posted on Truth Social that Noem was out as DHS Secretary, replaced by Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin effective March 31.
The $220 million ad campaign at the center of the blowup was run without competitive bidding. DHS invoked a national emergency declaration to bypass the standard procurement process. The contract went to Safe America Media – a firm created just 11 days before it was awarded a $143 million deal.
Most of that money flowed to the Strategy Group, a firm whose CEO is married to Noem's former DHS spokesperson, and the same firm that ran Noem's 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
Kennedy put it plainly from the Senate dais: "A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money, when we're scratching for every penny."
Corey Lewandowski, Minneapolis, and the Leadership Failures That Piled Up
The White House had been done with Noem long before she sat down in that hearing room.
Sources told the Daily Caller that powerful factions inside the White House had no use for her – or for Corey Lewandowski, her top advisor, whose presence at DHS had become a problem of its own. That tension traced back to the 2024 campaign, when Lewandowski tried to get Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita fired.
Trump heard Noem out when she said she wasn't getting White House support. He stepped in to help. Then came Minneapolis.
Operation Metro Surge sent 3,000 federal officers into the city to remove illegal aliens. Two American citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were shot and killed by federal agents during the operation.
Noem felt she got hung out to dry over Minneapolis, one administration official told the Daily Caller.
The White House didn't buy it. Trump's team told NBC News the firing reflected "a culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE."
At the House hearing Wednesday, a lawmaker asked Noem directly whether she had ever had sex with Lewandowski, who is also married. She called it "tabloid garbage" and refused to answer. Lewandowski is out too.
Not a single Republican lawmaker defended her.
What Kristi Noem's Firing Means for Trump's Immigration Agenda
More than 2 million illegal aliens left the country in 2025. Over 670,000 removed. The most secure border in American history, by every metric the administration has put forward. More than half a million pounds of illegal drugs seized.
Noem ran those numbers up. She also spent $220 million in taxpayer money putting her face on ads – riding a horse at Mount Rushmore – then told the United States Senate under oath that the president signed off on it.
He didn't.
That's the one thing Trump will not tolerate from a Cabinet secretary. You execute the president's agenda.
You don't spend a quarter billion dollars on ads that make you famous, then try to drag the president down with you when the receipts surface.
"Anyone who's close to the situation at all could see this coming," one source told the Daily Caller.
Sources:
- Reagan Reese, "EXCLUSIVE: Inside Kristi Noem's Final Weeks Leading DHS," Daily Caller, March 5, 2026.
- "What led Trump to replace Kristi Noem," NBC News, March 5, 2026.
- "DHS Spent $220 Million on Ads Featuring Kristi Noem. Both Parties Grilled Her About It," Yahoo News, March 4, 2026.
- "Donald Trump 'never knew' of blessing Kristi Noem's $220M ad campaign," The Hill, March 5, 2026.
- "Did This Moment at Kristi Noem's Senate Testimony Seal Her Fate at DHS?" RedState, March 5, 2026.
- "Markwayne Mullin eyed to replace Kristi Noem as DHS Secretary," Fox News, March 5, 2026.
