In a surprise move that broke in the early hours of Tuesday morning, President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security.
Noem, who is in her second term as governor, has previously served as both a state and U.S. representative.
“Noem will be tapped to take over the agency as two key immigration hardliners — Stephen Miller and Tom Homan — are slated to serve in senior roles, signaling Trump is serious about his promise to crack down on his immigration pledges,” CNN reported.
“With his selection of Noem, Trump is ensuring a loyalist will head an agency he prioritizes and that is key to his domestic agenda.”
It’s unclear what Noem’s relationship would be with “border czar” Homan or Miller, although — as Bloomberg notes — her position requires Senate confirmation while neither Homan or Miller do.
The choice of the 52-year-old Noem is one that’s bound to raise some eyebrows — and it represents the first risky, outside-the-box staffing pick for the incoming Trump administration.
On one hand, Noem is a solid, outspoken conservative who has been an enthusiastic Trump backer and has experience running a state bureaucracy. The former part might prove to be more valuable; with the Noem pick, Trump’s team is signaling that they want to avoid Washington establishment figures when it comes to implementing the president-elect’s border security policy, something that proved to be an impediment during the former president’s first term.
Trump’s initial DHS secretary was former Gen. John Kelly, who would go on to become Trump’s chief of staff. Kelly and Trump would have a fractious relationship, and the former general was briefly relevant during the final stages of the 2024 campaign for claiming, absent any evidence, that Trump had expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Kelly was subsequently replaced by Kirstjen Nielsen, a Bush 43 administration staffer who had also served as Kelly’s chief of staff while he was at DHS. Both were Beltway insiders, as were three other interim DHS secretaries under Trump who didn’t undergo Senate confirmation; Noem, on the other hand, would be expected to bring an anti-establishment tenor to the department if she is confirmed.
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However, Noem has limited experience in homeland security and doesn’t even govern a border state, meaning her familiarity with the secretary’s purview might be limited.
In addition, Noem brings some personal baggage to what could potentially be a contentious confirmation process.
The South Dakota governor was once considered a rising star in the Republican Party, particularly for her willingness to buck COVID-19 lockdown measures. There was even talk of her mounting a presidential run in 2024 or being picked as Donald Trump’s running mate.
However, a series missteps damaged her public standing in the run-up to the presidential cycle.
Most notably, Noem took serious flak for a passage in her book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” in which she wrote about shooting and killing an “untrainable” 14-month-old hunting dog in a gravel pit — and tried to spin it as an example of leadership.
“It was not a pleasant job,” she wrote, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”
While the attention paid to the passage was arguably out of proportion to what Noem actually wrote, it was compounded by a series of other missteps, both major and minor. Rumors of a poorly concealed extramarital affair with a Trump aide popped up frequently in coverage of the governor when she was being considered for veep, and a social media video promoting a Texas dental practice in March led to both ridicule from the liberal media and a lawsuit from an activist group.
If confirmed, Noem will replace outgoing Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and become the eighth non-acting Homeland Security secretary in the DHS’ 22-year history.
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