What started as a routine Senate hearing quickly turned into a political headache at the White House. President Donald Trump was reportedly furious behind closed doors after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested under oath that he had signed off on a hefty $220-million ad campaign, one that prominently featured her face.
According to reports, Trump wasn’t thrilled about being dragged into the spotlight over the pricey publicity push, National Review reported.
“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Republican Senator John Kennedy asked Noem during Tuesday’s hearing.
“Yes sir, we went through the legal processes–” Noem said.
“Did the president know you were gonna do this?” Kennedy interjected.
Noem answered again in the affirmative multiple times. “I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth. It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president, as I do, that you said, ‘President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think Russ Vought” at the Office of Management and Budget “would have agreed to that,” he added.
The frustrations prompted the president to privately express his openness to replacing her, according to National Review. One name he began floating this week as a potential replacement was Oklahoma’s junior US Senator Markwayne Mullin.
The White House did not respond to National Review’s inquiry on Wednesday evening. Punchbowl News reported earlier Thursday morning Trump was quizzing congressional Republicans on whether he should fire Noem.
It remained unclear whether Trump, known for openly floating personnel changes in private conversations with allies, followed through on the ouster. Aside from demoting former National Security Adviser Michael Waltz to US Ambassador to the United Nations, Trump so far resisted any high-profile cabinet reshuffles during his second term, and insisted in early February that he had no plans to remove Noem from her post following her handing of the federal officer-involved fatal shootings in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Asked in a brief hallway interview in the US Capitol on Wednesday whether he heard the president’s frustration with Noem’s Senate Judiciary testimony and whether he was aware he was under consideration as a potential replacement, Mullin said: “I haven’t talked to the president.”
The Oklahoma Republican insisted that he hadn’t spoke to the White House at all this week. “I haven’t talked to him about the hearing at all, I can’t help you there, I’m sorry,” he added before walking into the Senate chamber to cast a vote.
The secretary’s closely watched congressional testimony came at a pivotal moment for Noem and the department she oversaw. DHS was entangled in a partial shutdown, with congressional Democrats refusing to fund the department over concerns with the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
The administration sought to alleviate tensions surrounding its Minnesota immigration enforcement operation by dispatching his border czar Tom Homan to negotiate with local Democratic officials. After securing local cooperation, Homan was able to withdraw federal immigration officers from the state.
Noem’s political vulnerabilities were thrust into the spotlight this week amid searing questioning from congressional Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees about how the agency monitored contract allotment, officer training, FEMA reimbursement, special govt employees, and more.
Noem faced a barrage of questions during both hearings this week about Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager who was a close ally of Noem and worked as her top aide inside DHS as a special govt employee. She denied that Lewandowski played a role in approving contracts, a claim that DHS officials privately refuted.
Following news reports that suggested Noem and Lewandowski were romantically involved, multiple House Democrats asked Noem directly during Wednesday’s House Judiciary hearing whether she ever engaged in sexual relations with him, a charge she called “total garbage.”
During her hearing this week, members of Congress pressed Noem about the contract approval process for the $220 million ad campaign. According to ProPublica, $77 million of the contract was awarded to People Who Think, an LLC owned by Jay Connaughton, who previously consulted for Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s gubernatorial campaign alongside Lewandowski. Senator Peter Welch (D., Vt.) grilled Noem about a $143 million no-bid contract that was awarded to Safe America Media, an entity established just days before the contract was awarded. That group then subcontracted a fraction of of that $143 million to a strategy firm owned by Ben Yoho, the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
“The Strategy Group has never had a contract with DHS,” the political firm wrote in a statement posted on social media following the hearing. “We had a subcontract with Safe America for limited production services. Safe America paid us $226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements and 6 produced radio advertisements. If you’re going to try to question our integrity, bring actual evidence – we did.”
Pressed for comment for this story, a DHS spokesperson reiterated that the “hyper targeted international ad campaign in question “ran in eight countries,” “reached over 46 million people,” and played a major role in helping secure the southern border.
“The domestic ad campaign has been the most successful ad campaign in U.S. history. The results speak for themselves: 2.2 million illegal aliens self-deported. On average an arrest and removal by ICE cost U.S. taxpayers $18,000. Even with the costs of advertising, the CBP $2,600 exit bonus, self-deportations are 70% cheaper than a forced ICE removal. This ad campaign saved the U.S. taxpayers over $39 billion.”
Also critical of Noem during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was retiring GOP Senator Thom Tillis, who tore into the DHS secretary for her management of the agency.
“Why am I disappointed with Secretary Noem? Because we’re not going after enough people who did this damage at the expense of running numbers that Stephen Miller wants out of the White House,” he yelled at one point during the hearing. “We just want numbers. We want 1,000 a day, 6,000 a day, 9,000 a day, because numbers matter, right? No, they don’t matter. Quality matters, not quantity, quality.”
“And what we’ve seen is a disaster under your leadership,” he added.
