(Reuters) – United States President-elect Donald Trump has chosen South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to be the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, CNN reported on Tuesday (12), citing two sources .
Noem, who was once seen as a possible running mate for Republican Trump, is currently serving her second four-year term as governor of South Dakota after a landslide re-election victory in 2022. She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose mask requirement throughout the State during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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However, Noem has had a politically turbulent few months this year.
She faced widespread backlash in April this year when she wrote in a memoir that she shot and killed an “untrainable” dog she “hated” on her family’s farm. After that, some Trump advisers said they believed that Noem’s actions had caused discredit in the eyes of the former president at a time when she was still running for vice president.
Both the Trump campaign and Noem’s office did not respond to requests for comment outside of business hours.
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The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for everything from border protection and immigration to disaster response and the U.S. Secret Service.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru)
