President Donald Trump may have fired Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem if she ran the agency during his first term. But his second term is different — possibly due to the first high-profile appointee Trump fired.
In a Friday article for The Independent, correspondent Andrew Feinberg wrote that Noem may have to give thanks to Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.), who served as Trump's first White House National Security Advisor. Flynn's tenure was short-lived, and he was let go after just 22 days on the job after he was found to have had back-channel communications with Russia's ambassador to the United States and lied about it to the FBI.
Flynn's firing as just one of many in Trump's tumultuous first-term, which had the highest turnover rate of any presidential Cabinet in U.S. history. Some of the more high-profile firings included Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, while others were forced to resign, like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Feinberg wrote that one source "close to Trump" told him that the president "decided that he’d been 'weak' to so easily fire advisers in response to pressure from media reporting." Now, in his second term, he has a "no-scalps policy" in which he has agreed to never fire anyone he has appointed.
Feinberg wrote this may be why former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was instead named United Nations ambassador following the Signalgate controversy. And it may be why former Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino was sent back to his El Centro, California office until his pending retirement, despite previously being the face of Trump's immigration agenda.
While Trump has publicly praised Noem's performance as DHS secretary, he notably did not call on her once during his latest Cabinet meeting. Feinberg wrote that while this doesn't amount to a firing, it is "what Italians might call Il bacio della morte — the “kiss of death” — to the ex-South Dakota governor."
"That’s a fate possibly worse than firing in Trumpworld, where one’s ability to publicly praise the president and attack the press (and Democrats) in various public forums is often the coin of the realm," he wrote. "And while she’s still firmly ensconced in her office ... Noem may well be the first Trump cabinet secretary to get the hook this year."