What you need to know
President Donald Trump added fuel to rumors about Kristi Noem’s job security during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 29th.
President Trump’s televised Cabinet meetings, in which the president’s top advisers take turns updating him on departmental priorities, are an opportunity to tout the administration’s accomplishments and comment on current events, but two notable actions by Trump on Thursday prevented that from happening, as many wondered how the president would acknowledge continued criticism of the Department of Homeland Security and the department’s controversial presence in Minnesota.
The federal immigration operation in Minneapolis has been a source of significant backlash for the Trump administration, including the police-involved shootings of Americans Renee Good and Alex Preti. The latest tragic news about 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. The story of her being detained by ICE while returning home from kindergarten with her father became a hot topic online. And the recent attack on Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar while she was criticizing DHS Secretary Noem at City Hall.
During Thursday’s meeting, President Trump asked a number of Cabinet members for updates on issues such as housing, the economy and the progress in Venezuela, but CNN’s chief White House correspondent Caitlan Collins quickly ignored Noem, noting that he failed to address criticism of the leadership of federal immigration authorities.
Trump also abruptly ended the meeting, refusing to take questions from members of the assembled White House press corps, a highly unusual move for the 47th president.
“There was a ton of headlines around Minneapolis about what was going on there, especially with the president changing leadership there,” Collins said in a broadcast immediately after the event. “It didn’t come up at all during this cabinet meeting, and we were there for over an hour and a half.”
“Minneapolis was never brought up, which is understandable because the president didn’t take any questions, even though he told the Cabinet that he believed Minneapolis was the most transparent administration in history,” he added.
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty
Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino came under fire for comments they made shortly after Pretti’s death on January 24, labeling the 37-year-old ICU nurse a “domestic terrorist.”
“This individual committed an act of domestic terrorism by coming with weapons and ammunition to thwart law enforcement efforts by federal agents,” Noem said in an interview with reporters hours after Preti was shot. “That’s the fact.”
Video footage soon revealed that Preeti was holding a cellphone, not a gun, and that Border Patrol agents had disarmed her before firing at her at point-blank range.
Calls for Noem’s impeachment have come from both Republicans and Democrats. However, when asked on January 27 if Noem would resign, President Trump simply answered reporters, “No.”
However, he had Noem and Bovino absent from the surgery in Minneapolis. In a Jan. 26 post on Truth Social, President Trump announced that he would deploy “border czar” Tom Homan as a new field official in the battleground city.
“Tonight I’m sending Tom Homan to Minnesota,” the 79-year-old president wrote. “He’s never been in that field, but he knows and likes a lot of the people there. Tom is tough but fair and will report directly to me.”
The next day, The Atlantic reported that Bovino would return to his Border Patrol post in El Centro, California, to serve as the department’s operations commander.
CBS News also reported on January 27 that Noem is unlikely to lose his Cabinet position entirely, but is expected to shift his focus from Minneapolis to “securing the southern border and other priorities.”
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On January 27, Axios reported that Noem has launched a defense amid increased scrutiny, blaming President Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for failures at the Department of Homeland Security.
“Everything I did, I did at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem said, according to a person quoted by Axios.
