DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, infamous for shooting her “untrainable” 14-month-old pup Cricket (among other terrible allegations), is now out of work.
Donald Trump gave Noem the ax today. As I wrote back in 2024, Trump loves to use “like a dog” as an analogy, in some very strange ways. Some examples: “cheat like a dog,” “lie like a dog,” “choke like a dog,” etc. etc. Another of his favorites:
This never made any sense at all—until today. That’s right, Trump fired Kristi Noem…
LIKE A DOG!
Her firing wasn’t surprising, since Republicans as well as Democrats were calling for her resignation or impeachment. During a public hearing on Tuesday, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis compared her killing of Cricket to ICE’s killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Referring to the passage in Noem’s memoir where she reminisces about killing Cricket, Tillis told her that he trained dogs. “You should know that if you’re going out to a hunting lodge and you’re putting pheasants out and you’re putting dogs out, you don’t take a puppy out there. A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years,” he said.
“You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time in training. And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices? But my point is, those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment—not unlike what happened in Minneapolis. We’re an exceptional nation, and one of the reasons we’re exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership, and you’ve demonstrated anything but that.”
During that hearing, Rep. Jaared Moskowitz (D-FL) wore a “Justice for Cricket” pin. It’s not yet known what fate awaits Noem and whether justice will truly be served.
But in the meantime, I bet that somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge, Cricket’s tail is wagging today.