Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, suggested that the “patriarchy” was behind the recent ousters of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
She described President Donald Trump’s administration as engaged in a “war on all women,” and presented the former Cabinet secretaries as casualties in that conflict, in an Instagram video published Saturday.
“Trust me, I’m not a fan of Pam Bondi nor Kristi Noem, but I need to call out that it’s no surprise to me that the first two prominent people pushed out of this administration were women,” Newsom said. Her video included this text on screen: “Some thoughts on the patriarchy.”
Newsom suggested that conservative women who agree to work for President Donald Trump are traitors to their sex.
“The conservative women that Trump handpicks, who align themselves with an agenda that controls women, restricting our rights, limiting our autonomy, and pushing us back into the straightjacket of femininity that is only in service of men, there’s a familiar pattern here,” she argued.
“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.”
Newsom claimed that while “it looks like power, or proximity to power with a big title,” such a job offer “never comes with job security and protection.”
“There’s no secure place inside this hand-picked patriarchal body that systemically disrespects, devalues, and discriminates against women and girls,” California’s first lady added.
“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,” Newsom concluded. “And so, my friends, regardless of your political affiliation, you might want to wake up and see this for what it truly is: it’s a war on all women.”
While Jennifer Siebel Newsom appears not to have publicly condemned Noem or Bondi before this video, her husband celebrated Noem’s ouster last month.
“Kristi Noem will go down as the most shamelessly incompetent and cruel Homeland Security secretary in US history,” the California governor posted on X.
Newsom’s office also released a graphic showing Noem at an unemployment office.
Noem’s firing came amid increased tensions regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge to Minneapolis and after Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed her on a $220 million ad campaign in which she was featured. The secretary told Kennedy that Trump knew about the ads, but the president later said he did not sign off on the ad campaign.
Bondi, meanwhile, faced complaints from both the Right and the Left about the way she handled the files related to now-deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
While Noem and Bondi represent the first Cabinet-level appointees fired in the administration, Trump first removed Mike Waltz from his role as national security adviser in May 2025. Walz now serves as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump has also elevated women to key positions. Kellyanne Conway became the first woman to manage a winning presidential campaign in 2016. Sarah Huckabee Sanders became the first working mother to serve as White House press secretary. Susie Wiles became the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.
Along with Wiles, many other women remain in prominent positions of leadership under Trump. The list includes White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt; Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins; Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer; Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler.