This is an adapted excerpt from the March 5 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
On Thursday, Donald Trump abruptly fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and in order to understand what finally ended the embattled former South Dakota governor’s tenure at the agency, you need to go back to a story that we flagged on “The Briefing” back in November as something that in any other era would be “a career-ending scandal.”
That turned out to be prescient.
The scandal centers on $220 million in taxpayer dollars that the Homeland Security Department used to produce ads to encourage people to self-deport from the United States.
Following Noem’s testimony, Trump felt the need to tell Reuters on Thursday that he did not, in fact, approve of those ads ahead of time.
Now, on their face, the ads were scandalous because their priority seemed to be to promote Noem herself. She got to wear cool costumes, ride horses and boost her name recognition at the expense of the taxpayer — which is as wildly inappropriate as it sounds.
But back in November, ProPublica managed to unearth a far worse scandal in connection with these ads. According to that reporting, which MS NOW has not independently verified, a firm tied to Noem profited from that massive ad contract.
One ad, featuring Noem riding around on a horse at Mount Rushmore, was made by a company called Strategy Group, which, it turns out, is run by a man who is not only the husband of Tricia McLaughlin, who was then-chief DHS spokesperson, but who also has personal and business ties to Noem as well.
When McLaughlin was asked how her husband ended up with a big chunk of cash from this ad contract, she said she “fully recused” herself from the situation and that “her marriage was one thing and her work was another.”
Fast-forward to this week, when lawmakers pressed Noem about the issue during a series of hearings on Capitol Hill.
Even though there is so much in this scandal that would warrant Trump wanting to get rid of Noem, what reportedly angered Trump the most was that Noem told Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., that the president gave her permission for all of it.
Following Noem’s testimony, Trump felt the need to tell Reuters on Thursday that he did not, in fact, approve of those ads ahead of time. Kennedy said the apparent lie from Noem made Trump “mad as a murder hornet.”
So out of all of Noem’s scandals, that appears to be the one that did her in.
It wasn’t the hundreds of millions of dollars she spent on the ads to promote herself or the potential corruption behind it. It wasn’t the $70-million luxury jet that she was trying to buy on the taxpayers’ dime. It wasn’t because of allegations — which Noem has called “tabloid garbage” — that she was having an affair with special government employee and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. It wasn’t because Lewandowski reportedly fired a Coast Guard pilot simply because they forgot to bring Noem’s blanket from one plane onto another. It wasn’t because Noem slow-walked FEMA aid all over the country. It wasn’t because under her watch, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents terrorized communities. It wasn’t because she demonized Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti after her agents shot and killed them.
No, apparently, none of that bothered Trump. But Noem placing the blame on him in an attempt to dodge responsibility for a scandal by saying the president said it was OK and perhaps spending all that money to promote herself — that, apparently, was a bridge too far.
So now Noem is out. And as much as that is a fact worth celebrating, her replacement unfortunately seems to share a lot of the same qualities.
Do you remember a few years ago when Noem bragged in her memoir about having shot and killed her 14-month-old puppy?
While MS Now has not confirmed this story independently, we learned last week from excerpts of NBC News reporter Julia Ainsley’s forthcoming book, “Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program,” that when then-candidate Trump heard that story, it immediately took Noem off the list for vice president.
Mullin, an MMA fighter, then defended his conduct by telling Newsmax, “It’s silly, it’s stupid, but every now and then you need to get punched in the face.”
However, Trump reportedly thought that particular biographical detail was “an asset” for a Homeland Security secretary.
While his new nominee to run the agency, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., did not kill his puppy, he does have some choice biographical details.
You might remember a few years ago when Mullin challenged a witness in a hearing to a physical fight. Mullin, an MMA fighter, then defended that conduct by telling Newsmax, “It’s silly, it’s stupid, but every now and then you need to get punched in the face.”
After that, Mullin said he actually looked into the rules on whether or not he would be allowed to physically fight someone on the Senate floor. He pointed to the precedent that you “used to be allowed to cane” people, which, for the record, is not true. (Former Rep. Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery congressman from South Carolina who beat former Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in 1856, was in fact arrested for that.)
But that is the kind of behavior Mullin seems to want to replicate.
After ICE agents fatally shot Good in Minneapolis this year and the Justice Department initially announced that it would not be investigating the officers involved in that shooting, Mullin told reporters, “If they are investigating anything, they need to be investigating the paid protestors and who’s paying them to obstruct federal officers from doing their job.”
So if the senator gets confirmed as secretary, we have no reason to think Mullin will be — in all the important ways — any better than Noem.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.