HE NEEDS TO KNOW
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President Donald Trump ran over Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a Cabinet meeting on January 29
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Trump also made the rare move of refusing questions from the media following the meeting
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Kaitlan Collins, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, suggested Trump’s actions allowed the administration to avoid addressing the recent DHS controversies in Minneapolis and increase scrutiny of Noem’s leadership.
President Donald Trump added more fuel to rumors about Kristi Noem’s job security during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 29.
Trump’s televised cabinet meetings — where his top aides take turns updating him on their departments’ priorities — have become opportunities to showcase the administration’s accomplishments and comment on current events, but two notable actions by Trump prevented that from happening Thursday, as many wondered how he would address ongoing criticism of the Department of Homeland Security and its controversial presence in Minnesota.
The federal immigration operation in Minneapolis has been a source of major backlash for the Trump administration, including the fatal officer-involved shootings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti; distressing updates on 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose ICE detention while walking home from daycare with his father went viral; and the recent attack on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar while condemning DHS Secretary Noem at a town hall.
While Trump called on many members of his cabinet for updates on issues such as housing, the economy, the current situation in Venezuela and more during Thursday’s meeting, CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins was quick to point out that he passed over Noem, preventing her from responding to criticism of her handling of federal immigration agencies.
Trump also abruptly ended the meeting and, in an extremely rare move for the 47th president, refused to take questions from the assembled members of the White House press corps.
“There’s been a lot of headlines generated around the city of Minneapolis, what’s going on there, especially with the president changing leadership there on the ground,” Collins said immediately after the event. “That didn’t come up at all during this Cabinet meeting and I was there for over an hour and a half.”
“Minneapolis was not brought up once, and obviously no questions were asked of the president because he didn’t answer questions, despite talking during the Cabinet meeting about how he thinks they are the most transparent administration ever,” she added.
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty
Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino have both come under fire for comments made shortly after Pretti’s death on Jan. 24 in which they labeled the 37-year-old ICU nurse a “domestic terrorist.”
“This individual who came with guns and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation by federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism,” Noem said while speaking to reporters just hours after Pretti was shot and killed. – These are the facts.
Video footage soon revealed that Pretti was holding a cellphone, not a gun, and that Border Patrol agents had disarmed him before shooting him at point blank range.
Calls for Noem’s impeachment came from both Republicans and Democrats; however, when asked on January 27 if Noem would resign, Trump simply replied, telling reporters, “No.”
However, he got Noem and Bovino out of the Minneapolis operation. In a Jan. 26 Truth Social post, Trump announced he was sending his “frontier czar,” Tom Homan, to be his new point man on the ground in the embattled city.
“I’m sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight,” Trump, 79, wrote. “He wasn’t involved in that area, but he knows and likes a lot of the people there. Tom is tough but fair and will report directly to me.”
the next day, Atlantic reported that Bovino will return to his Border Patrol post in El Centro, Calif., where he is the sector’s Op At Large commander.
CBS News also reported on Jan. 27 that Noem is unlikely to lose his Cabinet position permanently, but is expected to shift his focus from Minneapolis to “securing the southern border and other priorities.”
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Axios reported on Jan. 27 that Noem mounted a defense amid the growing scrutiny, blaming any DHS missteps on Trump and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem said, according to a person who provided the quote to Axios.
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