Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied on Tuesday that her congressional testimony from March was a flashpoint that ultimately led to her dismissal as a Cabinet member.“I know it seemed that way to the American public, but the president and I had been talking about it for about a week or two before that,” she said on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria. “We knew there might be a transition, and we had conversations about it.”Noem noted she also spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about a potential transition before the congressional hearings, where Democratic lawmakers grilled her on immigration enforcement and a controversy involving Department of Homeland Security contracts and grants worth over $100,000 that required the secretary’s approval. Under new leadership, DHS reversed that policy.
Following the March hearings, President Donald Trump announced his decision to replace Noem with Markwayne Mullin, then a Republican senator of Oklahoma. Trump then appointed Noem as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a U.S.-led multinational coalition to combat drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere.
Noem said the new role has given her the opportunity to share her experience leading DHS initiatives with multiple nations.
