Trump’s Top Contenders to Replace DHS Secretary Kristi Noem

Update: President Trump announced Wednesday that he is nominating Senator Markwayne Mullin as the next DHS secretary.

Donald Trump is upset enough with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that he’s reportedly considering Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma or Senator Steve Daines of Montana as the potential next DHS secretary. 

The National Review reports that the president is floating Mullin’s name in private discussions, after Noem said in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday that Trump approved of a $220 million DHS ad campaign heavily featuring her and filmed in part at Mount Rushmore. Mullin told the conservative magazine Wednesday that he hasn’t spoken with the president.

“I haven’t talked to him about the hearing at all, I can’t help you there, I’m sorry,” Mullin said in a hallway in Capitol Hill.

The White House has also contacted Daines’s office, according to NBC News. The senator announced Wednesday that he is not seeking reelection this year. Meanwhile, Fox News contributor and former Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz has told Trump that he is interested in the position, and in joining the administration in general. 

With DHS partially shut down since February 13, Noem is under increased scrutiny from Republicans as well as Democrats. Before she involved the president, Noem’s ad campaign was already receiving criticism over the fact that an eight-day-old company run by the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin got the contract despite not even having a website. 

Noem also had a rough House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, where she was asked about her all-but-confirmed affair with top aide Corey Lewandowski. Democratic Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove called out Noem’s “judgment and decision-making” and accused her of a conflict of interest as well as risking national security. Noem’s only response was that bringing up the rumored romance was “garbage” and “offensive.”  

It’s telling that Noem’s mismanagement of DHS and the many illegal actions committed by federal agents under her purview aren’t the reasons why her job is in peril. Democrats have been pushing for her impeachment for those reasons for weeks, but now she might lose her job just because she made Trump mad. 

President Trump has declared that he wants to essentially handpick Iran’s next leader, an extremely bleak yet unsurprising development in this regime-change war.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela,” Trump told Axios in an eight-minute phone interview Thursday, emphasizing that Mojtaba Khamenei, the most likely successor to his recently assassinated father, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was “unacceptable.”

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said, also mentioning that the younger Khamenei coming to power would bring the U.S. back to war on Iran “in five years.”

This confirms previous reporting that the Trump administration thinks toppling a nearly 50-year regime that seems prepared for a dragged-out war will be some simple plug-and-play situation, and that the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and subsequent deals with his successors in Venezuela can be a direct template for Iran, even though it was a wildly different event.

Trump has previously confirmed that even if Iran did have someone like Delcy Rodríguez in Venezuela, they were long dead.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” he said on Sunday. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.” He said the same on Tuesday, as well.

This claim displays the confidence the Trump administration has that the Iranian government will simply capitulate.

This story has been updated.

Seriously, what is it with Republicans and their Nazi-loving group chats?

A group chat started by Abel Carvajal, the secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party, for conservative college students at Florida International University quickly devolved into a breeding ground for moral depravity, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

Carvajal said he created the group after Charlie Kirk was killed in September. Members of the group chat made violent and racist remarks about Black people, using variations of the n-word more than 400 times, as well as using slurs when discussing Jewish and gay people, and regularly called women “whores.”

Dariel Gonzalez, a former board member of FIU’s College Republicans, was responsible for a large chunk of racist and antisemitic comments. “Ew you had colored professors?!” he wrote at one point, adding that he personally refused “to be indoctrinated by the coloreds.”

Gonzalez also used slurs to discuss Jewish people. “You can f–k all the k—s you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate,” he said.

Ian Valdes, the president of FIU’s chapter of Turning Point USA, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew.”

In another message, Valdes called for a “moratorium on immigration” unless it was a person from a first-world country, before clarifying: “Yeah I obviously mean whites.”

