The Headlines - Kristi Noem’s Firing, and the Boom of American Billionaires

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Plus, your Friday news quiz.  Here’s what we’re covering: Israel Pummels Beirut, Intensifying Strikes on Hezbollah, by Ephrat Livni, Abdi Latif Dahir, Farnaz Fassihi, Euan Ward, Erika Solomon and Dayana Iwaza Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base, by Malachy Browne and Aaron Boxerman Israel Begins Assault in Southern Beirut, Raising Fears of Wider Incursion, by Euan Ward, Aurelien Breeden, Erika Solomon and Thomas Fuller Trump Announces He Is Replacing Noem With Oklahoma Senator, by Michael C. Bender, Michael Gold, Hamed Aleaziz and Maggie Haberman 5 Takeaways on America’s Boom in Billionaires, by Katie Benner and Steven Rich Athletes Reflect on 50 Years of Winter Paralympics Growth and the Work Still to Do, by Liam Tharme Tune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, March 6th. Here's what we're covering. We're going to start in Lebanon, which has rapidly become a second front in the war with Iran. Israel's been targeting Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group there, after Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets earlier this week in solidarity with Iran.

Yesterday, a senior Israeli minister, threatened widespread destruction in the southern suburbs of Beirut in an area known as the Dahlia, where Hezbollah holds a lot of sway. He promised it would soon look like Han Yunus, a city in Gaza decimated by Israel's attacks on Hamas. After Israel put out the evacuation warning, you suddenly had huge crowds of people, grabbing whatever they could from their homes and apartments, rushing to their cars, and trying to figure out how to drive out from that area. My colleague Christina Goldbaum is on the ground in Beirut.

Across the city, you could hear these massive explosions that didn't let up until the early hours of Friday morning. It was some of the most intense bombing in Beirut since this conflict escalated. And now people are very afraid that there will be a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the South and possible occupation of southern Lebanon. So the country is definitely on edge right now as we wait to see how this conflict escalate. Also happening right now, Iran's revolutionary guards have launched a wave of drones and missiles at Tel Aviv in Israel in retaliation. And the U.S. Israeli strikes have continued in Iran with an intense bombing campaign early this morning in the capital. Iran, however, has remained defiant.

The Pentagon says America is winning decisively. Do you think they're wrong? Well, I think, you know, now six days after the war, it is clear that the U.S. has failed to achieve, its main goal, which was a clean, rapid victory. On NBC, the country's foreign minister said Iran would fight on with new leadership. The commanders have been replaced, and the supreme leader is going to be replaced soon, according to the procedure set by the Constitution. So everything is in order. Right now, the frontrunner to lead Iran is the son of Ayatollah Hamene, who's killed over the weekend.

Trump's called that choice unacceptable and said yesterday that he, should have a role in choosing Iran's next leader. And last update on the war. Did the United States airstrike at girls' elementary school and kill 175 people? Not that we know of Sean. And the Department of War is investigating this matter. And I would just tell you very strongly, the United States of America does not target civilians. The strike on Saturday on a school in southern Iran has been the deadliest of the war so far.

And neither the U.S. nor Israel has taken responsibility for it. but a body of evidence assembled by the Times suggests U.S. forces were most likely to have carried it out. Satellite imagery and verified videos show the school was severely damaged by a precision strike that happened at the same time there were attacks on a naval base next to it. In official statements, the U.S. has said its forces were going after naval targets in the area. The school at one point was part of the naval campus, but a decade ago, satellite images, show it was partitioned off and no longer connected to the base. Over the years, a sports field and other visible hallmarks of a school were added.

