Mullin says Trump nomination is ‘pretty humbling’
Speaking to reporters today, senator Markwayne Mullin said that he was “pretty humbling” to be tapped as homeland security secretary.
“A little kid from Westville, Oklahoma gets to serve in the president’s cabinet – that’s pretty neat,” he added, while noting that Donald Trump called him with the news just before he posted about Noem’s ouster on Truth Social.
Key events
Noem acknowledges removal while touting success in year as DHS secretary
Kristi Noem thanked Donald Trump for her new role as special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas” while acknowledging her ouster as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary. In a post on X, Noem said she looks forward to working with secretary of state Marco Rubio and defense secretary Pete Hegseth to “dismantle cartels” as part of the president’s initiative that he’ll announce on Saturday.
“I will be able to build on the partnerships and national security expertise, I forged over the last 13 months as Secretary of Homeland Security,” she wrote, while touting “historic accomplishments” during her tenure.
Noem is the first cabinet official of Trump’s second administration to be ousted from their role.
Mullin says Trump nomination is ‘pretty humbling’
Speaking to reporters today, senator Markwayne Mullin said that he was “pretty humbling” to be tapped as homeland security secretary.
“A little kid from Westville, Oklahoma gets to serve in the president’s cabinet – that’s pretty neat,” he added, while noting that Donald Trump called him with the news just before he posted about Noem’s ouster on Truth Social.
Noem just referenced the new “security initiative” to combat cartels that Donald Trump announced she would working on. However, she didn’t discuss her role, and made no reference that she has been removed from her post as homeland security secretary.
Kristi Noem is currently speaking in Nashville, at a conference with several police chiefs from across the country.
She’s yet to address her removal as homeland security secretary, and she hasn’t received any questions about her ouster.
Mullin wins one Democrat’s support
Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who represents Pennsylvania, who also sits on the Senate homeland security committee said that he intends to vote for Mullin as DHS secretary.
Fetterman said that he’s “not sure how many fellow Democrats” would do the same “but I am AYE”.
One quick, important, note. While Donald Trump said that Markwayne Mullin would take over from Noem starting on 31 March, the Oklahoma senator still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
The president can’t simply appoint a replacement for a cabinet position.
Democrats welcome news of Noem’s removal as DHS secretary
Congressional Democrats have started to react to Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s ousting Kristi Noem as his homeland security secretary.
Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the House oversight committee, responded quickly on social media: “Well now we don’t have to impeach her.”
This comes after months of repudiation from Democrats about Noem’s leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), particularly the tactics of federal immigration officers during crackdowns across the country.
Senator Cory Booker, who lambasted Noem during a judiciary committee hearing this week and repeated calls for her resignation, said that he was “glad” to see that Noem is being replaced. “There is a long road ahead to reel in this out-of-control agency,” the New Jersey lawmaker said.
Meanwhile, the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, welcomed the news of Noem’s removal. “Keep the pressure on these extremists,” the minority leader said, while also calling for the ouster of attorney general Pam Bondi.
Trump removes Noem as DHS secretary
Kristi Noem, the embattled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, has been removed from her position by Donald Trump.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said that Noem had “served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results”, before noting that she would become the special envoy for the “Shield of the Americas” – a new “security initiative” that he plans to announce this week in Doral, Florida with Latin American leaders.
Trump announced that he was nominating Republican senator Markwayne Mullin to be the new homeland security secretary.
“A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda,” the president said of the Oklahoma lawmaker.
As the only Native American in the Senate, Markwayne is a fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal Communities. Markwayne will work tirelessly to Keep our Border Secure, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, End the Scourge of Illegal Drugs and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN.”
Top House Republicans call for scandal-plagued congressman to end re-election bid
House Republican leadership has called for Tony Gonzales to end his re-election campaign. This comes after the House ethics committee launched an investigation into the representative’s conduct, following reports that he had an extramartial affair with an aide who later died by suicide.
On Wednesday, Gonzales admitted to the relationship with the his late staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, calling it “a lapse in judgment”. The GOP lawmaker, who represents an area of Texas that stretches from Juarez to San Antonio, said that he hadn’t spoken with Santos-Aviles for a year before she died.
“We have encouraged him [Gonzales] to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” the lower chamber’s top Republicans, led by House speaker Mike Johnson, said in a statement. “In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election.”
Gonzales is now facing a runoff in the Republican primary race for his district, after he failed to secure 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s election. If he stays in the running, he’ll square off against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube personality, again in May.
Was Trump ever in control of the Iran war? – podcast
This week on Politics Weekly America, my colleague Rachel Leingang speaks with foreign policy expert Ali Vaez – who discusses what it was like to take part in war game exercises for the Pentagon, and how they compare with what he has seen play out this week.
Then the Guardian’s Andrew Roth talks us through the inner chaos in the Trump administration and Congress over Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran.
Trump denies Noem’s claim that he signed off on $220m border security ad campaign
Donald Trump has said that he did not sign off on a $200m border security advertising campaign featuring his embattled homeland security secretary Kristi Noem.
“I never knew anything about it,” the president told Reuters in a phone interview today.