Valdes renamed the group chat from “Uber R—s Yapping Inc.” (using a slur to refer to people with mental disabilities) to “Gooning in Agartha.” “Gooning” refers to the ritual of continual masturbation performed by some internet-poisoned individuals, and “Agartha” is a mythical civilization at the center of the earth, where white nationalists have imagined a white master race originates.

In the chat, Valdes described Agartha as “esoteric nazism essentially,” and Gonzalez described Agartha as “Nazi heaven sort of.”

At one point, Gonzalez wrote a message that simply said: “Total negro death.”

William Bejerano, who once tried to start a pro-life group at Miami-Dade College, then launched into a lengthy n-word-laced tirade of ways to kill Black people, including crucifying, beheading, exterminating, and curb-stomping. Students for Life in America previously published an essay in which Bejerano decried limits on free speech at his school—but has since removed it.

Carvajal occasionally participated in the conversation, and even deleted others’ messages, but never shut the group chat down. He even recruited some of the group’s extremist members to serve as committee members in the Miami-Dade GOP, sources told The Floridian.

“Had I known and had I seen some of these messages I would have called the police,” Carvajal told The Floridian. Asked if he would resign, Carvajal said: “No. Of course not. Of course not, for you know, for a chat where the messages that were stated were not mine.”

Florida International University told the Miami New Times that the heinous group chat is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.

Last year, leaders of the Young Republicans were discovered participating in another group chat that included slurs and praise for Hitler.

These forums filled to the brim with racism, antisemitism, rape jokes, and other filth are becoming the norm for a new generation of conservatives fueled by the white nationalist musings of people like Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, and Kirk.

Despite expressing frustration over Donald Trump’s war with Iran, some Democrats are still considering voting to boost military spending by billions of dollars.

At least four Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee haven’t ruled out additional funding for the Department of Defense: ranking member Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Senators Gary Peters of Michigan, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

“I need to know the goals and the plan … I don’t rule anything out,” Slotkin told Politico. “I mean, we’re in it.”

“We have to look at what they need,” Reed said. “Some of it might be to fill in critical issues and other theaters of war they’ve taken things from.”

Defense and intelligence officials told Congress this week that the Pentagon may soon ask for emergency funding, but didn’t say when or how much it would need, although Politico reports that the White House is considering asking for $50 billion. But while some Democrats are open to new military funding, seven Democrats are needed to overcome a filibuster—and many others are not only skeptical of additional funding but outright hostile to the idea.

“Good luck. What Democrat is going to vote to fund an illegal war? I don’t think—with the exception of one Democrat—there will be any votes for it,” said Senator Chris Murphy Wednesday, likely referring to Senator John Fetterman, who was the lone Democrat to vote against a war powers resolution Tuesday requiring Trump to seek Congress’s approval for further military action in Iran.

Democrats in the House also scoffed at the idea of funding the war in Iran further.

Representative Pete Aguilar of California said he has “a duty and a responsibility to help protect this country” but is “incredibly skeptical” of giving emergency military funding for Trump. “It’s going to be pretty hard to move me off of a ‘no,’” he said.

“I mean, you lie to us, don’t consult us and then expect us to send more taxpayer money to a war that we shouldn’t have started with no plan and no answers,” said Representative Pat Ryan of New York, a military veteran. He called the $50 billion figure “outrageous.”

Several Senate Democrats left a Tuesday classified briefing on Iran aghast at the lack of planning by the administration, openly accusing the White House of lying, and worrying about whether ground troops would be deployed. To fund the war would require their concerns to be addressed, but even then, it won’t change the fact that Trump started a dangerous war on a whim.

The Trump administration is panicking over oil pricing spikes caused by the war it started on Iran.

An anonymous energy industry executive told Politico that Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a team led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and other top energy advisers on Trump’s team “are getting screamed at to find some good news” regarding bringing down gas prices. “Folks are scrambling for announcements and messaging to counter the narrative” of more expensive gas in the immediate future, the executive added.

The U.S-Israel joint attack on Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation on energy facilities across the Middle East has caused crude oil prices to rise by over $10 per barrel, causing pump prices to hit their highest peak since Trump’s inauguration.

