Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday night, reportedly at the request of President Donald Trump. The two had long clashed on immigration, with tensions coming to a head over the president’s latest demands, which included shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border entirely.
While Trump’s disregard for Nielsen has been reported on, one of Nielsen’s harshest critics may have had a hand in her demise: Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business host who has the president’s ear. As Mediaite has previously reported, Trump is in constant communication with Dobbs, one of his favorite Fox hosts.
Dobbs, meanwhile, is fond of tearing into those he considers disloyal to Trump’s agenda — he frequently calls for their firings — and his show is also curiously fixated on immigration.
On his March 28 show, Dobbs lambasted the DHS secretary: “Kirstjen Nielsen is flailing and her department appears utterly paralyzed under ineffectual leadership.”
“The president needs to fire her!” Dobbs exclaimed. “Because she is nothing but a roadblock on creativity, innovation, adaptiveness, and responding to the situation we have instead of the one that she apparently wants to dream about, I don’t know! She is absolutely overwhelmed.”
The next week, Dobbs revealed he had a “very straightforward and pleasant talk” with Nielsen. He offered a gentler assessment of Nielsen’s job performance:
I have to say she sounded to me as though she were impeded by the system that she is working in rather than overcoming it. And I can’t honestly judge how much is her fault and how much is not, but I do know this––that that government is not moving with urgency at all.
Dobbs went on to offer a grave warning to Trump:
This president in every respect, and foreign policy and domestic policy, you name it, this president made promises and 2016 and he delivers. Promises made, promises kept. Except when it comes to illegal immigration and when it comes to border security. And that is a horrible worsening vulnerability for this president, a glaring electoral burden facing 2020. I think that’s the reality of the politics and the reality is that this nation is in jeopardy every day that that border remains open and I don’t give a damn what the Chamber of Commerce says.
Four days later, Trump requested Nielsen’s resignation.
But fear not, Dobbs has a preferred candidate to replace Nielsen: Kris Kobach. The former Kansas secretary of state appeared for an interview with Dobbs last week in which he bashed Nielsen and proposed three ways to provide an “easy” solution to the border crisis, which included putting asylum seekers in “camps.” Dobbs was enamored.
When Kobach wrote on Twitter he would be appearing on Fox Business this Monday morning to talk immigration, his announcement was retweeted by Dobbs:
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