By some grace of god, President Donald Trump has fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem after barely over a year on the job. This will go into effect on March 31. 

To be fair, it’s a great improvement from his first administration. His “A team” had 92% of total turnover in his first term, 35% of that was in the first year of his first term. 

I think we all knew this day was coming, and it was certainly the right call, but it doesn’t make the news any less exciting to hear. But it may be too soon to jump for joy. Her replacement may be even worse.

Since her appointment at the Department of Homeland Security, Noem has continuously made the administration look more like a joke than it already is. A hard task, but it seems to be the only task she does well. 

Before her appointment, you may recall the numerous stories about how crazy she is. I mean, she shot her puppy for being “untrainable.” A truly unhinged woman. 

Under her leadership, ICE has run rampant in the streets. Though it said it would only deport the “worst of the worst,” people like U.S. Army Veteran and Purple Heart recipient Sae Joon Park don’t fall into that category. He had a green card, but his legal status was jeopardized due to past criminal charges: drug possession and failure to appear. Both were 15 years ago. He was also charged with misdemeanor assault in 1999.

I get it, he broke the law. But is he the violent criminal that DHS says he is? No. He’s a veteran. 

They’re also deporting and killing American citizens. 170 U.S. citizens were held by ICE as of October, and in January, multiple citizens were murdered by ICE, including Alex Pretti and Renee Good. 

Noem denied, under oath, that any of these were true, despite it being public information. Even after Park was presented in front of her, she still denied it. 

“Either you are utterly incompetent or violating our rights with impunity, you should step down, or be removed by this president and if not, Congress should impeach you.” U.S. Senator Cory Booker said to her. 

Well, after today, it’s clear someone listened to him. 

Don’t get too excited, there’s always a catch. The catch being that she’s not out of the Trump administration. Because, god forbid, Trump actually admitted he was wrong. Spoiler alert: he didn’t.

Noem was instead placed as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. 

First off, I think I speak for everyone when I say, “What the hell is the ‘Shield’ of the Americas?” 

Unless it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. and Director Nick Fury is about to come and give me his spiel, I have little faith in this “new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.”

Trump stated that they were announcing the plan on Saturday, per his Truth Social post. 

So who’s going to replace her? Apparently, it’s U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma. 

Given the fact that there have been countless mistakes, including deaths under Noem, it feels that this is purely for public perception. She’s been causing havoc for over a year, and yet, no punishment for her travesties has happened until she was placed behind a mic and called out by lawmakers and representatives across the aisle. 

If there was actually any accountability, Noem would’ve been fired altogether, not moved to another operation. Not to mention, she would’ve been fired a lot sooner. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just switching her out with someone who can lie through the rapid-fire questions more smoothly than she could. 

Mullin is practically the exact same as Noem when it comes to his stances. He’s yet another brown-nosed pick.

He’s a close friend of the president and promotes the false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. 

Mullin’s name didn’t really resonate with me at first, but it quickly started to sound familiar. Well, turns out that Mullin, a former MMA fighter, was the senator who challenged Teamster President Sean O’Brien to a brawl on the Senate floor. 

That’s right. He tried to physically fight someone on the floor due to hate comments made on social media. 

DHS has obviously gotten out of control. Removing Noem would be the right decision if it meant Trump was going to replace someone whose first instinct isn’t chaos. Yet, he’s replacing her with someone whose first response to hate was to physically fight. At his place of work, in front of cameras, mind you. Imagine how he is behind the scenes. 

One main problem with ICE agents is that a lot of them aren’t trained as law enforcement, so when they can’t regulate their emotions in the field, they could shoot and kill someone. Should these people seriously be led by someone who clearly jumps the same metaphorical gun and goes straight to violence? 

That doesn’t make good law enforcement agents; that makes an uncountable loyalist militia. If Trump’s goal was to actually calm down the chaos in this country, he picked the wrong guy. And given the fact that he’s “friends” with him, I’d say he knows him well enough to know that this appointment isn’t going to settle anything. In fact, it may make it worse. 

Professionalism clearly isn’t his strong suit because he defended then-Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s drunkenness at work, calling those who didn’t support him because of this hypocrites.

Sorry if I don’t want someone in charge of the military drunk on the job.

It’s fascinating to me how the same people who defend that are the same ones who would claim a woman can’t do the job because she’d start a war on her period, yet believe a drunk man is more capable. 

Yes, Trump was “unhappy” with Noem; it wasn’t about the job, but the way she was hated by the public and by other republicans. Her replacement has nothing to do with the atrocities committed, but with how she was making Trump look. 

Mullin is basically the male version of her: a Trump loyalist with the same beliefs. 

Time will only tell if he’s even worse. Hopefully, no one else will have to be killed or kidnapped to find out.