NBC News also reported on the denial today, citing a White House official as saying: “POTUS did not sign off on a $220 MILLION dollar ad campaign. Absolutely not.”
Noem – who has been overseeing Trump’s aggressive and highly contentious immigration crackdown – was questioned by both Democrats and Republicans before a Senate panel yesterday about the contract and process to select the companies.
It was also the first time she addressed members of Congress since federal immigration officers fatally shot two US citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – during a surge of law enforcement in Minneapolis in January. Several Democrats have called for Noem to resign or risk impeachment.
In response to questions from GOP senator John Kennedy, Noem claimed that Trump did know about her decision to approve the contract for the border security ads, in which she is prominently featured, including a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South Dakota governor’s home state.
As Shrai reported on Tuesday, Kennedy also noted that the contract to make the ads was awarded to a strategy group run by the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin.
Noem said on Tuesday that the contract was awarded through “a competitive process” and that no political appointees were involved. Yesterday, she said the contract was “all done correctly, all done legally”.
Further to that, Donald Trump has said the same thing to Reuters today.
He said that the US must have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader and that while it was very early in the process of picking a new leader, Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was an unlikely choice.
We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future. We don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again … Somebody that’s going to be great for the people, great for the country.
Trump says he must ‘be involved in’ choosing Iran’s next leader
Donald Trump has said he must “be involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader as he was in Venezuela, and dismissed the idea of the assassinated ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeding his father as supreme leader as “unacceptable”.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump told Axios today. You will remember that Rodriguez took over after US forces captured president Nicolás Maduro in January.
Trump added that he could not accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s policies.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” he said.
Selecting a leader who followed the policies of the former supreme leader could force the US back to war “in five years”, he added.
It comes a day after Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth insisted that regime change was not the primary goal of the US military operation in Iran. Other Trump administration officials have made the same claim since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran last Saturday, which killed the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei .
This, even though Trump himself has pushed for Iranian regime change previously. His administration has pivoted its messaging in recent days to focus on destroying Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities.
Since the US-Israeli military assault began, Trump has suggested several times that he had a good idea who he wanted to succeed Khamenei in Iran.
But these latest comments to Axios come after he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday:
Most of the people we had in mind are dead.
No formal announcement has been made from Iran regarding the selection of a new leader, though Mojtaba Khamenei is considered the frontrunner.
State department says almost 20,000 citizens have returned to US from Middle East
Almost 20,000 American citizens have returned to the US from the Middle East, according to state department spokesperson Dylan Johnson.
“These figures do not include the many Americans who have safely relocated to other countries or those who have departed the Middle East but are still in transit back to the United States,” Johnson said in a statement.
This comes after the Trump administration received questions over whether it should have done more, in advance of the weekend strikes on Iran, to evacuate more Americans in the Middle East.
Major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded. There have also been reports of Americans calling the state department hotline and being receiving no guidance on how to return to the US.
Congress to vote on funding bill to reopen DHS
Both the US House and Senate are set to cast votes on a funding bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The department shuttered three weeks ago, after lawmakers failed to pass the necessary appropriations amid a reckoning over aggressive tactics by federal immigration officers.
The House is set to vote on the measure at 4pm ET, while the Senate will attempt to advance the legislation at 1:45pm ET. The upper chamber needs to clear a 60-vote threshold to move funding forward. It seems all but certain to fail, as Democrats remain resolute that any bill must include stronger guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Their demands have largely been dismissed by GOP members of Congress.
While several agencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), have been affected, immigration enforcement is able to continue, thanks to the billions of dollars conferred by the sweeping tax policy bill that Donald Trump signed into law last year.
On Truth Social today, Donald Trump has spent much of his time on the platform urging lawmakers to take up the SAVE America Act – legislation which requires a photo ID in order to cast a ballot, proof of citizenship at voter registration and significantly curtails mail-in voting.
The House passed the bill, but faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
Hannah Harris Green
Experts say that the Trump administration has failed to take obvious steps to contain the spread of measles, which is continuing to accelerate in the United States as the number of cases has climbed past 1,000.
The administration has revealed a relaxed attitude toward the highly contagious virus both in terms of messaging and funding allocation, experts said.
“One of the leaders at [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] referred to this dramatic and tragic increase in the cases of measles, and, in some states, deaths, as just the ‘cost of doing business’,” noted Alonzo Plough, who has worked in multiple senior public health positions and is currently chief of science at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Plough was referencing a quote from Dr Ralph Abraham, who served as CDC principal deputy director beginning in December 2025, and who resigned in late February. To Plough, hearing that from CDC leadership suggests “that they do not believe that this is a significant issue to track”.
Andrew G Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said it’s “entirely inaccurate” to suggest that the CDC had deprioritized measles.
“The CDC’s focus remains on measles prevention and treatment education and targeted public health interventions to protect communities and provide clear, accurate information to all Americans,” Nixon said.
Florida’s former surgeon general and a current professor at Brown University’s school of public health, Dr Scott Rivkees, said that current messaging on public health is causing “tremendous confusion to the public”, with “individuals in senior positions who are advocating for things that the medical community will take issue with”, like “alternatives” to the measles vaccine, which is known to be safe and effective.
