Kristi Noem is out. Could Pam Bondi follow?

After spending $220m of taxpayer money on an advertising campaign in which she demanded migrants self-deport, Kristi Noem is now being forced to make a hasty exit of her own. On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that his luxury-jet-loving homeland security secretary was being shipped off to become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a new “security” summit that Trump has dreamed up. Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed-martial artist and Republican senator, will replace her.

Noem’s ouster was a long time coming. But it’s worth stressing that she doesn’t seem to have lost her job because of the many controversies that have plagued her tenure, including the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents. Rather, she committed the cardinal sin of making Trump look stupid. Which, to be fair, isn’t hard.

The Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told Bloomberg that Trump was “not a happy cowboy”, after Noem said in a Senate committee that the president had approved the extremely expensive ad campaign. “I remember thinking that the secretary’s pretty much as dead as fried chicken.”

Back in Trump 1.0, Noem’s firing would have been just another Thursday. The first Trump administration was a revolving door of advisers and cabinet secretaries. Trump 2.0 has been noticeably more stable in that regard: Noem’s departure marks the first time this term that Trump has replaced a cabinet member. But more exits may soon be under way. There is currently a target on attorney general Pam Bondi’s back, with top Democrats urging Trump to fire her next. On Wednesday, five Republicans on the House oversight committee joined with Democrats to subpoena Bondi as part of its investigation into the government’s handling of the Epstein files. Then on Thursday, representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, filed articles of impeachment against Bondi.

Don’t get too excited: it’s highly unlikely that Thanedar’s impeachment efforts will go anywhere. It’s also unlikely that the subpoena will result in Bondi saying much of value when it comes to Epstein. A true Trumper, she is an endless fount of deflection and nonsense. Last year, for example, she claimed that Trump’s drug busts had saved 258 million lives – around 75% of the population of the US. You don’t have to be great at numbers to know that the math there really isn’t mathing.

Then there was her bizarre response last month to questions from House Democrats about her handling of the Epstein files. “The Dow is over 50,000 right now,” Bondi said in sworn testimony before the House judiciary committee after being chastised for doing nothing to go after Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. “That’s what we should be talking about.” With the war on Iran wreaking havoc on the stock market, I’m not sure Bondi still wants to be talking about that. Perhaps, instead, she can answer a few questions about Epstein’s client list. You know, the one she told Fox News “was sitting on [her] desk right now” when asked about it in February 2025. The ones the Department of Justice, just a few months later, claimed didn’t actually exist.

Still, while the Bondi subpoena is unlikely to result in justice for Epstein’s victims anytime soon, it is nevertheless a welcome development. Unlike her televised testimony before the House judiciary committee in February, this will be a closed-door hearing where she will be under oath and subject to perjury laws. This means she may be forced to answer questions more directly instead of just talking about the stock market. More broadly, the subpoena keeps the heat on Bondi, and it ensures the Epstein files don’t leave the news, no matter how many countries the Trump administration decides to bomb.

And this pressure may be producing (slow) results. Two days after the House oversight committee voted to subpoena Bondi, the justice department released a tranche of new Epstein-related documents. These documents, which the justice department said were initially withheld because of an administrative mistake, include FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who alleged she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and Trump in the 1980s, when she was between the ages of 13 and 15. These accusations have not been verified and the Guardian reported last week that some of the claims appear to contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, there are a lot of questions currently being asked as to what other documents the justice department may have “accidentally” not released. No doubt Bondi will soon be able to give us all some non-answers.

US investigators believe strike on Iranian girls’ school carried out by US forces

Iranian authorities have said at least 168 people, mostly children, were killed in the recent strike on the elementary school in Minab. US military officials believe the US was likely responsible and an investigation is supposedly under way. I think we all know nobody is going to be held accountable for this. Instead, I’m sure we will be told that you’ve got to kill some little girls in order to liberate the women of Iran.

Feminist activist Yanar Mohammed assassinated in Baghdad

Amnesty International has said that Mohammed’s assassination “fits a chilling pattern of targeted killings and attempted killings of activists … documented during and in the aftermath of the Tishreen protests since 2019”.

The male scientists who realized Epstein was a creep and said ‘no’ to him

Numerous prominent men have insisted that they had absolutely no idea that the late financier and pedophile was suspect when he approached them offering rides on his jet and trips to his island. This profile of three scientists who quickly realized that Epstein was not someone to associate with (one came to this conclusion after a quick chat with his mother) shows just how ridiculous those excuses are.

Gen Z males twice as likely as baby boomers to believe wives should obey husband

The kids are not alright.

Sara Yasin, former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, launches a new publication about Palestine

The Key will be “a home for journalists who have had their stories spiked in mainstream outlets.” Yasin’s opening essay is a must-read.

Progress on El Salvador’s draconian anti-abortion law is unravelling

El Salvador has some of the most restrictive reproductive laws in the world. In recent years, there have been some signs of progress but now, under a state of emergency imposed by president Nayib Bukele, the country is “experiencing a new spiral of criminalisation against women”.

Rumours of Queen Latifah’s death have been much exaggerated

The actor and rapper has debunked viral claims about her death.

The week in pawtriarchy

The Hamnet actor Jessie Buckley, who is tipped to win an Oscar, has just found herself in the middle of some cat-asrophic PR. A clip of Buckley and her Hamnet co-star discussing how much they dislike cats resurfaced this week. Buckley said that she made her now husband get rid of his cats when they started dating, and the internet was not amewsed. The actor has since walked back the comments. “I want to just tell cat people that I actually auditioned to be a cat once,” she said on Tonight With Jimmy Fallon. Good try, Jessie, but that’s not terribly purr-suasive.

• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist