Trump sacks Kristi Noem - what does it mean for ICE? – The Latest

0:00Chris Michael:This is The Guardian.

0:09Chris Michael:The face, really, of Trump's immigration crackdown. She earned the perhaps slightly unfair moniker Ice Barbie. She was saying all the right things. She was flattering the president. But then she started to generate headlines for maybe the wrong reasons. This ad really seems to have struck a bit of a nerve. She made what maybe was her fatal error. She said, Trump knew all about this ad. Trump was asked about this and he said, no, I didn't know anything about that. He started to realize that basically her made-for-TV shtick wasn't kind of working quite the way it should have.

0:41Nosheen Iqbal:Donald Trump has sacked his Homeland Security Secretary. What does that mean for the future of ICE? From The Guardian to Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Nosheen Ikhwal.

0:54Nosheen Iqbal:Joining me today is Guardian US Live News editor, Chris Michael. Chris, thanks for being here.

0:59Chris Michael:Thanks for having me.

1:00Nosheen Iqbal:So, Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary for the US, has gone.

1:04Chris Michael:Yep.

1:04Nosheen Iqbal:She has been sacked in an announcement made by Trump on social media just moments before she was due to address this conference in Tennessee. It looked incredibly awkward. Now, I think she's the first major casualty of Trump's cabinet in this second term. very different from the first. It was like a revolving door. Let's start with the basics. What can you tell me about who Chrissy Noem is and what she stands for?

1:29Chris Michael:Well, she was the former governor of South Dakota, a very conservative politician, very anti-abortion, very anti-immigration, and famously admitted in a memoir to taking one of her dogs to a gravel pit and shooting it, which is originally a kind of a guardian scoop, actually. So she was tipped as a potential vice presidential pick for Trump until this dog shooting story got out. But when Trump won, he installed her as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. So big job. The face, really, of Trump's immigration crackdown because under DHS is the agency ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

2:14Chris Michael:And that has been the sort of tip of the spear for Trump's immigration push.

2:18Nosheen Iqbal:And she's been very much the face of ICE in some ways, because she's put herself very much front and center of that campaign. But how did she actually do in the role?

2:27Chris Michael:Well, I suppose it depends on who you ask. Certainly from Trump's perspective, I think you might have argued that the first six months or so were great. I mean, immigration is the kind of key issue that he campaigned on, red meat for his base. And he did indeed launch a massive crackdown. They more or less closed the border, stopped all refugee applications. and internally, Stephen Miller was leading a lot of that sort of externally, but internally, Kristi Noem took charge of the enforcement push domestically. And ICE got a huge amount of funding, tons of new agents were hired, and there was this kind of a big push to round up people that they said were the kind of worst of the worst criminals, but it turned out were actually, in most cases, had no criminal record at all.

3:11Chris Michael:But Noam owned all of this. You know, she earned the perhaps slightly unfair moniker Ice Barbie because of her habit of sort of performatively dressing up. She's very glam. She's very glam, yeah. She's got, you know, makeup. She's got this sort of Mar-a-Lago face, plastic surgery vibes. She loves wearing, you know, hats with rhinestones that say MAGA and that kind of thing on it. And, you know, did a few sort of photo shoots that were actually quite offensive to many people, including posing in front of a bunch of deportees in the jail cell in El Salvador at the Seacott Jail, the sort of terrible draconian prison where a lot of people were deported to.

3:50Chris Michael:So yeah, I mean, but you know, I think as far as Trump was concerned, all that was good. She was saying all the right things about Trump's push. She was flattering the president like all of his cabinet members do. But then she started to generate headlines for maybe the wrong reasons.

4:04Nosheen Iqbal:Okay, so, I mean, it is one thing shooting your dog and posing in these really grotesque photo shoots, as you said. And then she also put herself, as I understand it, in this$220 million ad campaign to advertise the department, basically. And then this week, she was up in front of a congressional hearing. Chris, what happened? And why might that have been the moment that it was over for her?

4:30Chris Michael:Well, yeah, as you say, I mean, there were lots of sort of semi scandals, you know, there's been this rumor of an affair with her and an aide who was sort of a Trump campaign advisor in 2016 at his first run, Corey Lewandowski. But this ad really seems to have struck a bit of a nerve. It's, yeah, as you say, incredibly expensive, basically campaign ad for ICE. that just pictures. Yes, well, exactly. That's what numbers of Congress were saying, was this not just an ad for you because it shows her on a horse riding around in front of Mount Rushmore.

5:00Nosheen Iqbal:Why do I love these wide open spaces? They remind me of why our forefathers came here, not just for its beauty, but for the freedom only America provides. I'm Kristi Noem.

