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President Trump announced on Truth

Social yesterday that Christy Gnome, the

head of the Department of Homeland

Security, wasn't going to be running DHS

anymore.

>> President Trump has just announced that

Homeland Security Secretary Christy

Gnome is out of a job. The news seemed

to catch many by surprise, including

Trump's pick to replace Gnome, Oklahoma

Senator Mark Wayne Mullen.

>> I've got to be honest with you, I wasn't

expecting the call today.

>> At the time of the post, Gnome was at a

law enforcement event in Nashville to

deliver a keynote address.

>> Good afternoon, everybody. How are you?

>> Her presentation came and went without a

single mention of the news that she had

been fired and was getting another role

as special envoy for a new security

initiative.

>> God bless you and may God continue to

bless our great country. Have a good

day. The shakeup didn't come entirely

out of the blue. Earlier in the week,

Gnome faced two intense days of grilling

before the House and Senate Judiciary

Committees about alleged misconduct

during her tenure at DHS. There was a

lot that lawmakers from both parties

wanted to discuss, including the killing

of two American citizens by immigration

enforcement in Minnesota. But there was

one issue that really got Trump's

attention, an ad campaign. I'm Christine

Gnome, the United States Secretary of

Homeland Security. Thank you, President

Donald J. Trump, for securing our

border, for deporting criminal illegal

immigrants, and for putting America

first. President Trump.

>> I mean, Trump didn't explain why he

fired her, but we know that she was all

over the news about how he was handling

the agency,

and both sides were not happy with her

answers.

>> Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana

singled this ad campaign out, right?

grilled her about why she initiated the

campaign, how the contracts were

awarded, whether she actually received

consent and approval from the president

uh before she heavily featured herself.

>> Elena Sanchez Casado and Eric Fan worked

together to report new details of this

ad campaign.

>> And I remember her answer at the time

was, "The campaign has been very

effective. We did everything by the

books." and President Trump asked me to

do this. And after that, there were

reports that Trump denied having

instructed her to conduct the campaign

this way. And that seemed to be one of

the core uh reasons that she was fired.

I'm Sarah Holder and this is the Big

Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the

show, Bloomberg's investigation into the

$240 million ad campaign that helped

cost Christy Gnome her job at DHS and

what impacts the ads actually had.

So, I want to go back in time to about a

year ago when this ad campaign actually

kicked off. What did these ads look and

sound like? Can you describe them for

me?

>> Sure. We have two types of ads, right?

like ones that are actually pushing

people to self-deport.

>> President Trump has a clear message for

those that are in our country illegally.

Leave now. If you don't, we will find

you and we will deport you.

>> These ads are saying it's like if you

leave this country, we're going to give

you this statement that is going to help

you to relocate. If not, we're going to

chase you. You're not going to be able

to come back. And the images show mostly

Latino immigrants. Um, and then we have

another set of ads that are focused on

ICE recruitment.

>> In too many cities, dangerous illegals

walk free as police are forced to stand

down. Join ICE and help us catch the

worst of the worst with bonuses up to

$50,000 and generous benefits. Apply.

So, we have two very distinct ads,

self-deportation

and ICE recruitment.

>> And there's been a lot of talk about how

much DHS was committing to spend on that

ad campaign, $240 million, though not

all of that has been spent yet.

How does that amount of funding compare

to other ad campaigns that have been run

by the federal government? It is by far

the largest

ad marketing campaign in DHS history and

among the largest across all federal

agencies. Uh if you look at the numbers,

it's only behind the DoD, so the

military and the CO ads. And so the

government was spending a massive amount

of money on these ads that were pushing

immigrants in the US to leave the

country that were trying to get new ICE

agents to to join the agency. I want to

talk about how these ads ended up on the

air. And I want to break this down into

two parts. First, how a government ad

campaign would normally work. And next,

how this campaign worked. So, of course,

DHS doesn't make these ads in house.

they work with private companies. How do

they pick which companies they work

with? What processes do they have to go

through?

>> So, usually when you have a federal

contract, you have a standard

procurement process where you open up

the bid, right? You have some

requirements, you have some project to

do and you welcome the private

contractors to come in and submit their

proposals and whoever can do the job the

cheapest and the best uh will receive

the work. So that's a full and open

competitive process. That was not what

happened in this case because the DHS

under Christ uh handpicked four

companies that this is according to

their own document to bid on this

process.

>> This is a public document released by

DHS which used this border emergency

declared by Trump to justify the

agency's move to bypass full and open

competition. and um only three of them

actually made the bid and two of them

were selected. But according to public

records, all three companies are very

tightly connected to either DHS

officials or Trump campaign advisors. So

the entire process also happened very

very quickly. The first ad was aired

just about a month after Trump's

inauguration and everything was

justified because Trump declared a

national emergency at at the southern

border which allows these contracts to

bypass uh full competitive bidding.

>> Tell us a little bit about the companies

that they chose.

>> So we have two main companies that

appear on federal uh procurement

records. One is people who think and the

other is Safe American Media. So, if

American media got um more than $142

million and what is very interesting is

like this company didn't exist eight

days before getting this huge contract.

