After weeks of public scrutiny, personal scandal, and bad press over her handling of the Department of Homeland Security, President Donald Trump has fired Secretary Kristi Noem, tapping Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin as her potential replacement.
Noem is the first member of Trump’s second-term Cabinet to be removed from their position. In a statement posted to Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that he was “pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026.”
“The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida,” the president wrote. “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”
The dismissal comes days after Noem was berated by lawmakers on Capitol Hill over a series of disastrous blunders by her department, including the killings of two American citizens by border patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and apparent attempts by DHS to stifle investigations into the shootings. Noem has also been under fire for extravagant spending at the department, while placing restrictions on FEMA disaster relief funds.
Reuters reported that Trump was upset over Noem’s comments during hearings before the House and Senate Oversight Committees regarding multi-million dollar contracts granted to the husband of her former deputy press secretary. Noem defended the $220 million dollars in spending on ads, which prominently featured her, as well as the potentially unethical distribution of the contracts, affirming to lawmakers that Trump had approved the spending.
“I never knew anything about it,” Trump later told Reuters.
Mullin, whom Trump tapped as Noem’s replacement, has been a Republican senator from Oklahoma since 2023. He is a loyal Trump supporter, and is often on TV defending the president’s agenda — most recently the war against Iran. Mullin tried to justify the war to reporters earlier this week in part by insisting it is not an actual war. When he was told that Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and even Mullin himself had described the offensive as a “war,” Mullin claimed “that was a misspoke.”
The first day of the 2026 Republican National Convention at the American Airlines Center, on Sept. 9, 2026 in Dallas, Texas.
People of all colors listen as Donald Trump speaks on the first day of the Republican midterm convention.
Trump supporters at the Republican midterm convention.
Vladimir Putin addressing the audience during the Valdai Discussion Club meeting on Oct. 1
As Trump Dithers, Ukraine War Is Approaching a ‘Fatal Point of No Return’
The war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly dangerous, with the risk of escalation spilling further into Europe. As Russia and European governments trade explicit warnings that the conflict is spreading, the United States is pursuing diplomacy aimed less at stopping the carnage than restoring ties with Moscow.
With the Russian military making little progress on the ground in eastern Ukraine despite nearly five years of war and more than a million casualties, the Kremlin is intensifying aerial attacks. Ukraine, which has been the target of Russian missiles and drones since the war began in February 2022, is now experiencing a sharp uptick in attacks on infrastructure and populated areas that threaten to plunge parts of the country into cold and darkness over the winter.
The aerial blitzkrieg is intended to destroy Ukraine’s morale, infrastructure, and economy, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently told the Financial Times, citing intelligence intercepted by his country’s security services.
Zelenskyy told the paper that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in discussions with top Kremlin officials, had removed constraints on the bombardment campaign: “He said there are no rules now.”
U.S. disengagement from the conflict during Trump’s second term, coupled with the American president’s animosity toward Zelenskyy and Ukraine more generally, has only emboldened Putin. After promising he would stop the war “within 24 hours” after reelection, Trump’s tepid support for Ukraine and its European allies has increasingly convinced the Kremlin it has a chance to permanently rupture the NATO alliance.
At the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday — an annual high-profile international summit in St. Petersburg — Putin said that continued European support for Ukraine was pushing the conflict toward a “fatal point of no return.”
The Kremlin has long described the war as an extension of a confrontation with the collective West. With more than 1.5 million active service members in the Russian military, about 44 percent of Moscow’s budget for 2027 is dedicated to defense and security spending. Around 700,000 Russian soldiers are serving on the front lines in Ukraine, where casualties remain staggeringly high.
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Meanwhile, Moscow is conducting a campaign of so-called “hybrid warfare” — with officials in multiple countries alleging that a series of drone attacks, arsons, and sabotage originated with Russian intelligence services. The Kremlin also continues to carry out targeted killings on European soil — and has even attempted to assassinate political dissidents in the United States, according to the FBI.
Russia’s belligerent activity has set alarm bells ringing across Europe.
Speaking at a NATO event on Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the continent must brace for “severe hybrid attacks,” as Russia targets production facilities and logistics hubs by which Ukraine’s allies supply the beleaguered country with arms. Europe must be prepared to “respond quickly and very clearly” to Russian provocations, Merz said.
For its part, Moscow asserts that NATO is provoking conflict, citing recent unannounced military exercises near Kaliningrad — a Russian exclave on the Baltic coast. In a communiqué to NATO this week, Russian officials warned that action against Kaliningrad would initiate a serious response, “including nuclear weapons” in order to defend its territory, and “Russian strikes against decision-making centers in the alliance’s member states.”
“This is a war that Europe is waging against us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at the Valdai forum. When asked about hybrid attacks outside Ukraine that European leaders have attributed to Russia, he said his country was only targeting support for what it dubs the “Nazi regime” in Kyiv.
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As the sabers rattle louder, American engagement with Moscow and Kyiv comes in fits and starts, with no apparent overarching strategy.
