Kristi Noem Has Unhinged New Criteria for Firing People at DHS

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is seeking creative ways to staff her agency with sycophants of Donald Trump, Bloomberg Government reported Wednesday.

At the first-ever meeting of Trump’s revamped Homeland Security Advisory Council Wednesday, Noem outright asked the members “how to fire people that don’t like us.”

Noem complained that she was “surrounded by bureaucrats,” and wanted to root out employees who “don’t support what we’re doing.”

Under the leadership of Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the DHS has enacted brutal immigration reform that pushes the boundaries of U.S. law. Their efforts have involved making absurd changes to Customs and Border Control policies, stripping immigrants of their lawful immigration status, and conducting widespread paramilitary raids that target average civilians, not criminals.

In April, Trump announced that he had “revamped” his Homeland Security Advisory Council by once again fishing from the Fox News talent pool, recruiting host Mark Levin and former Fox News contributor Bo Dietl.

The council also included Trump’s disgraced former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and Florida state Senator Joseph Gruters, who serves on the Republican National Committee and is a close ally of Trump’s.

Opposition to the president’s “big, beautiful bill” is growing in the House of Representatives.

The House Freedom Caucus released a three-page memo Wednesday heavily criticizing the Senate’s version of Donald Trump’s exorbitantly expensive tax cut, flaming the Senate draft for adding pork where the House had proposed cuts. The caucus’s three chief complaints include that the bill actually increases the deficit, “waters down” cuts to proposed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding, and “fails to ensure illegals are fully removed from Medicaid rolls.” (Undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for federally funded Medicaid.)

The invite-only Freedom Caucus, which unlike other groups on Capitol Hill does not publicize its roster, is estimated to have at least 49 members or lawmakers affiliated with its agenda, Pew Research calculated in 2023. That’s far more than enough to torpedo the bill—House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just three votes to keep the bill alive.

But the hard-line fiscal conservatives aren’t the only party members opposing the bill: Moderates are worried about the high cost the legislation will have on safety-net programs, including some $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, and swing-district Republicans are worried about political backlash in their Democrat-led states.

Any of these groups have the muster to keep the bill from passing. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said Tuesday that there’s no chance Republicans will be able to pass the bill through the House, deriding the situation on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast as a “shit show” in which Republicans simply don’t have the votes.

Beyond that, Johnson is concerned about simply having enough of his caucus in attendance to advance the vote. Several lawmakers have already posted on social media that their flights back to Washington have been delayed or canceled in light of severe thunderstorm warnings, fueling concerns that the inclement weather could push back the vote into Wednesday night or even Thursday.

“I am worried about flights,” Johnson told Politico Wednesday morning. “We don’t know if we have a full House. So that’s what we’re working on.”

The no tax on tips provision of Donald Trump’s budget cannot be the pro-labor gift that the president has made it out to be while the rest of the bill slashes health care and other social programs for lower-income people. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shed some light as to why that’s the case.

“On this point of tax on tips, as one of the only people in this body who has lived off of tips, I wanna tell you a little bit about the scam of that text, a little bit of the fine print there,” she said on Wednesday. “The cap on that is $25,000—while you’re jacking up taxes on people who make less than $50,00 across the United States while taking away their SNAP, while taking away their Medicaid, while kicking them off of the ACA and their health care extensions.

“So if you’re at home and you’re living off tips, you do the math. Is that worth it to you? Losing all your health care? Not able to feed your babies? Not being able to put a diaper on their bottom, in exchange for what? This bill is a deal with the devil. It explodes our national debt, it militarizes our entire economy, and it strips away health care and basic dignity of the American people for what? To give Elon Musk a tax break and billionaires the greedy taking of our nation? We cannot stand for it, and we will not support it. You should be ashamed.”

It’s hard to be excited about perceived tax cuts—like the no tax on tips provision—when they’re easily outweighed by the costs incurred by cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. And furthermore, lower-income people who rely on tips already qualify for the standard tax deduction in federal taxes. The math here only makes a significant difference for higher earners, and makes virtually none at all for those who need it the most. Many of the people this provision is supposed to help are already making below a living wage, which is why tips are so important here in the first place.

The deduction is also only available until 2028.

Donald Trump’s administration is claiming that the number of assaults against immigration enforcement officers has skyrocketed, but when pressed, even they can’t keep their phony numbers straight.

In response to CNN’s report about ICEBlock, an app that allows users to anonymously log sightings of ICE agents in their communities, ICE’s acting Director Todd Lyons claimed that officers and agents were “already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.”

This number isn’t new, but it is getting a little ridiculous. Gizmodo’s Matt Novak wrote Wednesday that when he requested evidence about Lyons’s statement, ICE boosted its claim from a 500 percent increase to 700 percent. No evidence was provided for either figure.