>> And what we our investigation reviews is

they then subcontract most of the work

to other more established companies,

>> right? Safe America Media subcontracts

with these media buyers who then place

the TV ads. Let's talk about the other

main company that was contracting with

DHS, People Who Think LLC. What did you

find out about them?

>> Right. So, People Who Think received uh

slightly smaller contract compared to

Save America Media to execute an

international version of the deportation

ads campaign. This company is linked to

Corey Lawendowski, Christine Nome's top

eight. Uh, it was co-founded by a former

Trump campaign media adviser who worked

on his 2016 campaign.

>> Luwendowski had overlaps with both of

these companies, right? You reported

that in the past Luendowski had worked

on the same political ad campaigns as

People Who Think and he'd worked on

political ad campaigns with media buyers

that were hired by Safe America Media.

And there's also been reporting about

this other company involved in the DHS

ad campaign which was run by Ben Yoho,

the husband of former DHS assistant

secretary Trisha Mclofflin.

Why do all these linkages matter? What's

significant about all these ties?

>> What seems very problematic here is like

the agency bypass a full competitive bid

process, right? It was DHS who decide

the companies that will be able to work

on this all without any kind of

transparency of why they choose those

companies, why they were better than

others. Was there anything that they

said that explained what went into their

choice of contractors? They didn't

really explain why they choose those

contractors,

but they seem very happy with their

results. In one of the phrases that we

got from them, it's like it's pretty

clear that we have made a good selection

because this campaign is been widely

successful. That's how they somehow

justify the companies working on this

campaign.

>> They also said they did everything by

the book. They said career officials

manage the process. Uh, but when we

asked them, did Christine Nome

personally approve those contracts

because they had a press release last

year that Gnome personally approves

everything about $100,000 to save

taxpayer money. Uh, they confirmed that

Gnome and the White House budget office

approved uh the contracts. Of course, uh

when we asked them about the connections

to Landowski to to other uh Trump

advisors, they didn't respond.

>> And how did the companies involved

respond to your reporting?

>> Save America Media, the the lead winner

of the contract, they we couldn't find

them. A lot of our colleagues have

tried, other news outlets have tried,

but it appears that they don't have an

office, don't have a website, don't have

an email address, don't have a phone

number. Uh, the only clue we had was

this residential home owned by this

Republican media consultant. And we went

to that home.

>> You knocked on the door.

>> We knocked on the door. We slip our

letters, you know, in

>> uh we got actually finally a phone

number and an email for this consultant.

We sent our questions.

>> He never answer. And same for people who

think. We send a letter. We send an

email. We called them multiple times and

we never got a response.

So, what kind of impact did this pricey

DHS ad campaign have? That's next.

Ana, Eric, in addition to looking at

which companies were being paid to make

and place these ads for the Department

of Homeland Security, you also looked at

where these ads were running and who

might have been seeing them. So, Eric,

what data did you look at to figure this

out? So to figure out where the ads are

running, how they're uh being targeted

at different uh populations and

audiences, we look at we used ad impact

data, which is a ad tracking company. In

total, we found over 92,000

ads across the country in all 50 states,

over a thousand TV stations. And this is

only broadcast, right? that there are

also digital TV, there's there's cable

TV, there other formats and these ads

are absolutely everywhere, right? And

the deportation ads, they are mostly

targeted uh at the border states uh in

the south and sanctuary cities in the

north. And what we found was the

targeting was not always consistent. Uh,

for example, Georgia has a lot more

undocumented immigrants compared to

Nevada and Arizona. This is according to

the DHS own estimates. However, the the

two western states uh were bombarded by

deportation ads where Georgia was

largely uh ignored. I think that what

those numbers show is like there's a

disconnection between where those ads

were and where DHS own estimates

said that there are more illegal or

undocumented immigrants, right? If you

look at the market, the media market

that they target the recruitment versus

deportation. Georgia is a prime example

that they are undertargeted by

deportation ads but overtargeted by ICE

recruitment commercials. One commercial

that specifically called out Atlanta

police officers ran over a thousand

times between September 29 and October

13, proclaiming, quote, "You took an

oath to protect and serve, but in

sanctuary cities, you're ordered to

stand down where dangerous illegals walk

free." And it's worth noting that there

is a uh Georgia law that mandates local

police officers to cooperate with with

ICE. And in fact, the Trump's own

Justice Department removed Atlanta from

their list of sanctuary cities. Uh, so

it's unclear to us why this ad that's

super targeted at recruiting Atlanta

police officers still said Atlanta was a

sanctuary city even after the

administration's own justice department

had removed the city from the list.

>> What does your analysis say about how

effective they've been according to the

metrics that the administration laid

out? Let's start by talking about the

ICE recruitment ads. So in order to

better understand what was the impact of

this campaign that is specifically

targeting local police officers, we ask

every police department at the top of

our list and what we heard from Miami

for instance like they haven't been

affected. Denver say the same to us like

we are not losing officers um that are

leaving to join ICE. And then the three

other um police uh agencies didn't

respond or they said we don't know if

our officers that are actually leaving

are leaving to join uh ICE forces. So

it's unclear how effective is this

campaign that is trying to convince

local officers to join ICE.

