The Trump administration invented a senior government role for Kristi Noem specifically to prevent her from entering the Senate, according to a new report by PunchUp.

The title of “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas”—announced on March 5 when Trump publicly fired Noem as DHS secretary—was effectively invented to ensure she missed the March 31 filing deadline for the South Dakota Republican primary, multiple administration sources have told our sister investigative Substack outlet.

This meant that Noem, 54—the first Cabinet secretary ousted in Trump’s second term—could not challenge incumbent Sen. Mike Rounds, 71, whom Trump, 79, had already endorsed.

“It was made up to keep her busy,” one source close to the administration told PunchUp, adding that the White House had privately concluded Noem was such a liability that it needed to “put her out to the glue factory”—inventing a title that kept her on the government payroll and nominally occupied, but stripped of any real power.