Former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says she resigned from her post earlier this year because “it became clear that saying no” to policies she disagreed with “was not going to be enough,” The Hill reports.
Nielsen Allies Trying to Rehab Her Image
“Kirstjen Nielsen’s image makeover has already begun—but it may be a hard sell,” Politico reports.
“Just days after she announced plans to resign as Homeland Security secretary, Nielsen and her allies are working to rehabilitate her reputation, arguing that she’s not the heartless villain depicted by liberal critics already pressuring big companies not to hire her.”
“Almost as soon as word of her resignation under pressure leaked, Nielsen’s allies began spinning a narrative of her tenure that casts her not as an enabler of President Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, but as a guardrail against even more extreme action.”
Kirstjen Nielsen Sacked By Tweet
“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen brought her resignation letter with her when she met President Trump in the White House residence yesterday afternoon,” top sources tell Axios.
“She wasn’t intent on quitting but was prepared to, sources tell us. The meeting went poorly, and Trump didn’t even let her announce her ‘resignation.’ While she was racing to put out the letter (not that different from one she wrote after midterms), Trump tweeted that she ‘will be leaving her position.'”
Said one DHS source: “She was undercut at every turn. She’s done everything she can do. The White House is eating their own.”
Washington Post: Nielsen’s ouster signals even tougher Trump border rhetoric.
Kirstjen Nielsen Survives Trump’s Wrath
Politico: “Early in her tenure, Trump would regularly dial her cellphone in anger when DHS published monthly border apprehension numbers showing an uptick, often asking her why the government couldn’t detain undocumented minors indefinitely. Because that, Nielsen would calmly explain, would be illegal.”
“But in the four months since her dismissal seemed inevitable, Nielsen has engineered a remarkable comeback.”
Nielsen Calls Out Putin for ‘Attack’ on U.S. Elections
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen called out Russian President Vladimir Putin by name for interfering in the 2016 US election, calling it a “direct attack” on U.S. democracy, CNN reports.
Said Nielsen: “At Vladimir Putin’s direction, Moscow launched a brazen, multi-faceted influence campaign to undermine public faith in our democratic process and to distort our presidential election. Although no actual ballots were altered by this campaign, make no mistake: This was a direct attack on our democracy.”
Advisers Bad Mouth Nielsen as a ‘Never Trumper’
“President Trump’s frustration with Kirstjen Nielsen, which boiled over Wednesday in a Cabinet meeting tirade, has been growing for weeks — stoked by associates who have privately made the case that she’s a closeted ‘never Trumper’ who still doesn’t fully back his agenda,” Politico reports.
“As a result, Trump has come to believe that Nielsen — who considered quitting this week after the president berated her over an uptick in migrant arrests — is not focused enough on carrying out his immigration agenda, one of the people said. The president has told friends that he believes chief of staff John Kelly, with whom he has a strained relationship, foisted his deputy Nielsen upon him, according to two of the people, complaining that he didn’t know what he was getting.”
Trump to Nominate Kelly’s Deputy for Homeland Security
President Trump is expected to nominate Kirstjen Nielsen to run the Department of Homeland Security, Politico reports.
“Nielsen served as White House chief of staff John Kelly’s top aide during his time as DHS secretary and moved with him to the West Wing as his principal deputy chief of staff when he was appointed in July, leaving the Cabinet post vacant.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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