The Times reviewed the imagery of the strike with Wes Bryant, a national security analyst who was a senior advisor on civilian harm at the Pentagon. He has been critical of the Trump administration. He said the most likely explanation was target misidentification that forces attacked without realizing there may have been large numbers of civilians inside. President Trump's firing yesterday of Christy Noem as the Secretary of Homeland Security marked the first time he's ousted a cabinet member this term. Noam had made herself the face of his aggressive deportation campaign,

but she also presided over a long string of controversies that drew negative attention to the administration and frustrated White House officials. Her firing this week comes after her testimony at back-to-back congressional hearings, which appears to have been the tipping point for the president. Secretary Noem, we have seen a consistent pattern of lies and deceit from the Department of Homeland Security under your leadership. Lawmakers of both parties pressed Noem on how she's run the agency. You ran a smear campaign against Renee Good. You called her a domestic terrorist. They questioned the statement she made after immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

This is what incompetent female leadership looks like, and people are hurting and what. Western North Carolina. And they pushed her on the slow rollout of disaster relief funds. Some lawmakers also zeroed in on an ad campaign her department ran, starring her. You cross the border illegally, we'll find you. Break our laws. We'll punish you. One of the ads featured the secretary on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore.

And one thing, Senator, I think, would be helpful to know is how effective that communications has been. Well, they were effective in your name recognition. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana described the ads as wasteful, and he grilled her on a pro-Publica report about just how much the department spent on them. The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently. Yes, sir, we went through the legal processes. Did it correct? Did the president know you're going to do this?

Yes. He did. Yes. Okay. It's really this moment where Kennedy is asking. this question of Noam and what Trump knew, where Noam connects Trump to this idea of wasteful spending. And he doesn't want to be connected to this.

And he doesn't want to be used as the justification and the excuse for this massive amount of money spent on her ad campaign. My colleague Hamid Ali Aziz is on today's episode of the Daily, explaining how Noam gained and then lost the president's trust. In a statement on social media, President Trump said he's giving Nome a new job that's just been created, special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which he said would be a new security initiative. He plans to replace her at DHS with Mark Wayne Mullen, a Republican senator from Oklahoma. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security, though, is still lapsed. Yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked another spending bill for the agency. They continue to say they won't approve anything without.

new restrictions on immigration agents. Democratic Senator Cory Booker said Nome's firing, quote, changes nothing about their position. This week, the Times released a look at how the number of billionaires in the U.S. has soared and where all that money is coming from. Since 2017, the net worth of the wealthiest Americans has grown at a pace unmatched by any other income group, and the top 1% now collectively own as much stock and mutual funds as the remaining 99% of the country. Some of this can be traced back to tax cuts a decade ago.

So one of the things that we found is that the tax cuts that President Trump implemented during his first term in 2017 really fueled the fortunes of the top 1%. We found that the richest American's southern net worth soar by far more than they had over any previous similar period in recent history. And as a result, we saw the number of actual billionaires jump by 50% and now there are more than 900 in the U.S. alone. My colleague Katie Benner says the 2017 tax law did a few things that gave obvious benefits to the wealthy, like allowing owners of private jets to write off the cost of the planes and doubling the amount of tax-free money someone can pass along to their heirs. These things clearly benefit the wealthy. But what it was that truly fueled the fortress of the rich was lowering the corporate tax right actually. One of the reasons

this helps the rich more is because companies become more profitable. And instead of using those additional profits to pay workers and invest in the company, as many had said they would, they actually use that money to buyback stock. And executives are paid in stock compensation. So as the stock market sword and the buybacks really juiced prices, the executive class benefited disproportionately. And so when we talk about the stock market going up, we talk about it as something that benefits the broad economy. But when we actually look at whose pockets at lines and who benefits directly from this, it is just 1% of the country. So we really are benefiting the richest of the rich. Katie says that moving forward, an urgent question will be how America's billionaires use their growing influence.

Figures like Elon Musk have sunk record amounts into elections. President Trump's cabinet now includes 12 billionaires, and many of the other richest people in the country are increasingly leveraging their wealth for political power. And finally, the Paralympics are kicking off in Italy for the 50th anniversary of the Games. Today, though, several countries are boycotting the opening ceremony over a decision to let Russia participate.

