One of Donald Trump’s purported reasons for firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has fallen apart as evidence piles up that the president deliberately threw her under the bus over a controversial ad campaign.
The president and his surrogates have claimed Trump did not sign off on a $220 million Department of Homeland Security campaign that featured Noem urging undocumented immigrants not to enter the U.S.
“I never knew anything about it,” Trump told Reuters on Thursday.
His comments came two days after a Senate committee hearing in which Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy accused Noem of using the campaign to boost her own name recognition and putting the president “in a terribly awkward spot.”
The president was reportedly enraged by Noem’s congressional testimony on the ad campaign, among other issues, and on Thursday, he announced he was replacing the secretary with another MAGA loyalist, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin.
But journalists who have been covering the Trump administration were quick to point out that there is in fact evidence Trump knew about the ad campaign ahead of time.
Back in February 2025, Noem told the audience at a Conservative Political Action Committee dinner that it was Trump’s idea for her to play a starring role in the spots after he saw her “Freedom Works Here” ad campaign for South Dakota.
In the ads, Noem dresses up as a welder, nurse, accountant, and police officer, among other roles, to tell viewers that South Dakota is hiring for thousands of open positions.
During her tenure at DHS, the secretary earned the name “ICE Barbie” for her camera-ready costume changes, including cosplaying as an ICE agent, pilot, rescue boat captain, and firefighter.
She and Trump “had several meetings during the transition, talking about it,” she said of the ad campaign, according to The Atlantic.
She recalled the president telling her, “Those beautiful ads you did about South Dakota. They had Mount Rushmore. I want you to do those for the border.”
He also said, “I want you in the ads. And I want your face in the ads. I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border,” according to Noem, with the goal of telling the world that the U.S. had a new leader.
Noem delivered with a spot in which she dons a cowboy hat and full glam, and rides a horse past Mount Rushmore while talking about the freedom of America.
“But that freedom’s a precious thing, and we defend it vigorously,” she says over a montage of images of Trump. “You cross the border illegally, we’ll find you. Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
In another ad, Noem explicitly thanks Trump for “securing our border and putting America first” and shares a message from the president: “If you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down.”
All of the TV ad buys were placed by the Trump campaign’s ad-buying firm, Strategic Media Services Inc., making it even less likely that president was kept in the dark about the campaign, Rolling Stone contributor Anderw Perez reported in June.
Trump administration officials also specifically exempted the ad campaign from review by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which largely worked out of the White House for the first six months of Trump’s presidency, Perez reported last April.
The project was earmarked as so urgent that it was not subjected to normal competitive bidding rules.
Two Republican firms were chosen to work on the ads: one of them a firm tied to Noem’s de facto chief of staff and alleged paramour Corey Lewandowski, and the other a shell company that was formed just days before when the contract was awarded.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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