Gas was already extremely expensive, even as Trump claimed the opposite. Earlier this week, the president dismissed the entire notion of the spike, stating that “if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, lower than even before.”

“Trump’s war in Iran (which is ‘not a war’) throws affordability out the window. Oil prices spiked this week to the highest since … the last time Trump bombed Iran,” political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen wrote Wednesday on X, referring to another massive spike in oil prices in June 2025. “He knows exactly what he’s doing to you and he doesn’t care.”

But now it seems that the Trump administration is moving more urgently to bring the prices down, even offering the military to protect oil tankers traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran stated that it’d be bombing any that passed through. And that still may not be enough. Only time will tell how long Americans will put up with Trump losing them money at the gas pump.

President Donald Trump’s illegal and expensive war in Iran could stretch on until September—just in time to hand Republicans a win for the upcoming midterm elections.

U.S. Central Command requested the Pentagon dispatch more military intelligence officers to its Florida headquarters in order to support operations in Iran for at least 100 days, but likely until September, Politico reported Wednesday.

Trump had previously indicated that he hoped the conflict would last only four weeks—but clearly the military is operating on a more expansive timeline, as continued strikes from the U.S. and Israel spiral out into a larger regional conflict with a climbing death toll.

Trump’s military campaign in Iran reportedly cost taxpayers more than $5 billion within the first three days alone. Representative Joe Morelle, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, has warned the war could cost up to $1 billion per day. Therefore, U.S. Central Command is currently planning for a war that could cost between $100 billion and $180 billion, or more.

The timing of Trump’s war may also read as convenient for Republicans who must gird themselves for a tough battle in the midterm elections. Ahead of November, Democrats have continued to gain momentum, and Trump’s approval rating has hit a second-term low, signaling what could be a disaster for the president’s party.

While Trump seems to have plans in the works to influence, interfere with, or even cancel the midterm elections, perhaps he hopes to hand Republicans a victory ahead of what is shaping up to be a bloodbath for their majorities in the House and Senate.

That could just as easily backfire.

Americans don’t typically love when the government spends billions of dollars on something they didn’t vote for. And win or lose, Republicans can’t really take credit for Trump’s military campaign in Iran because they have nothing to do with it. Trump seemingly declared war without congressional authorization—just one reason why his actions are blatantly illegal.

President Trump may be fed up with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Punchbowl News reports that the president is asking his Republican allies in Congress whether he should fire Noem, following her contentious hearings on Capitol Hill this week, including one where she said the president approved a controversial government ad campaign starring herself.

On Tuesday, Noem was asked by Republican Senator John Kennedy about the $220 million ad campaign, which he said seemed to boost her national profile.

“The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked Noem during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. She replied yes, and said that it was legally cleared.

“Did the president know you were gonna do this?” Kennedy followed up. Noem replied yes, and affirmed her answer when Kennedy seemed skeptical.

“They were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy said. “To me it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot.”

This reportedly irked the president enough to question Noem’s future in the administration. The contract for the campaign, which was filmed at Mount Rushmore, went to a company only eight days old and run by Ben Yoho, the husband of former DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. Yoho’s firm received over $226,000, despite the company having no website, no experience, and quiet contracts.

On top of that, during the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Wednesday, Noem was confronted about her rumored affair with her top aide, Corey Lewandowski, and she lashed out at Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove over it.

“I’m shocked we’re going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this hearing,” Noem said, without denying the rumors.

The affair between Noem and Lewandowski, who are married to other people, is considered the worst-kept secret in Washington, D.C. But if Trump decides that Noem’s many misdeeds at DHS (and personal slights to him) have become too much to deal with, the affair will be the least of her problems.

The firefighter and Marine veteran who was dragged out of a Wednesday Senate war powers resolution vote for yelling, “No one wants to fight for Israel” is now facing criminal charges.