Critics of the White House’s approach point to a recent trip by Trump’s friend and special envoy to the Middle East, real estate attorney Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to Moscow and Kyiv. Their tour yielded headlines, but little progress toward negotiations between the warring parties — let alone toward ending the conflict.
“I hope they had a great discussion about opening a hotel or something,” one European official told Rolling Stone. “Because it was useless otherwise.”
Diplomacy via haphazard tête-à-têtes with the president’s personal envoys is almost certainly viewed as a sign of weakness by Putin, who is well aware that Trump hopes to claim normalized ties between the United States and Russia as a crowning foreign policy achievement.
The White House is considering a range of unprecedented diplomatic deals that would help keep Russia’s economy functioning while doing little to benefit Ukraine.
These proposals reportedly include an easing of economic sanctions if Putin agrees to release some political prisoners, and a potential multibillion-dollar oil deal ostensibly aimed at stabilizing energy markets and reducing gas prices.
With gas prices rising amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and midterm elections around the corner, Trump has made energy central to his Russia policy. Washington has called for an “energy ceasefire” — while Trump has blamed Kyiv for rising diesel prices in the United States.
While high oil prices are the result of a concatenation of crises, Ukraine has been targeting Russian oil refineries, producing fuel shortages and long queues for gasoline — in one of the world’s largest oil producers — over the summer.
Ukraine is also developing its own domestically produced tactical ballistic missiles. Ukrainian officials said Friday that one type of missile, the FP-7, had been successfully used in combat for the first time. But whether Kyiv can produce enough of them to create a meaningful deterrent is unclear.
As winter nears, the outlook for Ukraine is bleak. A recent attack on Kyiv consisted of nearly a dozen ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones in a single night. That many munitions slip through highlights the dire situation faced by Ukrainian defenders, who are running out of advanced missile interceptors. They also struggle to shoot down drones that are becoming increasingly numerous, sophisticated, and effective as the war drags on.
In recent months, Russia has adopted widespread use of an advanced drone, the Geran-5 — a jet-powered drone that bears an uncanny resemblance to the V-1 “buzz bombs” used by the Nazis to bombard London toward the end of World War II.
As with the German V-1 campaign against London 80 years ago, the targets are often indiscriminate. Even before the ramping-up of attacks this fall, 2026 was on track to be the deadliest year for Ukrainian civilians since the early months of the full-scale war in 2022.
The proliferation of Russian attack drones and ballistic missiles means that cities like Kyiv now spend much of each day under air alert. Even aside from the human toll and physical damage that the weapons inflict, officials estimate that the disruptions to daily life are costing the country as much as $45 million per hour in lost economic activity.
Since Friday, a series of drone attacks has targeted two of Kyiv’s major bridges spanning the Dnieper River. The damage has disrupted traffic between the capital’s “Right Bank” — with its historic core and city center — and its “Left Bank,” with its sprawling Soviet-era industrial and residential developments.
Ukraine is already experiencing a severe financial squeeze. Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi says the country is facing a $27 billion “funding gap” before the end of the year.
Ukrainian lawmakers warn the government could even run out of funds to pay soldiers. One serving member of the Ukrainian military, who spoke to Rolling Stone on background, said by the end of the summer, members of his unit had already begun experiencing “delays” in receiving their pay.
The Ministry of Defense disputes that soldier’s salaries could go unpaid, but acknowledges that “technical issues” had caused some delays.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy is under pressure from corruption scandals and resignations involving members of his inner circle. Polls show him potentially losing hypothetical match-ups against rivals, including former Ukrainian Armed Forces commander Valerii Zaluzhny. The country’s “long-admired cohesion” has begun to crack — an outcome that aligns with Russia’s strategic objectives.
But after nearly five years of war, both combatants are showing signs of political and economic strain.
Russia’s regular military conscription process — 120,000 new recruits are expected over the next three months — barely offsets the grievous casualties its military is experiencing at the Ukrainian front, with high estimates exceeding 1,000 casualties per day.
Some analysts believe the Kremlin is considering a massive mobilization in the wake of parliamentary elections. But Putin so far has merely called for an increase in the total number of active-duty military members by a little more than 15,000. Russia’s president remains wary of generating a meaningful anti-war movement inside Russia, while also facing pressure from hard-line nationalists expecting him to deliver victory.
Across Europe, governments are no longer treating a direct confrontation with Russia as a remote possibility. They are preparing for worst-case scenarios, particularly in the Baltic states and other countries that experienced Russian rule under the Soviets. Meanwhile, NATO insists that all members — including the United States — have an “ironclad commitment” to collective defense.
In 1914, at the outset of the First World War, few leaders understood how faulty strategic assumptions, entangling alliances, and lethal technologies were pushing the continent toward cataclysm.
But some did. On the eve of war, U.K. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey famously wrote that “The lamps are going out all over Europe.”
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Across Ukraine, darkness will again become a feature of daily wartime life amid rolling blackouts as a hard winter looms. And the shadows are lengthening, far beyond its borders.
But in America, the White House dithers as the president has his attention elsewhere. Perhaps Trump’s new ballroom, at least, should be well lit.