Retribution, by Jonathan Karl, describes backroom squabbling over Kristi Noem and Sean Duffy appointments
Donald Trump picked Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary as a personal favour to his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski despite objections that she was “obviously unqualified”, according to a new book.
The factional infighting behind Trump’s cabinet selection, where inexperience was no barrier to success, is detailed by journalist Jonathan Karl in Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Soon after his election victory last November, the book recounts, Trump picked Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, central to fulfilling his campaign promise of the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Like Pete Hegseth, who landed the job of defense secretary, Noem, then the governor of South Dakota – who faced an outcry over her admission in a book that she once shot a pet dog – had not been on the transition team’s list of possible candidates and had not gone through vetting for the job, Karl writes in Retribution.
