Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

When Donald Trump began his second term in the White House, there were fifteen original heads of executive departments like State, Defense and Treasury. There were seven additional cabinet-rank officials. Of the fifteen, Trump has fired three.

Trump’s first term saw a revolving door of cabinet-level officials. A newcomer to the Washington bureaucracy, Trump took advice from Republican insiders and appointed several department heads who had some experience in government. They stupidly put their oath to uphold the law and Constitution ahead of their loyalty to Trump. The Donald was not going to make that mistake again.

The second time around Trump followed the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 gameplan closely. That’s the plan he swore he had never heard of during the election campaign. The plan mapped the transition of the American government into an authoritarian regime managed for the benefit of the moneyed elite, the billionaire class. The plan dictated that Trump install loyalists in these positions. That he did, putting into positions of power a motely group of the least qualified people ever entrusted to run the government of the United States.

Trump did not fire the three cabinet officers because of their incompetence. He fired them because they made him look bad.

Noem No More

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, was the first Trump cabinet secretary to walk the plank. Noem previously served at the governor of South Dakota and a member of the House of Representatives. She did have some experience in cybersecurity and state disaster management, but nothing at the national level.

The Republican controlled Congress showered Noem with money designed to turn the agency onto a super federal police force dedicated primarily to the mass deportation of immigrants. The scale was extraordinary. The reconciliation funding alone was nearly nine times DHS’s FY2024 budget. The list of Noem’s abuses of authority is long and cases suing her and the department are pending in scores of lawsuits from Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis, all cities which her hastily hired and poorly training agents invaded and attacked people indiscriminately. In Minneapolis, two American citizens were killed by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol, both agencies reporting to Noem.

Noem also had a taste for luxury travel. In 2025, the Coast Guard (under DHS) signed a $172 million contract for two long-range Gulfstream G700 jets, marketed as having the “most spacious cabin in the industry.” DHS said the purchase was for safety reasons, noting the existing jet Noem used was over 20 years old and beyond operational limits. The jets were intended for official travel by Noem, the deputy secretary, Coast Guard commandant, and other top DHS officials.

Noem had intended to purchase a Boeing 737 Max 8 for personal and official travel. The plane was originally leased by her and her aide/Corey Lewandowski for domestic trips, including high-profile deportation missions, and also for Cabinet-level travel. It was equipped with a queen-size bed, showers, a kitchen, four flat-screen TVs, and a cocktail bar. ICE had initially bought it before Noem’s ouster, but after she was fired the White House took control of the purchase. The administration decided to keep the jet and make it available to Melania Trump and other cabinet secretaries.

Many of these excesses would be caught by the department’s Inspector General. But Trump learned his lesson about the IGs during his first term. In January 2025, Trump terminated at least 17 IGs at once via email, citing “changing priorities”. These officials, meant to be independent watchdogs over federal agencies, were widely described as part of a “purge,” with many removals occurring without the required 30-day notice to Congress. 

None of that had much to do with Trump’s decision to fire Noem. Trump fired Noem, a staunch loyalist, for violating the only rule the Trump administration cares about. The rule that says you don’t show up the boss.

In the end, it wasn’t the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis that cost Noem her job. Nor was it her immediate reaction to prematurely paint both the mom-of-three and the veterans’ nurse as wannabe terrorists and aspiring cop killers. It wasn’t the sexual relationship she allegedly had with Lewandowski (both are married and have denied the relationship), the exorbitant spending on executive jets, or the public messaging from her agency which was riddled with White nationalist dog whistles and error-prone descriptions of immigrants.

Before cameras and a packed audience at a Congressional hearing called to ask Noem how she was spending the money they had appropriated, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana asked a series of questions about the $220 million ad campaign Noem has executed, mostly for television ads featuring herself, and how that squared with Noem’s stated promise to root out waste from her agency. Kennedy had to ask more than once whether Trump approved that spending spree before Noem provided a direct answer: “Mmhmm, yes.”

That response, it turned out, was the embattled Cabinet secretary’s final straw. Kennedy got a call from Trump later that evening. The president, Kennedy told CNN, “Was pissed. Her version and the president’s version of whether the president, A) was informed and B) consented are decidedly different,” Kennedy said. (Trump told NBC News that he hadn’t known about the advertising campaign. “I wasn’t thrilled with it,” he said.)

Bye Bye, Bondi

Attorney General Pam Bondi was the next to bite the dust. Bondi, who had been one of Trump’s personal lawyers and the Attorney General of Florida, turned the Department of Justice into the primary instrument of Trump’s revenge on political opponents. She fired career attorneys who had worked on investigations into Trump during the Biden administration. And she allowed FBI Director Kash Patel to fire FBI agents who had worked on those investigations. These people are nonpartisans who are assigned by the top political officers. They are not in a position to pick and choose their cases. She also turned traditionally nonpartisan employees, including assistant U.S. Attorneys, Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and the Office of the Pardon Attorney into political hacks.

But that is not why Trump fired her. Pam Bondi was fired by President Trump due to dissatisfaction with her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and perceived underperformance in pursuing investigations against his political adversaries. In other words, she didn’t cover-up enough, and her efforts to deliver of his promise of retribution against his perceived enemies fell short. Trump cannot understand why some lawyers and many judges take seriously their oath to uphold the law and the Constitution. Bondi was a true believer and completely loyal to her liege lord. But she couldn’t bend everyone in the judicial system to her will.

Lori Leaves

Trump’s labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, appears to have left after a misconduct investigation, not simply for routine political reasons. Reports say the probe involved allegations of misconduct and possible abuse of power, including claims that led to senior staff being placed on leave or resigning.

One account says she had been under a watchdog probe, senior staff were placed on leave or quit, and her schedule was increasingly disrupted because the controversy had made her politically toxic. There were also related allegations involving her husband, which added to the turmoil around the department.

Chavez-DeRemer’s resignation was not announced by President Trump, unlike the other recent Cabinet firings, but by White House communications director Steven Cheung on social media. The moral here is don’t create a scandal that takes the focus off the president or he won’t know you. The White House framed her exit as a move to a private-sector role.

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