After spending $220m of taxpayer money on an advertising campaign in which she demanded migrants self-deport, Kristi Noem is now being forced to make a hasty exit of her own. On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that his luxury-jet-loving homeland security secretary was being shipped off to become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a new “security” summit that Trump has dreamed up. Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed-martial artist and Republican senator, will replace her.

Noem’s ouster was a long time coming. But it’s worth stressing that she doesn’t seem to have lost her job because of the many controversies that have plagued her tenure, including the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents. Rather, she committed the cardinal sin of making Trump look stupid. Which, to be fair, isn’t hard.

The Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told Bloomberg that Trump was “not a happy cowboy”, after Noem said in a Senate committee that the president had approved the extremely expensive ad campaign. “I remember thinking that the secretary’s pretty much as dead as fried chicken.”

Back in Trump 1.0, Noem’s firing would have been just another Thursday. The first Trump administration was a revolving door of advisers and cabinet secretaries. Trump 2.0 has been noticeably more stable in that regard: Noem’s departure marks the first time this term that Trump has replaced a cabinet member. But more exits may soon be under way. There is currently a target on attorney general Pam Bondi’s back, with top Democrats urging Trump to fire her next. On Wednesday, five Republicans on the House oversight committee joined with Democrats to subpoena Bondi as part of its investigation into the government’s handling of the Epstein files. Then on Thursday, representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, filed articles of........

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