SAN DIEGO — I bet Kristi Noem needs her comfort "blankie" right about now.

The Homeland Security Secretary was fired Thursday by President Donald Trump, who showed repeatedly in his first term that he will not hesitate to cut loose an employee who makes him look bad — and that he reserves the prerogative to do so in a most humiliating manner.

There's a good chance that Noem found out from social media that she had been dumped. Trump went to his site, Truth Social, to announce that Noem was history. Oddly, he did so by welcoming her replacement — Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla.— to the job.

And to think activists liked to refer to Noem as the "ICE queen." Trump can be awfully frosty himself.

According to media reports, Trump was furious when Noem threw him under the bus during a contentious hearing this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. When Noem was asked by Republican Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-La. about a $220 million ad campaign for DHS that Kennedy insisted was mostly effective in promoting Noem, she claimed that the president authorized the ad campaign.

Yet Trump claims he did no such thing. That suggests that the ad campaign was all Noem's idea.

Stop right there. If Trump is telling the truth — which granted, doesn't happen often — that means Noem committed perjury in her sworn testimony to Congress. For that, she ought to be prosecuted. After all, Noem likes to defend brutal raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol by preaching about the necessity of upholding the rule of law. Now we can see if she really means it.

Incidentally, The Strategy Group, the firm that received the lucrative contract, avoided the competitive bidding process. It worked for Noem's 2022 gubernatorial campaign in South Dakota. Former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is married to the company's CEO. The firm also once employed Corey Lewandowski, a longtime adviser to President Trump who now works as an unpaid special government employee and serves as the unofficial chief of staff for Noem.

According to media reports, Trump has been unhappy with Noem for some time. He believed that she had done a terrible job of handling the scrutiny surrounding the immigration raids, especially the phase of the operation that savaged Minnesota. When Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed, Noem slandered each of these U.S. citizens as a "domestic terrorist" without evidence to back up the charge.

The mention of Minnesota reminds me. I remember the moment that I knew Noem was toast at DHS. It was when Bruce Springsteen released the protest song, "The Streets of Minneapolis" in which the rocker condemned "Noem's dirty lies." When the boss makes you a villain in one of his songs, it's time to update your LinkedIn page.

Some of Noem's dirty lies were lies of omission. For instance, there was another killing by a DHS agent that only recently came to light. In March 2025, a Homeland Security Investigations agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas, but the killing didn't get revealed until almost a year later in a public records request.

Now for the back story on the blanket. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski went so far as to fire a pilot with the U.S. Coast Guard mid-trip for leaving Noem's blanket behind on a plane. Apparently, Noem had to switch planes during an official trip due to a maintenance issue. But her blanket was not moved to the new aircraft. In an embarrassing turn, Lewandowski was then forced to rehire the pilot on the spot because there was nobody else available to fly Noem and other DHS staff members home to Washington.

The incident drew attention because it was the kind of protective gesture one might expect from a boyfriend. Both Noem and Lewandowski are married to other people, and yet the two have reportedly been carrying on an affair for the last few years.

Guess who picked up the clues? According to The New York Post, Trump knew about the affair and joked about it with others. The president would talk about how he had seen Noem and Lewandowski take sips from the same can of soda.

"You can't do that, it's pretty obvious! You can't do that, everyone's going to know!" Trump would tell people.

What's pretty obvious is that Noem was always a disastrous choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Will Mullin be any better? Time will tell. We'll be watching. And, this cautionary tale shows, no one pays closer attention than Trump.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: History in HD at Unsplash