Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is not in a strong position. Recent polling found that nearly 60% of the public believes the South Dakota Republican should be removed from her job, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have called for her ouster and the number of House Democrats backing an impeachment resolution against her is up to 187.
Noem’s troubles, however, continue to mount. Last week, for example, The Wall Street Journal published a deeply unflattering report on behind-the-scenes details surrounding Noem’s work, highlighting the “constant chaos” that exists in the department she’s struggling to lead.
The Journal’s report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, noted that within the Department of Homeland Security, Noem and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, “frequently berate senior level staff, give polygraph tests to employees they don’t trust and have fired employees — in one incident, Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to people familiar with the incident.”
With this in mind, the Cabinet secretary clearly didn’t need another damaging report, but she confronted one anyway this week when NBC News, citing four sources, reported on Noem’s increasingly strained relationship with U.S. Coast Guard officials. (The Coast Guard falls under DHS, not the Pentagon.)
According to the report, which also has not been independently verified by MS NOW, the relationship between the DHS secretary and Coast Guard reached new depths following a “verbal directive” to shift Coast Guard resources from a search-and-rescue mission to find a missing service member. From the NBC News report:
The tension between some Coast Guard officials and Noem began after a 23-year-old Coast Guardsman went overboard into the Pacific Ocean from the cutter Waesche on Feb. 4 last year, shortly after the Senate confirmed Noem into her role, according to the two U.S. officials, the Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official.
The Coast Guard had surged ships and aircraft to the Pacific to find the guardsman. Hours into the search, Noem learned that a Coast Guard C-130 that was supposed to fly detained migrants from California to Texas was among the aircraft over the Pacific looking for the missing guardsman, and she intervened, according to the two U.S. officials and the Coast Guard official.
According to the report, Noem verbally instructed the acting Coast Guard commandant to pull the plane off the search-and-rescue mission so it could instead help with the deportation of immigrants. Adm. Kevin Lunday complied and notified the National Command Center, which ordered the C-130 to fly to San Diego while other aircraft and ships involved in the search continued.
That did not, however, end the matter: Coast Guard officials reportedly scrambled to find other planes that could transport immigrants so that the C-130 to continue searching for the missing guardsman.
He was never found.
To be sure, a department spokesperson rejected the NBC News report — “The entire premise of your story is incorrect,” the spokesperson said — and there are differing narratives surrounding the incident.
But the report concluded that the incident “left Coast Guard officials with a negative impression of Noem,” which seems understandable given the circumstances.
Highlighting the reporting, Rachel Maddow asked via Bluesky, “How is it possible that Kristi Noem still has this job?” That need not be a rhetorical question.
