It's unclear how now former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem discovered she was fired, and reports Thursday indicate she could have found out about it on Truth Social.
CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes reported that Noem was speaking at the Sergeant Benevolent Association Major Cities Conference in Nashville just as President Donald Trump had announced via his Truth Social platform that he would replace her with MAGA ally and former MMA fighter Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) and demote her to "Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas." A White House official said she was apparently aware as she was speaking that she had lost her position.
"Now I donot know the order of events interms of whether or not shelearned before or he actuallyposted this, or during the timethat he was posting this, thatI'm still trying to get to thebottom of," Holmes said. "But she is aware thathe has put this out there now,the other thing to note here isthat she's been asked a numberof questions, and nobody hasasked her about it, so clearlythere's probably several people in that audience who don't knowthat this announcement justhappened roughly an hour ago orless."
Trump had previously been reluctant to replace any of his Cabinet members ahead of midterms, Holmes reported.
"They didn'twant that to be a distractionfrom their midterm messaging," she said. "Obviously again, showingjust how angry and basicallydone with Kristi Noem, President Trump had decided he was theother part of this that has beensuch a fascinating part towatch, was the idea that in theaftermath of Minnesota and theaftermath of the shootings in Minneapolis, when Kristi Noemwas being moved out of the stateand out of that program, and Tom Homan was being brought in therewere a number of calls for herimpeachment largely from Democrats and the White House. At that point, officials insidetelling me that President Trumpwas likely to react the oppositeto those calls. And instead ofgoing along with this, that hewas going to become more defiantin protecting Kristi Noem. Andcertainly we heard him talkingin private and publicly talkingabout how well that Kristi Noemhad done at the border."
But that changed this week.
"We have seen now that President Trump has actuallyfired a member of his Cabinetthe first time in this secondterm," Holmes said. "Clearly bucking any ideathat it was too tumultuous to doso ahead of the midterms andinstead replacing Kristi Noemwith this staunch trump ally,the senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, who has been areal advocate for President Trump both when he talks toreporters on Capitol Hill and on the TV circuit, constantlydefending the president so,again, we're still learning thedetails and the sequence ofevents here, but it is clearthat President Trump had grownincreasingly irate, particularlysince that Senate Judiciaryhearing and the conversationsthat he was having withlawmakers, Republican lawmakerswe're not giving him pause inany way to change his mind."
Instead of standing by Noem, Trump made a different move.
"Youknow he wasn't getting a lot ofpushback from the lawmakers whenhe was saying that he wasconsidering firing her," Holmes said. "Andinstead, I was told that therewere a number of names floatingaround in various conversations.You had lawmakers proposingpeople that they liked for thisjob."