Donald Trump Aides Admit to Creating 'Ghost Job' to Keep Kristi Noem Out of the Senate—Is She a Liability?

Donald Trump aides created a new diplomatic-sounding role for Kristi Noem in Washington in early March 2026 to keep her out of a Senate race in South Dakota, according to multiple administration sources cited by investigative outlet PunchUp.

The post, 'Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas', was unveiled at Trump's resort in Florida just weeks before a filing deadline that would have allowed Noem to challenge Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican already endorsed by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Allies Admit 'Ghost Job' Was Meant To Box Out Kristi Noem

According to PunchUp, the White House's solution was to invent something new for Kristi Noem to do. One administration source told the outlet the envoy title 'was made up to keep her busy', adding that senior figures had come to see her as such a political liability they needed to 'put her out to the glue factory'.

In their telling, the Shield of the Americas role kept Noem technically on the government payroll and out of domestic politics, while denying her any meaningful power.

The same sources said some Trump aides feared Noem still had enough support in South Dakota to pose a 'genuine threat' to Senator Rounds, 71, if she chose to run. CNN reported that officials in the West Wing had privately wondered for some time whether she might mount a Senate challenge.

Why Kristi 'Leaned' Into the Job

Instead of returning to South Dakota, Kristi Noem leaned into the new job. The same source reported that she 'felt she had no choice but to show her willingness to toe the president's line'. By the week of 20 March she was midway through a five‑nation tour of Latin America, photographed at government buildings in Ecuador's capital on 25 March, six days before the primary filing window closed.

Trump had signed a proclamation launching the Shield of the Americas programme on 7 March at his Trump National Doral Miami resort.

The event, described by sources as hastily assembled, brought together leaders from 12 nations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared alongside Trump and Kristi Noem, with the presidents of Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador and Bolivia also present.

Notably, the region's three biggest players — Mexico, Brazil and Colombia — did not attend, according to the same report.

A 'Symbolic' Role Kristi Noem Tried To Turn Into Something Real

The White House provided no public detail about the envoy role's chain of command, budget or staffing. Behind the scenes, PunchUp's sources say, officials began to panic as it became obvious Noem was treating the position as far more than window dressing.

'They didn't expect her to take it so seriously,' one administration source said. By 25 March, the US State Department had clarified that Noem would report not to Rubio, the Secretary of State, but to his deputy, Chris Landau.

One source told PunchUp that 'Landau has now nuked the whole thing', a characterisation the outlet said was backed up by one of Noem's close allies.

Noem did not arrive alone. An administration official told Politico she brought ten loyalists into the Shield of the Americas operation. Within weeks, three of them — former deputy chief of staff Troup Hemenway, Josh King and Octavian Miller — were placed on paid leave and then dismissed.

A source quoted by the New York Post linked those sackings to their ties with Corey Lewandowski, 52, Noem's chief aide and widely described in US media as her rumoured lover.

'They didn't want any people that would be tentacles for Lewandowski,' the source said. Photographs from the trip showed Lewandowski seated beside Kristi Noem as she met Guyana's president in her new capacity.

Behind the formal moves lay a harsher assessment. PunchUp reported that, in the words of one insider, 'there is no job' for the envoy's staff — and possibly not for Noem herself.

Last week, the Daily Mail quoted sources saying Kristi Noem's time as special envoy was likely to be short‑lived. 'This post was intended as a soft landing so it didn't look like Noem was immediately being fired,' one source said. 'But no one really thinks she should have this job. The State Department was not happy to have her here, and the understanding is that she's not going to be here for much longer.'

At the time of writing, none of the central claims about the creation and purpose of Kristi Noem's envoy role has been confirmed on the record by US officials.

Kristi Noem, 54, had just been abruptly removed as head of the Department of Homeland Security on 5 March, becoming the first Cabinet secretary fired in Trump's second term. Trump announced on Truth Social that Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin would take over the powerful department on 31 March.

That left a narrow, 26‑day window in which Noem, a former South Dakota governor with a strong base at home, could have gathered the 2,171 signatures needed to enter the state's Republican Senate primary by 5 p.m. on 31 March.