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By Tom Sanders
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President Donald Trump began his second term bragging about the number of women in his Cabinet, telling a Women's History Month event last March that he was "thrilled" to be the most female-friendly Republican president in history.
Eighteen months on, the president's claims no longer hold. Of the eight women initially appointed to his Cabinet or senior-level positions, only three remain: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler.
While the departures of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard chipped away at the president's authority, the latest exit may prove to be the most significant.
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Three days after the Republicans' bruising defeat in the midterms, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the first woman to hold the position, announced she was stepping down from the role. Trump has replaced her with Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration's hard-line immigration agenda.
The news came a day after Wiles told staff she would "take a page out of President Trump's playbook" and declared "we have no intention of backing down" following the GOP's historic defeat, Axios reported. Newsweek has contacted Wiles for comment via email.
Trump's first term was marked by a revolving door of White House personnel. But since his return to office, it is mostly women who appear to be taking the fall for the administration's setbacks, while men facing widespread criticism continue to survive.
The White House disagrees. "President Trump has assembled the greatest administration in history, selecting each member of his incredible team based on one criterion: their ability to deliver for the American people," White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Newsweek. "Unlike the identity-politics-obsessed Democrats, the president judges individuals on merit and qualifications, not immutable characteristics."
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A Spring of Setbacks
Four of the eight women in Trump's Cabinet left over the course of three months. Noem was the first to depart, after being fired unceremoniously on March 5. The homeland security secretary had received widespread backlash over her response to the killings of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis. She also referred to Pretti as a "domestic terrorist," a statement she refused to retract.
Noem also earned the ire of the president following a $220 million ad campaign encouraging immigrants to self-deport, which a White House source said at the time was a "culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures." Markwayne Mullin succeeded her in the role.
Bondi, a Trump loyalist who fell out of favor with the president, followed in April. Trump grew frustrated with the attorney general's handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein and with what he saw as a failure to pursue his political enemies. Todd Blanche replaced her as head of the Department of Justice.
April also saw Chavez-DeRemer hand in her resignation after an internal investigation said the labor secretary had been having an affair with a staffer and allegedly misused travel funds. Keith Sonderling now holds the position.
Gabbard was the next to go, citing her husband's cancer diagnosis in her May resignation letter. However, reports said the national intelligence director had been sidelined over Iran, and she had testified that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon.
"I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having it," Trump said in June 2025 in response to her remarks. On the same day, he greenlit U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.
As with the other departing female senior officials, Gabbard was replaced by a man. Jay Clayton was her permanent replacement after Bill Pulte served in an acting capacity.
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The President’s Remaining Men
Critics have highlighted the administration's tendency to fire female Cabinet members, while underperforming and controversial men have remained in their roles.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who narrowly survived an impeachment vote this week, walked away unscathed from last year's "Signalgate" scandal. Hegseth has also been heavily criticized over his handling of the Iran war, with some lawmakers accusing him of committing war crimes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea.
FBI Director Kash Patel has also faced heavy criticism over his professional conduct and use of federal resources for personal gain. Patel has been accused of excessive drinking, assigning a SWAT team to protect his girlfriend and of using a government plane for personal trips. During a Senate hearing in September, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois labeled Patel "the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation's history." Patel has denied the accusations against him.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has also faced calls to resign over his past ties to Epstein, after reports emerged that Lutnick visited the late sex offender's island in 2012. Like Patel and Hegseth, Lutnick has retained the White House's support.
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Seemingly, the only male senior official to be punished during Trump's second term has been Mike Waltz, who was removed as national security adviser in May 2025 following "Signalgate." Waltz had mistakenly added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat on Signal, where senior officials discussed classified military plans. However, Trump soon nominated Waltz as U.N. ambassador, the role to which he had previously nominated Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.
"Trump only seems to have the capability to fire female secretaries," Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said after the Bondi and Noem exits.
"I think what Kash Patel has done is a thousand times worse than a lot of other people. But they've gotten off scot-free. If you're a man in the Trump administration, it seems that they reward misconduct," she continued.
Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas echoed Ocasio-Cortez's remarks, arguing in April that Trump "will throw the incompetent women under the bus a lot faster than the incompetent men."
Trump's defenders, however, have noted that the departures had individual causes, including an inspector general's findings and a husband's illness. May Mailman, a former senior White House official, told The New York Times last month, "There's no loneliness of the female conservative in the Trump administration." She pointed to the women who remained in senior roles—including Wiles, who has since departed.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Federica Bindi and Shakeema Edwards.
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