March 5 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has removed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and appointed Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Thursday after she was aggressively grilled by a Senate committee the day before.
Trump announced the change on Truth Social, along with a new job for Noem, naming her “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.'”
He praised Noem for her “numerous and spectacular results” in the announcement.
“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,” he said.
Mullin has been a Senator since 2023 and served in the House from 2013-2023. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Noem faced a combative Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, as they pressed her for answers on several issues the department has been plagued with in the past year.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called her leadership a “disaster” and told her she should resign.
“What we’ve seen is innocent people getting detained that turn out are American citizens,” Tillis said in a heated exchange.
“The fact that you can’t admit to a mistake, which looks like, under investigation, is gonna prove that Ms. [Renee] Good and Mr. [Alex] Pretti probably should not have been shot in the face and in the back. Law enforcement needs to learn from that. You don’t protect them by not looking after the facts.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed Noem about DHS ads that she starred in, spending $200 million.
The ads were made by a Republican consulting firm that was allegedly created just before submitting bids for the work.
The company is reportedly connected to the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, though she denied any part in choosing the firm and called the ads “extremely effective.”
“Well they were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy said. “It troubles me. A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money when we’re scratching over every penny and we’re fighting over rescission packages. I just can’t agree.”
Noem told the Senate panel that Trump had authorized the ads.
Kennedy told reporters Thursday that he got a call from the president about her testimony, The New York Times reported.
“Put it this way: His recollection and her recollection are different.”
Mullin told The Times that he has not had time to call Noem, whom he said is a friend.
“She was tasked with a very difficult job,” he said. “I think she has done the best that she could do under the circumstances.”
But he said he believed that there are opportunities to “build off things that didn’t quite go as planned.”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he would wait and see if Mullin will be an improvement at DHS but told The Times, “It will be hard to be a downgrade.”
The Department of Homeland Security is in its third week of a shutdown, with Congress expected to vote later Thursday on a funding package.
