The formation of Donald Trump’s second Government continues at a good pace behind the walls of his private Camelot, the Mar-a-Lago mansion, in Palm Beach (Florida). The last profile to be leaked to the American press was, early this Tuesday, the one whom the president-elect, who confirmed her at night, has named Secretary of Homeland Security. It is one of the key cabinet positions for someone who won the election promising to close the border to illegal immigration and the largest deportation in history. One of Noem’s main responsibilities – as it was for Alejandro Mayorkas in the Joe Biden Administration – will be the management of the 3,200 kilometers of border that separates the United States from Mexico.
In a statement, Trump highlighted his “firm” profile on border security. “She was the first governor to send National Guard soldiers to help Texas combat Biden’s immigration crisis, and she did so up to eight times,” the president-elect wrote. “I have known Kristi for years and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects. Will be a critical piece in the mission to make America safe again [Make America Safe Again]”. Noem will have command over a Department with a budget of $60 billion and thousands of officials under her command. During Trump’s first four years in the White House, five people held this position, which was permanently in the eye of the storm.
The governor’s profile meets the two main requirements shared by all the appointments announced by Trump since the transfer market opened last Thursday with the designation of: all those elected (five men and three women) are part of the hard wing of the Party Republican and all, without exception, have proven to be loyal to the president even in his lowest hours; that journey in the desert that he went through after leaving the White House for the first time, after trying to subvert the legitimate result of the 2020 elections with the incendiary spread of a hoax that led to the assault on the Capitol in January 2021.
Noem, governor of a not very relevant State in the Union (it has just over 900,000 inhabitants), acquired national fame first, and then international fame, with the publication of , a book of memoirs in which she revealed how one day of Years ago she killed one of her puppies, a 14-month-old dog named Cricket. That macabre confession was meant to serve her, in her head, to show herself to the world as a tough woman, who does not postpone problems. In practice, and after the diary The Guardian publish that isolated extract, it meant the end of her options as a candidate for vice president in a country divided in almost everything, but united by the love of its pets. Noem was in all the pools, but after it was learned that she was capable of killing a puppy, they disappeared. Trump finally chose Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate (who, by the way, also rose to fame with the publication of a more edifying memoir: Hilbilly, a rural elegy).
Noem and Wiles were joined these days – especially on Monday, which was frenetic at Mar-a-Lago, even though it was a holiday – by the names of, who will be and already applied Trump’s immigration policies with a heavy hand in his first term, and Stephen Miller, another anti-immigration hawk, who will serve as White House deputy chief of staff. In climate matters, he has chosen Lee Zeldin, who with the mission of eliminating regulations. The president-elect has also designed the leadership of his foreign policy, with the appointment of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the new Secretary of State, the first Latino to head US diplomacy; the ultra congresswoman as ambassador to the UN, an organization that Stefanik considers an “anti-Semitic institution”; and
musical session
Noem’s name returned to the headlines along with that of the Republican candidate when in the final stages of the campaign they both starred in one of their most extravagant episodes. It was in a place called Oaks, in Pennsylvania. in which he answered questions from the audience. It was hot in the room. The indisposition of two attendees forced the event to be stopped twice for a short period of time. After the second interruption, Trump asked to listen to the Hail Mary, by Schubert, and then said, “Who wants to hear questions when we can listen to music?” Trump then let a loud voice ring for 39 minutes. playlist of your favorite songs,
The episode of the little dog began like this in his memoirs: “He was a German wirehaired pointer and he had come to us from a home that had to deal with his aggression.” That day, the future governor had guests at her ranch and they went hunting. Cricket He spent the morning running ahead of the game, “scare[ing]away the birds” and not obeying his owner. On the way back, they stopped at a neighbors’ farm, and the dog ran away and killed a few chickens. The animal tried to bite its owner when she managed to catch it.
“I hated her,” she recalls in the book. That was when he decided that “he had to sacrifice her,” and that he had to do it with his own hands. “I stopped the truck in the middle of the road, took out my gun, grabbed the strap and took it to a pile of gravel.” Then, the author implies that she carries it out: “It was not a pretty task, but it had to be done.” A few paragraphs later, he adds: “Leading is not always fun (…). The world is full of charlatans and evaders [de sus responsabilidades]. “We need people to act.”
After the scandal broke out CricketTrump reacted at a private campaign fundraiser in New York. “I’m very curious about the dog,” he said in an amused tone, according to the accounts of those present, who observed more sympathy than criticism in his words. “[Noem] “It’s been there for us for a long time,” he added. “She’s loyal, she’s great.”
In her memoir, the governor also included an episode in which she said that, during her time as a congresswoman, she met Kim-Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea. When the first copies of the book were put into circulation, suspicions began about the veracity of that memory; Noem decided to delete it in subsequent editions, and argued that its inclusion had been a “mistake.”
