Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not appear able to contain her disappointment as President Donald Trump skipped over her in the first cabinet meeting of the year.
Noem alternated between a grim expression and side-eyeing Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, after Trump skipped Noem and went straight to Loeffler in the cabinet meeting on Thursday.
Footage from the meeting shows Noem silently nodding along as Loffler spoke and repeatedly shooting daggers at her.
Noem shot daggers at Loeffler after Trump skipped her. C-SPAN
The president did not call on Noem during the cabinet meeting or even acknowledge her presence in the televised 80-minute portion.
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., HUD Secretary Scott Turner, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were all called on to speak. Noem was not.
A cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 29, 2026. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins each received some form of acknowledgement. Noem did not.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House and DHS for comment.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watches fellow Cabinet members speak during their meeting at the White House on January 29, 2026, but she was not called on to give an update on immigration amid the fallout over ICE killing Alex Pretti. Win McNamee/Getty Images
The subject of Noem’s apparent scorn in the meeting, Loeffler, was busy heaping praise on the president as the DHS secretary glared.
“The 18 trillion you brought is creating an economic boom,” Loeffler said in the meeting.
“Under your leadership, you have ended at least eight wars. Probably the most important and underreported war that you ended was Joe Biden and the Democrats’ war on main street and hard-working families,” Loeffler continued.
Noem looked grim-faced as she was ignored in the meeting. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Noem has been under fire after federal agents under her watch have shot and killed two U.S. citizens just this month in Minneapolis: 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti and 37-year-old Minnesota mother Renee Nicole Good.
There’s been bipartisan scorn for DHS’s immediate response to Pretti’s killing, including referring to Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” who intended to “massacre” law enforcement officials, despite there being no evidence to support those claims.
A photograph of a pistol recovered by immigration agents after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is shown on a screen behind Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem during a news conference at FEMA headquarters on January 24, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Al Drago/Getty Images
The White House has distanced itself from DHS’s assertions about Pretti.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to say if the Trump White House believed Pretti was an “assassin” as Stephen Miller referred to him or “domestic terrorist” as DHS has claimed.
Leavitt side-stepped the question and instead said the “incident remains under investigation, and nobody here at the White House, including the president of the United States, wants to see Americans hurt or killed and losing their lives in American streets.”
Good and Pretti’s killings have sparked widespread protests across the Twin Cities. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The Trump administration is shaking things up in Minneapolis following the second fatal shooting at the hands of federal law enforcement.
Trump announced he would send border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota and remove Border Patrol Commander at-large Greg Bovino from immigration operations in the Twin Cities.
Trump’s homeland security advisor, Stephen Miller, who is viewed as the brains behind the Trump administration’s immigration policies, was also shut out of a private meeting at the White House on Monday regarding the fallout from Pretti’s killing.
Border czar Tom Homan speaks during a news conference about ongoing immigration enforcement operations on January 29, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. President Trump announced Homan would takeover the lead of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota after federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen during Operation Metro Surge. Scott Olson/Scott Olson/Getty Images
Dozens of Democrats and a handful of Republicans, including Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski, have additionally called for Noem to resign in the wake of Pretti’s killing.
