Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, has criticized how the Trump administration handled the departures of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi.
Noem lost her role at the Department of Homeland Security last month, where she had been linked to Donald Trump’s drive to reduce immigration.
In that post, she oversaw ICE operations, and her time in the job was overshadowed by controversy following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by agents earlier this year.
Bondi, meanwhile, was pushed out of her attorney general position last week after facing backlash over her approach to the Epstein files.
Trump confirmed Bondi’s exit online, writing: “Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year.
“Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.”
Posting to Instagram on Saturday (April 4), Jennifer said that although she is “no fan” of either Noem or Bondi, she believes their firings reflect what she described as a broader “war on all women.”
“The conservative women that Trump handpicks who align themselves with an agenda that controls women, restricting our rights, limiting our autonomy… is only in service of men,” Jennifer said in the social media video.
“There’s a familiar pattern here. Women are brought in, packaged Mar-a-Lago style, and lifted up as long as they commit to wholeheartedly serve the interests of the patriarch at the top.”
She argued that the arrangement is conditional, and that women who buy into it risk being discarded once they’re no longer useful.
She continued: “When you align yourself with that value system, with a leader who has publicly devalued women, degraded them, and been found liable of abusing women. Well, guess what? You’re going to be the first to go.
“Your power is only temporary, and ultimately they will come for you. That’s the unfortunate truth for all women. No woman is safe in Trump’s Republican Party unless she has enough wealth or the ability to buy her own job security and safety.”
She added that, in her view, this dynamic goes beyond party lines, saying issues affecting women are being used as political leverage regardless of voters’ affiliations.
After her remarks circulated, the White House pointed reporters to Trump’s earlier comments from a 2025 Women’s History Month event, where he said he was “thrilled” to have “more women in our Cabinet than any Republican president in the history of our country.”
According to the Center for American Women and Politics, women made up one third of Trump’s original cabinet.