00:00Kevin, who is currently in charge of DHS?
00:03Well, Kristi Nob is still in charge, nominally, at the very least.
00:09Trump said that she was going to leave at the end of the month,
00:12but, you know, and I guess that was, we sort of saw that play out
00:16because Trump announced the change, and then she went on stage
00:19at an event in Nashville and spoke as if she hadn't just been fired from the job.
00:26But this obviously was sort of weeks, if not months, in coming.
00:30There had been growing frustration with her sort of performance in that role.
00:36She'd been sidelined, really, in some ways,
00:38from some of the immigration enforcement decision-making already.
00:42But, you know, it was interesting to sort of watch.
00:44It could have been a lot of different things that pushed her over the edge
00:48as far as Trump was concerned.
00:49It could have been the performance of immigration enforcement in Minnesota,
00:53where we obviously saw some fatalities.
00:57It could have been a number of other moments,
01:01whether it was her personal life and allegations of a potential affair with an aide.
01:06But it actually seems that it was actually advertising spending
01:09that she contradicted the president by saying he'd approved the spending for.
01:15That was really about her image.
01:17And that seemed to be the moment that actually did her in.
01:20Kevin, I'm curious about where we go from here directionally.
01:23And you bring up that ad campaign, and Bloomberg has done such fine work
01:25just on how all of that came together, the enormous spending.
01:29Again, what you're talking about there,
01:30the kind of how she and the president were on different pages about that
01:33and how that came out in that hearing.
01:35When you think about what happens in terms of departmental trajectory
01:39as Kristi Noem steps aside and presumably Mark Wayne Mullen comes in,
01:43what changes as a result of that?
01:45How do you see this department kind of changing tack in the next few weeks?
01:49Well, you know, I'm guessing what you're probably going to see is,
01:52obviously, first of all, the senator would have to be confirmed in the role.
01:56So we'll have to see just how quickly that actually happens.
01:58But, you know, given the Senate would confirm him,
02:02and they're normally reasonably deferential to their own
02:04when they get picked for these roles.
02:06So that may be a reasonably smooth process.
02:09But once he's in that role, you know, we'll have to see.
02:12He may well take a lower-profile approach than Kristi Noem at first,
02:16in part just to begin to establish a bit of a difference from her
02:22and to try to avoid some of the pitfalls that she fell into.
02:25But, you know, it was interesting.
02:27You know, the senator did speak with the media really quite freely
02:32and openly right after he was named.
02:36So he was pretty accessible right away,
02:38which is actually a little unusual for when nominees get named.
02:42But it was instructive.
02:43He apparently learned about 30 seconds before the rest of the world did
02:47that he was going to be the next secretary of the mid-security.
02:50It was a wild moment.
02:51He said he was super excited.
02:52I think that's a quote about the opportunity.
02:54And it was astonishing to see that kind of, like,
02:57grab him in the hallway of the Capitol moment, Christina,
02:59in which he acknowledged the fact that he hadn't talked to Kristi Noem,
03:02hadn't talked, I don't think, to his family about it beforehand,
03:04really felt palpably fresh for Senator Mark Wayne Mullen in that moment.
03:08This is something that was much more common for those of us
03:10who covered the first administration,
03:11going up to officials with your phone in the hallway
03:13and saying either you have a job, you don't have a job,
03:15would you like to comment?
03:16And they're saying, can I see your phone?
03:17Literally, like, can I see your phone?
03:20But I also want to ask you, I mean,
03:21we've focused so much this week on what's happening overseas,
03:25but President Trump did say to Time magazine
03:27that he guesses Americans should expect retaliatory attacks at home.
03:32That's not exactly comforting.
03:33And this comes at a time when, as we just discussed,
03:36there is transition going on at DHS.
03:38What kind of state is that organization, that agency in?
03:42Is it able to respond to these possible attacks,
03:48possible just terrorism threats,
03:50when it is so focused on other things, including immigration?
03:53Look, I think that's been a concern for DHS,
03:56also for the Justice Department and the FBI.
03:58I mean, there's been so many resources thrown
04:00at the immigration area that it has been taking agents
04:05and expertise and time and energy away
04:07from many, many other different areas.
04:09And then don't forget, DHS is still in a shutdown state,
04:12so we're still in a standoff over the spending bills,
04:16and everyone there is operating without paychecks.
04:19And so as we, you know, they've missed a paycheck,
04:22they're going to miss the next one at this point.
04:24We haven't seen any movement.
04:25It's not like Noam's departure is really changing
04:28the contours of that debate.
04:30Neither side has really moved at all,
04:33and neither side is really feeling that much pressure to move.
04:36Even as you say, there was this remark from Trump
04:40that seemed almost offhand about the possibility of,
04:42you know, yeah, there may be something by way of an attack.
04:45I think that should be a very serious concern.
04:48But realistically, you know,
04:49it obviously may still take some time for a run
04:52and its proxies to figure out ways
04:54to project that kind of attack.
04:57Here we go.
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