Allegations of increased assaults against ICE have come under intense scrutiny after the Department of Homeland Security claimed that New York City Comptroller Brad Lander had assaulted officers while being detained at an immigration court last month. But a video of the incident showed that Lander hadn’t assaulted anyone and that he’d been detained for asking officers for an arrest warrant.

Fox News’s Bill Melugin reported Tuesday that raw data provided by DHS showed that there had been 79 assaults against immigration enforcement agents between January 21 and June 30, up from 10 during the same period last year. This figure isn’t particularly terrifying, especially when considering ICE’s embrace of warrantless arrests, masked agents, and aggressive policing tactics as part of its sweeping immigration raids. It’s also unclear whether this figure includes patently phony allegations of assault, such as those against Lander.

After a video recirculated of Zohran Mamdani eating food with his hands, many MAGA figures revealed their inability to engage with New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee without being sent into a xenophobic tizzy.

In the video, a 2023 interview with Uncivilized Media, Mamdani describes growing up in the Third World and being surprised by a “glaring contradiction” in the U.S. political mainstream’s stance on Palestinian rights: “We say we care about freedom and justice and self-determination,” Mamdani said in the video, in which he is shown eating South Asian food with his hands, “and yet, for some reason, we draw a line when it comes to Palestinians.”

The clip, which made the rounds after being shared by the right-wing X account @EndWokeness on Sunday, was too much to bear for many in MAGA world.

Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer who visited the White House last month—and wields considerable influence there—posted, “Honestly, being an Islamist and a Communist was enough for me to not want @ZohranKMamdani in office. He is from Africa. And you can tell in the way he eats. Disgusting. My dogs are cleaner and more civilized when they eat than little Muhammad.” (Loomer is oft-mocked online for eating “human-grade” dog food during an ad on her podcast.)

Fellow MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk joined in, suggesting on his show that the two-year-old clip was a “calculated stunt” to “signal his Third World cred.” Kirk argued, “If he eats rice with his hands, whether he means it or not, he’s either authentically gross, or he’s being a fake, disgusting person.”

“Civilized people in America don’t eat like this,” wrote Republican Representative Brandon Gill of Texas, who told Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” if he refuses “to adopt Western customs.”

“Look at how this pig Zohran eats with his hands,” posted MAGA podcaster Mike Crispi of New Jersey. “Have some respect for our system,” he added, suggesting that “using a FORK and acknowledging the greatness of CAPITALISM” are twin pillars of American democracy.

Donald Trump’s great new deal with Vietnam may actually be terrible for America.

The president announced the trade arrangement Wednesday morning, writing on Truth Social that “Vietnam will pay the United States a 20 percent Tariff on any and all goods sent into our Territory,” as well as a 40 percent tariff on transshipping. In exchange, the United States will get “TOTAL ACCESS to their Markets for Trade.”

“In other words, they will ‘OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,’ meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff,” Trump wrote. “It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam.”

But analysts reading between the lines of the deal didn’t see the good news.

“Vietnam doesn’t pay tariffs on goods we import!” posted American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, noting that Trump’s explanation is not how tariffs work.

“This deal means American businesses will pay a 20 percent tax on the $140 billion we import from Vietnam, while Vietnamese businesses will pay no taxes on the $13 billion we export,” he wrote.

The lack of taxes could incentivize Vietnamese businesses to buy more American products. But Reichlin-Melnick argued in a separate post that net taxes on American businesses caused by a 20 percent tariff on $140 billion in exports would amount to $28 billion, “which is more than twice the total value of all the goods we export to Vietnam.”

“There’s no way that’s a net positive for American businesses,” he said.

Some of America’s largest and most successful companies, such as Apple and Nike, have manufacturing facilities in Vietnam and could face higher import costs due to Trump’s negotiating—a spike that will undoubtedly be felt by the consumer.

Trump’s 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariff policy is scheduled to expire next week. So far, the administration has only struck revised deals with China, the United Kingdom, and now Vietnam.

Last week, the White House said that the deadline for countries to strike trade deals with the U.S. may be extended past July 9, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt describing the hard stop as “not critical.”

In the end, it will be the U.S. that pays the price when the Trump administration runs out of time on its “90 deals in 90 days” promise. Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the central bank likely would have lowered its key interest rate if Trump hadn’t announced his tariff plan. Companies have already decided to increase product prices this year in reaction to hampered global supply chains.

Donald Trump won’t stop making up gasoline prices.

While speaking at a press conference Tuesday at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s premier wetland-themed concentration camp, the president claimed that the price of gasoline had fallen in multiple states.

“Now we have no inflation. Gasoline just hit $1.99 in five states: $1.99, isn’t that a nice sound?” Trump said. “It was up to $4 and going up to five, six, and seven. In California, it was $7.70, but we just hit in five states $1.99 and $1.98.”

But Trump was lying through his teeth, again.

The lowest average gas price anywhere in the country Wednesday was $2.71 per gallon in Mississippi, according to AAA. The national average gas price was $3.17 per gallon, which is 3 cents higher than it was a month ago, and 5 cents higher than it was when Trump took office.

