President Donald Trump removed Carrie Prejean Boller, the wife of former NFL quarterback Kyle Boller, from the White House Religious Liberty Commission after a heated antisemitism hearing on Feb. 9 that revealed sharp divisions within the advisory panel.
The 38-year-old former Miss California USA said she received a short email from Mary Sprowls in the Presidential Personnel Office notifying her that her appointment was “terminated effective immediately.” Although the message was dated Feb. 12, Boller said she did not see it until mid-March.
Two days after the Feb. 9 hearing, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the commission, announced Boller’s ouster. “No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue, Patrick wrote on social media. This is clearly, without question, what happened on Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision.” Commission members said they attempted to meet with Boller before the Feb. 9 hearing to persuade her not to deliver her prepared remarks, but she refused.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minn., also dismissed Boller’s one-sided claims as absurd. The bishop said Boller was not dismissed for her religious beliefs but for her conduct at the hearing: browbeating witnesses, forcefully asserting her viewpoint, and derailing the meeting for political purposes.
President Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission on May 1, 2025, to advise the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council on matters of religious freedom. Boller was one of the original 13 appointees to the commission, chaired by Patrick, with Ben Carson serving as vice chair.
The commission held another public hearing on March 16, focused on religious freedom in health care, and continued without Boller. During that session, Bishop Barron noted that Catholics are increasingly being pushed out of roles in health care and social services.
In a strongly worded open letter posted on social media after her firing, Boller accused the president of abandoning the principles that once defined his movement. She reminded Trump that in 2009, when he owned the Miss USA pageant, he initially defended her free-speech rights and kept her Miss California title despite backlash over her remark that marriage should be between a man and a woman; he later terminated her contract that June, citing continued breach of contract issues.
The mother of two said her work on the commission focused on protecting religious liberty for people affected by vaccine mandates and other restrictions. She said she advocated for mothers denied religious exemptions and spoke with nurses who lost jobs after refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds.
In her letter to President Trump, Boller said she was hurt that she learned of her dismissal from an email sent by a staffer rather than directly from him. “I stood by you when you were called every name imaginable. I wore the red MAGA hat proudly because I believed in what you were fighting for. Now, I don’t even recognize you,” she wrote.
Amid broader tensions over U.S. policy in the region, Sameerah Munshi, a Muslim adviser to the commission, resigned in protest a day after the termination became public in March, citing Boller’s removal and the administration’s foreign actions. The commission is also facing a federal lawsuit from progressive religious groups alleging it lacks diverse representation and is composed almost entirely of conservative Christians.
