Ben Shapiro: Kristi Noem has “not done a credit to the president as DHS secretary”
Shapiro: “If you are a secretary working under the president, at the pleasure of the president, then you really should be facilitating the success of his administration, not undermining it with photo ops and bad statements”
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From the January 27, 2026, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): But, clearly, what is happening here is the Trump administration is reorienting toward the better parts of the administration in terms of handling this and trying to deescalate the situation. Whether that deescalation is possible is going to be at least in large part up to the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis. With that said, the Trump administration is doing the right thing by handing more power over to Tom Homan inside the administration.
Apparently, this has been a battle brewing internally inside the administration for quite a while. According to Jennie Taer reporting for our Daily Wire, there have been dividing lines drawn inside the administration already. On one side, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Board Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, and Corey Lewandowski, a top Trump adviser and temporary government employee who has had a long-rumored relationship, allegedly, with Kristi Noem. On the other side are border czar Tom Homan and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Noem's camp is focused on aggressive and showy tactics, fiery press conferences, and Bovino marching through town with a squad of Border Patrol agents in tow and is fixated on increasing arrest numbers. Homan's inside is focused on the quality of arrest and getting the worst criminals off the street, which they feel is a job best suited for ICE rather than border patrol.
And, again, that split into the open when Noem and Bovino started making statements that were not backed by the facts with regard to the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Officials inside Noem's own department slammed her rush to judgment according to sources who spoke with The Daily Wire. One official said it was a horrible response. Many people I've heard say it was unprofessional. She doesn't know what she's doing. The people in DHS are frustrated with Secretary Noem and the way DHS is handling the media. The employees want a more professional response, not memes and one liners.
So I highly doubt that the changes at the top of DHS have stopped. It seems to me that Kristi Noem's in a very vulnerable position given her failures on this topic, among others. And, frankly, I think that that's appropriate. I think that she has not done a credit to the president as DHS secretary, which is her job. If you are a secretary working under the president, at the pleasure of the president, then you really should be facilitating the success of his administration, not undermining it with photo ops and bad statements.