Brian McGinnis, in full uniform, can be seen on video being grabbed by Republican Senator Tim Sheehy and three police officers. They lift him up in the doorway while he screams his protest, with his hand still in the doorway. Then a snap can be heard, as McGinnis’s arm breaks.

They eventually put McGinnis down.

“The senator broke his hand! A sitting U.S. senator just broke the hand of a Marine! Control your Senate!” a bystander can be heard yelling.

McGinnis later confirmed his arm was broken. Now, even with his injuries, he has been criminally charged with assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. The GoFundMe in his name has already raised $48,000. McGinnis is also apparently a Green Party candidate for Senate in North Carolina.

“Capitol Police were attempting to remove an unhinged protestor from the Armed Services hearing. He was fighting back. I decided to help out and deescalate the situation,” Sheehy later wrote on X. “This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one. I hope he gets the help he needs without causing further violence.” In no way did Sheehy de-escalate the situation when he ran over and grabbed onto McGinnis.

Many were quick to call out the symbolic irony of the event. The current war on Iran, which the U.S. even admitted was at the behest of Israel at least somewhat, is massively unpopular. A veteran making that statement in the halls of the Senate and being seriously injured for it only underscores the administration’s blind commitment to waging war.

“Republicans claim to care about our troops, but the moment a veteran speaks out against Israel they treat him worse than they treat actual criminals,” a large conservative X account wrote.

“This is very, very ugly. And no US Senator needs to inject himself into this situation, for the safety of everyone—including himself,” Independent Veterans for America founder Paul Rieckhoff wrote. “Just unnecessary and terrible to watch. This is what an America falling apart looks like.”

Even the contemptible alt-right commentator Nick Fuentes chimed in.

“This is just a picture of America right now. Which you have a U.S. Marine—these are the people actually prosecuting the war, actually fighting the war … and they’re being sent out now into yet another ridiculous regime change war in the Middle East for Israel. And that’s what the guy says, he says ‘look, we don’t wanna die for Israel,” Fuentes said. “And look at the way that he’s being treated. Literally dragged out of the chamber by the cops, a U.S. Senator jumps into action … they smash his hand in the door. That’s the picture of America. That marine is all of us.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remark Wednesday about U.S. troops dying in the Middle East was so callous it reportedly stunned everyone—including Pentagon officials.

During a press briefing, Hegseth claimed that the press was only reporting on the deaths of American soldiers in order to “make the president look bad.”

“But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” he said. “I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad—but try for once to report the reality.”

The Atlantic’s Nancy Youssef, who was present for the briefing, told her colleague that Hegseth’s comment “sent a stunned silence through the briefing room.”

She claimed that some members of Hegseth’s staff appeared to flinch at what he was saying, while others ducked their heads.

Youssef said that one person quietly but audibly remarked: “That was one of the most insulting things I have ever heard.”

Hegseth’s heartless remarks come as lawmakers warn that more U.S. soldiers are likely to die in Trump’s escalating military campaign in Iran. So far, six service members have died after a drone struck their makeshift operations center in Kuwait on Sunday.

Hegseth has repeatedly proven that he is a weak and frivolous advocate for Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran, which has already spiraled out into a regional conflict. The secretary has failed to provide answers for entering a conflict without congressional approval and refused to clearly state U.S. objectives or even gesture at a timeline. Clearly, he’s more interested in using dead soldiers as a lever to whine about the media, and openly bragging about not following the rules of engagement.

On Wednesday, the Senate refused to block President Donald Trump from using further military force on Iran, as a war powers resolution failed by a vote of 53–47.*

Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution. Senator Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote for the resolution. This was Congress’s first vote on the war.

The news came on the fifth day of a joint U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign on Iran. Prior to the vote, Trump ranted about Chinese windmills during a press conference and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. bombed Iran due to a “feeling” Trump had about an imminent attack.

* This story has been updated with a correct vote count.