President Donald Trump dismissed Carrie Prejean Boller, the wife of ex-NFL quarterback Kyle Boller, from the White House Religious Liberty Commission after a controversial antisemitism hearing on Feb. 9 that revealed significant divisions within the advisory body.
The 38-year-old ex-Miss California USA stated she got a short email from Mary Sprowls in the Presidential Personnel Office notifying her that her position was “terminated effective immediately.” Though the email was dated Feb. 12, Boller stated she didn’t see it until mid-March.
Two days following the Feb. 9 hearing, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the commission, declared Boller’s removal. “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 stated they had attempted to meet with Boller prior to the Feb. 9 hearing to convince her not to deliver her planned remarks, but she refused to do so.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minn., also dismissed Boller’s one-sided assertions, calling them “absurd.” The bishop stated Boller “was not dismissed for her religious convictions but rather for her behavior at the hearing: browbeating witnesses, aggressively asserting her point of view, and hijacking the meeting for her own political purposes.”
President Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission on May 1, 2025, to counsel the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council on religious freedom matters. Boller was among the original 13 appointees to the commission, led by Patrick with Ben Carson as vice chair.
The commission conducted another public hearing on March 16 on religious freedom in health care and proceeded without Boller. During that session, Bishop Barron noted that Catholics are increasingly being pushed out of health care and social service roles.
In a forcefully worded open letter on social media following her dismissal, Boller charged the president with forsaking the principles that once characterized his movement. She reminded Trump that in 2009, when he owned the Miss USA pageant, he initially supported her free-speech rights and retained her Miss California title despite backlash over her comment 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 stated her commission efforts focused on protecting religious liberty for people impacted by vaccine mandates and other restrictions. She stated she assisted mothers denied religious exemptions and talked with nurses who lost jobs after refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds.
In her letter to President Trump, Boller stated she was disappointed that she learned of her termination 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 Middle East, 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 made up almost entirely of conservative Christians.