SPRINGFIELD, IL – Gov. JB Pritzker spoke for many Illinoisans Thursday—and frankly, most Americans—when he responded to the news that President Donald Trump had finally fired his controversial Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Pritzker said, at a news conference here. “It’s, frankly, not too soon. I hope that her replacement, who was named at the same time, does a better job. It’s a pretty low bar. Frankly, we saw shootings, and we saw breaking the law, and we saw corruption, under Kristi Noem.”
This was Trump’s first dismissal of a cabinet member during his second term, and he couldn’t have picked a better one – although it’s a target rich environment. When Democrats take back control of the government they will no doubt work to hold her and her agents accountable for the lies and the lawlessness that took place under her watch.
Americans remain horrified and disgusted by the ill-trained, violent and masked agents under Noem’s authority who roamed streets lawlessly in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago and Minneapolis, to name a few cities where they did their worst.
While Noem succeeded in helping Trump cut the illegal immigration across the border to a trickle, she also unleashed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on American cities, mostly blue ones, to rampage and terrorize Americans, including many U.S. citizens.
She and her military-style, not-so-secret police broke through doors in private homes without warrants, tear-gassed peaceful protesters and journalists, arrested children and often lied about the damage they did , their unlawful tactics and the people they hurt, courts found.
The spectacle of Noem dodging legitimate oversight questions before Congress this week would have been comical if it were not so disgraceful--refusing in testimony to apologize to the families after she dishonestly defamed two American citizens murdered by ICE agents.
Before any formal investigations, Noem and her department falsely accused the victims—Renee Good, 37, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs--of being involved in acts of “domestic terrorism.” Videos of both shootings showed clearly they were not domestic terrorists, but American citizens exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE abuses.
It was stomach churning to watch her shameful evasiveness when Noem was called to account by lawmakers for poor oversight, shady contracts and inappropriate behavior. Even Republican members of Congress had myriad complaints about her stunningly poor leadership and incompetent management—a political turn against a member of the Trump cabinet by the President’s allies that may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the need, as we move deeper into a pivotal election year, for the forces of justice to start marshaling their power and demanding accountability. The country seems to be showing signs that this is already happening, but it has to be sustained.
The Epstein files investigations that seemingly ignore the perpetrators, the unpopular war against Iran with no clear goals and no exit plan, the rupturing of NATO and alienation of allies, the unconstitutional application of tariffs – there is so much immorality, corruption, incompetence and lawlessness, and sadly, likely much more to come.
It seems a stretch to think that Trump and his minions will ever face justice, but justice will come. Firing Noem is a good start.
Read my call for accountability published in the Chicago Tribune, January 25.
No Morality, Values, Law, or Accountability
Originally published January 25, 2026 in the Chicago Tribune.
As Donald Trump ends the first year of his second term, the president who promised peace and prosperity has delivered neither. Instead, he’s threatened punitive tariffs and flirted with the idea of using force — rhetoric that put NATO on edge.
Donald Trump’s first year has been one of no morality, no values, no law, no accountability
Trump’s America is not great again. It has become un-American. The country is neither safer at home nor more respected around the world. This nation that was once such a beacon for democracy and helped build the post-World War II global order is now viewed by foes and even friends as a corrupt, unreliable and immoral rogue state.
President Donald Trump walks onstage during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone)
Trump’s appearance in Davos last week was just the latest shameful chapter; he threatened military action like a mob boss if he didn’t get his way, demanding ownership of a neighboring country and then saying he wouldn’t use force after all.
“Sometimes you need a dictator,” he declared, insulting his hosts and European allies in a rambling speech at the World Economic Forum and incorrectly saying NATO would never come to America’s aid, when in fact it already has, including Denmark.
Maybe this is a moment like the violence at the Edmund Pettis Bridge or Kent State or like Watergate, in which the abuse of power becomes a catalyst so sickening that citizens rise up to demonstrate American values and demand their country and their democracy be restored. That remains to be seen.
What is clearer than ever as we move deeper into a pivotal election year is that it is time for the forces of justice to start marshaling their power and demanding accountability. The country seems to be showing signs that this is already happening, but it has to be sustained.
The only thing that will stop this would-be despot is accountability. Even Trump is wise enough to know he is out of control — or at least, has gone too far in his insatiable quest for more power — and could face another impeachment if Democrats take back the House.
Trump is a bully, but he respects raw power. That means Americans must continue pouring into the streets by the millions in peaceful protests to demonstrate their opposition and call for redress of grievances. That means the news media must keep shining a light on un-American behavior and speaking out, printing the truth and refusing to be intimidated by administration threats and attacks.
Most important, that means Democrats, independents and Republicans must turn out to demonstrate their outrage and vote for candidates who will restore balance to Congress and a check on presidential power that the Founders intended.
In some areas, the tide seems to be turning against Trump. Canada and Europe stood up to him on Greenland, warding off his threat of more tariffs if they didn’t hand over Greenland — and staring down his threats of force. The collective spine of European nations stiffened in their focus on protecting Ukraine from Russia. That’s their priority, not some erratic, quixotic American play to change world maps for what appears to be Trump’s personal aggrandizement.
In a highly unusual move, three Catholic cardinals, including Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, recently issued a widely reported public statement condemning the threats of force and echoing an address given Jan. 9 by Pope Leo XIV to the Vatican diplomatic corps.
Cupich and the cardinals from Washington and Newark, New Jersey, urged the creation of a “genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation,” as the U.S. faces “the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War.”
At home, there is also a change. Trump’s approval ratings are at a new low after lawless, masked and militarized federal agents rampaged in the streets of Minneapolis, arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, using warrantless searches and terrifying people in the Twin Cities — like a not-so-secret police force. Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to tighten control at the border, which Trump, to his credit, has done, but they did not vote for these dangerous methods.
This an election year, and it may portend accountability for Trump. The administration begins its second year determined to conduct its business in lawless, unconstitutional ways repeatedly condemned by the courts and a growing majority of the American people.
Trump used the U.S. military to remove the leader of Venezuela, apparently for the oil. His reckless, ill-trained ICE agents have touched off outrage from ordinary citizens, including in Minneapolis, where one agent shot to death an unarmed mother of three. He is laying the groundwork to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can send U.S. troops into city streets to confront Americans.
My father and uncles served in World War II, and I can only imagine their revulsion if they learned that a nonsensical American leader was taking a torch to NATO — the strongest alliance in modern times that for nearly 80 years kept the peace and warded off a hostile Soviet Union.
How would they feel if they knew Trump has become a bigger threat to NATO and Europe in some ways than Russia? Russian leader Vladimir Putin is happier than ever, it seems. Trump is rupturing NATO for him.
Trump promised his voters that his focus would be America first — it hasn’t. He has spent much of his first year in office pursuing adventures abroad, from bombing Iran and Nigeria to seizing Venezuela’s leader and coveting Greenland.
Storer H. Rowley is a former national editor and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.
Originally published January 25, 2026 in the Chicago Tribune.