The telegenic 54-year-old was initially tapped for Trump’s second-term Cabinet of communicators. Some, like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, had substantial broadcast experience. Others, like Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, were skilled television debaters.

As the president returned to office after a four-year hiatus, Axios described a pipeline from Fox News to the Trump administration. The Columbia Journalism Review referred to it as “Trump’s TV Cabinet.” 

Trump always liked having members of his team effective at defending the administration on television. That was a major part of former counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway’s job during his first term. Trump himself was a reality TV star who had previously used the medium to advance his real estate business.

But Trump 2.0 assembled a Cabinet and White House staff capable of flooding the zone on cable news and the podcast circuit. It was clearly part of what he was looking for when choosing high-profile officials. 

The Department of Homeland Security under Noem also put together a talented staff ready to defend Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda on camera, including the deportations.

Critics worried that Trump was undervaluing managerial ability when deciding who to put in charge of large bureaucracies, but governing and politics have a large public messaging component. 

Noem’s starring role in ads promoting the Trump immigration crackdown nevertheless raised eyebrows.

“You cross the border illegally, we’ll find you. Break our laws, we’ll punish,” Noem warned. “You harm American citizens, there will be consequences.”

“But if you come here the right way, your American dream can be as big as these endless guys,” she added.

The tough talk from the horseback-riding, cowboy hat-wearing Cabinet secretary was intended at least in part to deter illegal immigration and encourage self-deportation.

The border crisis under former President Joe Biden began when his election was seen as a welcome mat, even before he started loosening immigration policies upon taking office. Similarly, Trump’s 2024 victory sent the opposite message even before he was sworn in again and began reinstating more restrictive policies.

“The president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from,” Noem testified on Wednesday, “with putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally, that they needed to leave, or we would detain them and remove them, and they’d not get the chance to come back to America the right way. That has been extremely effective.”

That answer landed Noem in hot water, as Trump denied being involved in the ad campaign. Her detractors had long viewed the ad blitz as self-promotional rather than advancing Trump’s agenda.

Noem’s messaging acumen didn’t help her when she testified before Congress on subjects ranging from the ads to her alleged romantic involvement with episodic Trump political adviser Corey Lewandowski. 

Nor were her communications skills sufficient to defend the Trump immigration agenda after two anti-ICE protesters were fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis.

The incidents sapped public support for what Trump was trying to accomplish on immigration control, according to polling.

An extended period of bureaucratic infighting inside DHS and the wider administration weakened Noem politically as she tried to weather multiple public relations nightmares.

TRUMP OUSTS KRISTI NOEM AS DHS SECRETARY AND TAPS MARKWAYNE MULLIN TO TAKE HER PLACE

Trump is unlikely to stop elevating appointees who look and sound good in the media. Noem’s planned replacement, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), is also widely seen as being effective on television.

But Noem wasn’t renewed for another season in Trump’s Television Cabinet. Instead, she was canceled.