Rumors about Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are back—and they’re getting impossible to ignore.
For years, whispers of an affair between Noem and Lewandowski have followed them. Both are married. The Trump team has repeatedly avoided the subject, trying to bury the rumors—but that hasn’t stopped the speculation, especially since Lewandowski took a close, unpaid role at the Department of Homeland Security alongside Noem.
Slate writer Christina Cauterucci calls this situation a glaring example of the corruption within Trump’s circle. Lewandowski has been acting as Noem’s unofficial chief of staff, even though the official job hasn’t been filled. He travels with her constantly and is seen right by her side.
Lewandowski calls himself a “volunteer” and a “special government employee,” a position that lets him work up to 130 unpaid days a year. But sources say their relationship goes far beyond work.
“For years, sources have been telling reporters that Lewandowski and Noem are dating, though they’re each married to other people,” Cauterucci wrote. The rumors began in 2019, when the two started appearing together at GOP events.
Their behavior has only fueled the fire. A source told the New York Post that their “handsiness at a hotel bar during the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2021 was ‘absurdly blatant and public,’” with over 100 people around. Others said they saw Noem sitting on Lewandowski’s lap at a Mar-a-Lago event in 2020.
The Daily Mail reported that former Noem staffers said they were told in 2022 to keep Noem’s schedule secret from her husband—apparently to hide the extent of her time with Lewandowski.
Now that Noem is serving in the Trump administration with Lewandowski still at her side, these scandalous rumors are impossible to ignore. Cauterucci says it “perfectly encapsulates the Trump administration’s ethos,” pointing to “breaches of government norms, nepotism, sexual impropriety, ethical violations, doing shady things in plain sight.”
This scandal is no longer buried. It’s exploding—and showing the dark side of the MAGA movement in full view.