5:11Chris Michael:And yeah, and so a lot of people are saying, look, did you not just do this to promote yourself? And she made what maybe was her fatal error. She said, well, Trump knew all about this ad. And this was a kind of clear effort to say, well, you know, it wasn't me. It was the boss trying to maybe bloody his hands a little bit. And shortly thereafter, Trump was asked about this and he said, no, I didn't know anything about that. So quite clearly throwing Nome under the bus. That was, I think, the moment where she would have known probably that she was doomed. Trump started calling around to senators and saying, you know, should I get rid of her?

5:45Chris Michael:And ended up, yeah, pulling the plug and making her the first person he fired in his new administration, in the cabinet anyway.

5:54Nosheen Iqbal:But he didn't entirely press the eject button like he normally would have done or like we would have expected from him. She is somewhat still in the game. What is her new role and why do you think that is?

6:05Chris Michael:So her new role is to head up this association of Latin American countries that Trump is organizing called Shield of the Americas. So it's this organization that will probably be set up to counter terrorism and maybe drug trafficking. They're having their first meeting this weekend, so we don't really know a whole lot about it yet. But Noam will be there as well as Trump. So she hasn't been pushed out of orbit completely, in part probably because Trump really hates the idea that he might be seen to cave to media pressure about criticism, right? So, you know, it's all the stuff that she actually did on the ground in Minneapolis and the massive blowback from the enforcement operation there where a couple of American citizens were killed.

6:48Chris Michael:I think the immigration bit of it he really liked, but he doesn't like the optics of American citizens being killed, particularly white American citizens. And Nome sort of owned that.

6:59Nosheen Iqbal:And she called them domestic terrorists.

7:01Chris Michael:Yeah, exactly. And then the administration had to walk that back. So I think that he started to realize that basically her made-for-TV shtick wasn't kind of working quite the way it should have. And so, yeah, so he got rid of her, but he doesn't want to make it look like that's why he got rid of her. So he's keeping her in orbit. He can say, oh, yeah, you know, she's great. She did a great job while also sort of, you know, showing the other people around that, you know, there is a line that you can't cross. And that line is contradicting Don.

7:30Nosheen Iqbal:What can you tell me about her replacement, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullin, and what qualifies him for the post?

7:36Chris Michael:Well, yeah, he's the senator from Oklahoma. He was in the House for 10 years before that. He's the youngest of seven kids. He's of Cherokee heritage. His name, unusual name, Mark Wayne is apparently a combination of two of his uncle's names. He's also extremely conservative, also a kind of MAGA culture warrior. Famously, he said that the kids of people who are deported should also be deported with them, even if they're born on American soil, i.e. even if they're American citizens. He said, well, why would you want to separate kids from their families? But I mean, what he's proposing is pretty horrible.

8:12Chris Michael:So yeah, I mean, he's almost certainly going to pick up where Noam left off.

8:16Nosheen Iqbal:But then, Chris, Noam was a person who oversaw ICE, as you've explained. And arguably, that has been a disaster for Trump's polling domestically. Do you think now that he's installed Mullen, who is, I think, only the second Native American to reach the cabinet as in the cabinet post, do you think this could mark any kind of pivot in ICE's approach?

8:39Chris Michael:I think ideologically, probably no. Mullen is just as conservative as Noam was, and Trump has not backed off his immigration enforcement operation domestically. It remains a kind of key part of what they want to achieve. but maybe practically you might see a bit of a calming. I mean, in Minnesota, he got rid of Greg Bovino, who was the kind of the guy in a great coat with the shaved head who sort of looked a bit like an Italian fascist or worse, got rid of him because he looked like he was sort of going a bit hard. The images of tear gas everywhere with protesters was something Trump didn't really like.

9:15Chris Michael:And he replaced him with Tom Homan, the border czar, also extremely right-wing, also very anti-immigration, but a bit calmer. And the first thing that he did really within about a week or two was withdraw ICE from Minnesota, not completely, but to sort of draw down this big operation that they had there. So you might see Mullen doing something similar, kind of keeping up the rhetoric, but perhaps slightly toning down the sort of actions on the ground. But it remains to be seen.

9:42Nosheen Iqbal:We'll wait and see. Chris, thank you so much for your time.

9:44Chris Michael:Thanks, Nishina.

9:45Nosheen Iqbal:That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Chris Michael. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus, we'll be back with you as usual on Monday morning and we'll be back on Monday night. This episode was presented by me, Noshin Iqbal. The producers were Stefania Orlando and Nicola Alexandru. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:13Nosheen Iqbal:This is The Guardian.