Trump Removes Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary...

At one point during questioning from Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, Noem said the President had signed off on the ad campaign. The statement reportedly angered Trump, who said he had not approved the initiative. “I never knew anything about it,” Trump later said in an interview with Reuters. The firm that handled the ad campaign was connected to the husband of Noem’s former spokesperson, drawing further scrutiny. Noem defended the contract process, telling lawmakers that it had gone through a “competitive process” and was “all done correctly, all done legally.” During the hearings, Noem was also questioned over her relationship with Corey Lewandowski, a Trump ally who ran his 2016 campaign and works as a special adviser at DHS. Noem and Lewandowski have both publicly denied rumors of an affair. While the details of Noem’s appointment as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas are unclear, she wrote in a post on social media that she will work closely with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “to dismantle cartels that have poured drugs into our nation and killed our children and grandchildren.”