Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for March 5, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
The Latest
Kristi Noem is out at DHS. Donald Trump announced on Truth Social, in classic fashion, that he was nominating Sen. Markwayne Mullin to run the Department of Homeland Security. Noem now gets to be special envoy for the ‘Shield of the Americas,’ definitely not a job the president just made up.
No one on the Hill had been thrilled with Noem’s tenure at DHS. The frustrations run the gamut: from how she’s handled mass deportations, to her reaction to immigration agents killing two citizens in Minneapolis, to exorbitant agency spending on advertising, to her slow-walking critical FEMA funds. But her performance at congressional hearings over the last two days seemed to have sealed the deal for Trump, who until now has been resistant to shaking up his Cabinet.