In April and May, Trump repeatedly claimed the price of gas in some states was only $1.98 and that that price was slowly spreading to other states, while American drivers were still paying more than $3 a gallon.

There was some speculation that Trump was mistakenly relaying the price of RBOB Gas futures, which had hit $1.98 when Trump was boasting about gas prices, but that wouldn’t explain his claims about prices changing in other states. RBOB Gas futures don’t reflect prices at the pump and really only matter for wholesale buyers.

In his desperation to tout an improved economy, Trump has stooped to a new low of outright lying to the American public about prices they experience every day.

The president’s “big, beautiful bill” is slated to be fast-tracked through the House—but before debate has even started, Republicans fear that they don’t have the votes.

Whether conservative lawmakers agree or disagree with the contents of the spending package is currently not the problem, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson. Instead, it’s whether representatives will actually be in attendance for the vote.

“I am worried about flights,” Johnson told Politico Wednesday morning. “We don’t know if we have a full House. So that’s what we’re working on.”

Elected representatives coming from the South could be contending with a tropical system expected to hit over the next few days, while Washington deals with the fallout of severe thunderstorm advisories on Tuesday.

Several lawmakers have already posted on social media that their flights back to Washington have been delayed or canceled in light of the weather. That fueled a rumor that the stormy weather could push back the vote into Wednesday night or even Thursday, reported Politico, though that possibly contradicts a scheduling alert issued by Majority Whip Tom Emmer that arranged for the first votes to begin by 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

“We’re monitoring the weather closely; we have to figure that out,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday, adding that he wasn’t sure if a Wednesday morning vote would be possible. “There’s a lot of delays right now, so that’s part of the problem.”

Trump’s signature agenda item narrowly passed through the Senate Tuesday when Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote, advancing a bill that strips Medicaid from millions of Americans and is also projected to add trillions to the national deficit.

Republicans in both chambers have been highly critical of Trump’s exorbitantly expensive legislation. In the wake of the Senate vote, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that “there’s no way” the bill would pass the House, adding that the fight over its details is “far from over.”

Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo seemed shocked as she received the tumbling job numbers live on her show, as the impacts of President Trump’s second term begin to take root within the economy.

“Of course, President Trump is talking about this [big, beautiful] bill leading to growth in the economy, we are waiting any moment now to get the jobs numbers for the month of May. The expectations call for the ADP numbers to be up ninety-five thousand for the month of June, rather,” Bartiromo said on Wednesday. Then her eyes widened.

“Right now [we’re] seeing the number actually, uh, show a decline in jobs, uh, down thirty-three thousand on ADP.” She promptly changed the subject to the Golden Dome missile defense system, something Trump insists we need and which his budget bill funds.

While the ADP report released Wednesday precedes the government’s official jobs report, these numbers directly contradict Trump’s narrative that we currently have a robust economy. According to the report, the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June—the first monthly job loss in over two years. Most of the roles lost were in business services, health, and education.

These unexpected losses could be caused by a number of Trump’s policy decisions, from his sweeping tariffs to mass deportations. Regardless, the numbers do not inspire faith in Trump’s ability to avoid a full-blown recession.

Donald Trump’s latest threat to illegally deport U.S. citizens is bone-chilling.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s premier wetland-themed concentration camp, Trump once again raised his “controversial” (read: illegal) plot to widen the net of targets in his massive deportation scheme.

“They’re not new to our country, they’re old to our country, many of them were born in our country,” Trump said. “I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that’ll be the next job that we’ll work on together.”

Authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat shared her disturbance at Trump’s latest comment, by recalling what he said just a few months ago. “‘The Homegrowns Will Be Next,’ is one of the more chilling authoritarian phrases I have heard. This is also why they want to increase ICE’s budget so much,” she wrote on X.

Trump had promised that “homegrowns are next” during fellow authoritarian Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s visit to the White House earlier this year.

Trump’s behemoth budget bill that was passed in the Senate Tuesday would increase ICE’s annual budget for detentions from $3.4 billion to $45 billion until the end of 2029, with an additional $14.4 billion for transportation and $8 billion for hiring, placing ICE’s budget on par with supplemental bills used to fund wars.

While Trump described deporting individuals who cartoonishly “whack people over the head with a baseball bat from behind and kill ’em,” it’s crucial to know that ICE’s sweeping immigration raids aren’t targeting criminals at all. In fact, seven out of 10 people arrested in the recent raids in Los Angeles had no criminal conviction, and six out of 10 people had never even been charged with a crime.

Under the Trump administration’s current policies allowing warrantless mass arrests by masked agents and inconsistent due process for detainees, expanding deportation efforts to lawful U.S. citizens would ensure that no one is ever safe from deportation.

Already, Trump’s Department of Justice is prioritizing cases to strip U.S. citizenship.