Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is earning rave reviews two months into his tenure, with a Republican lawmaker hailing a “sea of change” at the department following the departure of Kristi Noem.
Noem was removed from DHS by President Donald Trump in March after a little over a year in charge. Her chaotic stewardship of the administration’s illegal immigration crackdown, which led to the deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis, and controversies over her spending drew outrage. When she was removed from the role, Mullin was quickly named as her replacement.
North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis said there was “no comparison” between her and Mullin.
“Markwayne’s making all the right choices,” he told The Hill. “He’s relying on [border czar Tom] Homan. He’s stipulating that there were changes that needed to be made… I’m impressed with what he’s doing.
“And I’ll tell you, what I’m really impressed with is the mood of the building. There is a sea of change in the way that they’re being treated, and the respect the career staff are being given.”
Tillis credited Mullin with removing “a lot of the artificial barriers” introduced by Noem and her influential chief of staff Corey Lewandowski, saying he was “cutting out the red tape” and reinstating people fired arbitrarily.
New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, agreed with Tillis’s assessment.
“He’s got a good team around him, and the communication since he’s been secretary has been wonderful, very easy to get a hold of, very easy to get response from him and his team,” Garbarino said.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with. He doesn’t want to embarrass the president, so he’s working very hard to make sure that Congress has kept up to speed.”
Democrats were naturally more muted, with the ranking member of Garbarino’s panel, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, saying he had had little to do with Mullin and still considered him “an unknown commodity” given that he had not received a “courtesy visit” or even a phone call.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, also said he had not yet heard from Mullin.
However, New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, one of two Democrats to vote to confirm Mullin, said they “have an open line of communication,” which had not been the case with Noem.
The president dismissed Noem after reportedly growing weary of the “constant chaos” surrounding her and the negative press coverage she regularly attracted, that included the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.
Noem labeled the dead protesters “domestic terrorists” and refused to apologize when the characterization was proven to be incorrect.
A bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal in February then alleged that she and Lewandowski were engaged in an extramarital affair, which both parties vehemently denied, and accused her of seeking to “burnish her personal stardom at every turn.”
Trump was said to be “incensed” when she claimed during a congressional hearing that he had known in advance about her signing off on a $220 million TV ad campaign for ICE in which she appeared on horseback before Mount Rushmore.
“I never knew anything about it,” he fumed to a Reuters journalist shortly afterward.
Noem left office reportedly feeling she had been “thrown under the bus” but the news left DHS staffers “actually crying out of happiness,” according to The Washington Examiner.
“Anyone is better than that dog murderer,” said one longtime staffer, referring to the infamous anecdote in Noem’s memoir about her shooting a 14-month-old puppy she had failed to train.
“Hallalujah,” said another.
Now serving as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, Noem was more recently left “blindsided” by new allegations that her husband, Bryon Noem, was involved with the “bimbofication” fetish scene, cross-dressing and sending out compromising photos and cash to strangers he met online.