Russian athletes will be competing under their country's flag for the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Ukraine is boycotting, so are officials from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and the UK. My colleagues at The Athletic will have full coverage. In all, more than 600 athletes from around the world will be competing across six sports, including wheelchair curling, sled hockey, snowboard, and biathlon. Those are the headlines.

If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It's just after the credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Cedifa, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell, special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Miles McKinley, Liz Davis Moore, Zoe Murphy, and Paula Schumann. Now, time for the quiz. Every week, we ask you a few questions about stories the Times has been covering. Can you get them all? First up.

This is so dirty. How is any of this legal? The people that placed those bets were people with inside. information. And it's just another sign of how corrupt and broken our economy has become. This week, there's been a lot of increased scrutiny on polymarket, one of the world's largest prediction markets. On the site, you can bet on all kinds of things you wouldn't typically think you could bet on, like, how many times will Elon Musk tweet today? Or who will be the next president of Vietnam? All of the controversy now is because there was a surge in big anonymous

bets from people wagering that a major world event was just about to happen, and they were right. What was it? The answer? Over 150 accounts placed bets on Friday, correctly predicting an American strike on Iran Saturday. The 11th hour betting totaled almost a million dollars, with one econ professor who studies prediction markets, saying it, quote, makes you think it was someone who knew something about the timing. The sites that make it possible to bet on world events, including wars, have raised lots of concerns about insider trading or insider manipulation. The founder of Pollymarket has stressed the importance of trading ethically, but he said last year that people using privileged info to get an edge was, quote, sort of an inevitability. Okay, next question. The Times has been

covering how a device that was huge in the early 2000s has been finding. finding new fans, even though it's been discontinued for years. If you are of a certain age, that sound might really take you back. We'll play it again here. Your question, what is the device? A hint? Maybe you had the classic, the mini? The answer?

iPods are cool again, people. The click is so good, though. I could just listen to ASMR of that all day. The portable music devices are finding new fans, even among those. who were not born yet when they were first released. The Times talked with young people who said they like the idea of owning their music and being able to listen to it, internet or no internet.

Others said it helped them disconnect from their phones and stop endlessly scrolling. But the retro tech is not necessarily cheap. Some sellers on eBay have listed refurbished iPods for nearly $600. So if you think you might have your old one somewhere, now is the time to check. And last question.

We are one week out from the Oscars, so you have a little time left to try and catch the nominees before the awards are announced next Sunday. This year, there's kind of an interesting trend among the actresses that are nominated. Three of them got their start on reality TV shows. We are going to play you clips from those shows from very, very early in their careers. You try and name the actress. First one. Well, I'm from a really small town in Kerry called Colony, which is done. south of Ireland and it's really beautiful. There's seven of us all together in the family,

so it's not a quiet house by any means. She is a ordinary girl with a beautiful gift. Jessie Buckley, you're a star. That is Jesse Buckley competing on the British talent competition I'll do anything. We do not have that show in the US. She was 18 and she did not win, but she has done okay. She is nominated this year for her role in Hamnet. Next one. Everyone was unbelievable. It took the whole party to another level. Oh, my God.

Ferrell came in and was calm. Everyone was blown away and impressed. That's Tiana's birthday. That's Tiana Taylor on My Super Sweet 16. It was an MTV show that used to document people's absolutely ridiculous birthday parties. For the record, she arrived to her party sealed in a pink box like a life-size Barbie doll. This year, she's nominated. for her role in one battle after another.

And last one. That is Emma Stone. She was on a VH1 show called In Search of the Partridge family, where they were trying to revive the 70s sitcom about a singing family. If you recognize the song she was auditioning with, it was a choice.

She's nominated this year for her role in Bagonia. Just goes to show you that in the year, 2026, reality TV stars can do anything, vie for an Oscar, or run the Department of Transportation. That's it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is The Headlines at NYTimes.com. I'm Tracy Mumford. The show will be back on Monday.