>> The department does put out a press

release saying that the recruitment

campaign was went above expectation.

they doubled the ICE officers workforce

uh that it's been wildly successful.

They did not respond to our question.

How much of that success can be

attributed to the ad campaign? What's

interesting about the ICE recruitment

ads is it seems to have avoided all the

Spanish-sp speakaking TV stations. And

what former police chiefs and other

experts have told us was uh historically

both ICE and CBP had uh made intentional

efforts to recruit Spanish- speaking

officers given their work and the need

to interact with undocumented

immigrants, a lot of whom speak Spanish.

>> I want to talk about the selfdeportation

ads as well. What impact have these ads

had on immigrants who who might be

considering leaving the country and on

their communities who are seeing these

ads?

>> The DHS claims over 2 million quote

unquote illegal aliens had left the

country last year, but experts uh said

uh that that number is likely a

misinterpretation of survey data that

the real figures likely said between

200,000 to 400,000. So we're talking

about undocumented immigrants who are

leaving as a result of this marketing

campaign and it's actually very hard to

to estimate uh that the precise number.

What the experts are saying is there

there two factors at work here, right?

It is possible that a lot of immigrants

get scared and they they hear this uh

message and they are persuaded to leave.

It's equally likely that a lot of them

are persuaded to stay because they

figure it will be harder to return once

they leave under the current

environment. What the experts told us

was the vast majority of reduction in

imig immigration that took place last

year was the result of reduced inflow uh

meaning that uh much fewer people

receive visas to come in uh or cross the

border because they were discouraged uh

under uh the administration policies. We

have done a lot of reporting talking

with uh immigration counselors,

organizations,

but also

immigrants both like documented and

undocumented. And what we have here is

like this campaign has created a lot of

fear, a lot of anxiety. They have been

feeling targeted. They thought that this

is racist the way that you know this is

framed. And what we have heard is that

this is especially problematic for kids

that have been exposed to this kind of

content and they ask their parents, are

you illegal? Are you a criminal? We have

here also about instances where children

have been arrested

um because of this campaign.

So we know that it's creating fear,

anxiety,

not sure you know if many people

combines to live. Um but what we know is

like at least they're really suffering

from the content of this campaign. So in

that way these ads could have had a

profound impact on some families.

When did these ads get on the radar of

lawmakers and in what context did this

issue come up in the congressional

hearings? Back in March 2025, Benny

Thompson, ranking member on the House

Committee on Homeland Security,

as Christine knows to provide all

documentations

and uh exchanges about this campaign.

DHS never reply replied to Benny

Thompson who sent another request back

in November asking for the same

documents any kind of communication

related to the campaign. DHS didn't

reply in November. Also, uh we saw

couple of letters from uh senators. We

have like a set of different Congress

people, lawmakers asking about the

campaign multiple times and DHS never

responded to their questions about how

this campaign started, how DHS picked

the companies, how effective it was and

what was the involvement of some of

Trump administration officials on

picking uh the companies running those

campaign. We know that for the last

couple of days she was really being the

center of attention uh during those

hearings. I think her leadership was

being questioned. I think she didn't

provide the answers that combines you

know even Trump

>> especially um Senator John Kennedy from

Louisiana that exchange where he singled

this ad campaign out. How how do you

square that concern for waste, which I

share

>> uh with the fact that you have u

spent $220 million

running television advertisements

that feature you prominently?

Um, sir, the president tasked me with

getting the message out to the country

and to other countries where we were

seeing the invasion come from with with

putting commercials out that told them

>> equival uh the campaign was effective in

promoting your own image. Christy Gnome

personally, she was heavily featured.

All the deportation ads were narrated by

Gnome herself. She was very prominent.

She was in front of the camera most of

the ad um

>> at Mount Rushmore.

>> I one of them at Mount Rushmore. She was

on a horse and in almost all the

deportation ads she thanked Trump or

complimented the president's immigration

policy and so you have Christine

personally

very prominent in them. You have TV

footage of aggressive ICE tactics on the

street. And you have um President Trump

signing bills, walking to meetings,

saluting to officers with Gnome

complimenting and thanking the president

for his leadership.

>> So Eric, what you're saying is, you

know, these ads were not only effective

in raising Christine Gnome's profile,

but perhaps they were effective in in

raising Trump's as well.

>> Yes. I mean, that's that was Nome's

argument at the hearing. She said, "The

president wanted me to do these ads and

thank him uh in these ads." And that's

what that's exactly what she did. She

thanked the president in pretty much

every one of the deportation ads.

>> What do we know about how the president

reacted to her claim that he had signed

off? What we know is apparently he

denied or at least he's he didn't recall

that happen in the same way that

Christian described it.

>> You know, allegedly Senator Kennedy had

this conversation with the president

after which he said the gnome is dead as

a fried chicken.

>> This is the big take from Bloomberg

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