Federal Drug Prosecutions Drop to Lowest Level in Decades Under Trump

President Trump has caused federal drug prosecutions to plummet as his administration prioritizes kidnapping immigrants off the streets. 

Reuters has reported that the Trump administration is prosecuting people for breaking federal drug laws at the lowest rate in over two decades. 

“We’re seeing a reduced amount of time on long-term investigations so agents can go out in their raid gear and be seen supporting immigration raids,” an anonymous senior Justice Department official told Reuters. 

While drug overdose deaths did drop during the Biden administration, drug trafficking itself hasn’t tailed off at all. In fact, it rose by six percent this year, while the number of people charged with drug trafficking fell by six percent, according to Reuters. Charges for “drug conspiracy” fell by 15 percent, and prosecutions for using illegal guns for drug trafficking fell by five percent.  

This has, in all likelihood, been caused by the Trump administration’s decision to prioritize arresting as many immigrants as possible. “You cannot conduct thorough, multi-agency drug investigations if you’re running around doing this other stuff,” said a former DEA official who oversaw the shift diverting agents to immigration enforcement. 

That, along with decisions like shutting down the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, has made it harder for officials at the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to do their jobs. Instead of investigating cartels, they’re whisked away to assist in immigration raids, even if they have no background or experience in them.

Trump and his Cabinet seem to think that Mexican and South American immigrants are the primary arbiters of drug trafficking. “[President Trump’s] highly successful efforts at closing the border and removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our communities, along with prosecuting violent drug traffickers and targeting transnational cartels, means less illegal drugs are circulating in American communities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in response to Reuters’s story.

But the numbers prove that’s simply not the case. It’s been clear from the very start that this administration is more concerned with the appearance of strength and success than actually being strong and successful. Echoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s depraved photo ops, ATF and DEA agents have been specifically directed to display their agency badges on their armor so that the White House can post them on social media. 

“A lot of good cases are just going stagnant for some photo-op bullshit,” said a former ATF agent. 

The ATF and DEA did not respond to Reuters’s questions about the priority shift.

Stephen Miller was apparently calling the shots in the Trump administration’s lethal military strikes on Venezuelan boats accused of drug smuggling. The White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser played a principal role in the operations, which were led by his homeland security council, The Guardian reported Monday.

According to three Guardian sources familiar with the matter, Miller’s influence over the strikes “at times” even “superseded” that of Marco Rubio, who is President Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser. This comes as Miller continues to consolidate power in the homeland security council.

Miller’s role, The Guardian notes, helps account for the shaky legal justification the administration has provided for the attacks: The Trump administration claims the president was using his authority under Article II of the Constitution, based on the notion that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a foreign terrorist organization. This recalls Miller’s repeated assertions that TdA is “running Venezuela” in his argument for deporting Venezuelan immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act.

The revelation about Miller’s role also recalls reports that he mused about bombing unarmed immigrants in boats as an adviser in the first Trump administration.

Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official who resigned in Trump’s first term and became a vocal critic of the president, recounted an exchange between Miller and the then-commandant of the Coast Guard—which Miller vehemently denies—in his book Blowback.

Miller, according to Taylor, asked the commandant why the administration couldn’t “use a Predator drone to obliterate” boats “full of migrants” in international waters. The commandant replied that it would violate “international law,” but Miller was interested not in “the moral conflict of drone-bombing migrants,” but “whether anyone could stop America from doing it.” He told the commandant, per Taylor, “I don’t think you understand the limitations of international law.”

The president threatened a bevy of new tariffs against foreign-made products Monday morning, rattling America’s industries for another among countless times.

In a post to Truth Social, Donald Trump announced he intended to impose a 100 percent tariff on films made outside of the country, blaming California Governor Gavin Newsom for what he perceived to be a “stolen” industry.

“Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing ‘candy from a baby,’” Trump wrote.

Hollywood did not react positively when Trump first aired the possibility of such a tariff in May. One industry insider told CNN at the time that it would “represent a virtually complete halt of production.”

“But in reality, he has no jurisdiction to do this and it’s too complex to enforce,” the insider said.

In a separate post Monday, Trump claimed he would be helping North Carolina—the so-called “furniture capital of the world”—by placing steep tariffs on companies selling foreign-made furniture.

“In order to make North Carolina, which has completely lost its furniture business to China, and other Countries, GREAT again, I will be imposing substantial Tariffs on any Country that does not make its furniture in the United States,” Trump wrote. “Details to follow!!!”

He did not specify exactly how severe the new tariffs would be.

Monday’s threat is just the latest in a long line of whopping trade penalties imposed by the White House. Last week, the president unveiled a 100 percent tariff on branded drugs, a 25 percent tariff on heavy trucks, a 50 percent tariff on kitchen cabinets, and a 30 percent tariff on upholstered furniture.

In the end, it will be America that pays the price for Trump’s aggressive trade policies. Countless companies have already introduced price hikes on consumer goods to offset the cost of doing business under the president’s unconventional economic plan (practically every company outsources some component of its manufacturing or business in the current era of globalized trade).

Some of the companies that have already announced price spikes include Adidas, Nike, AutoZone, BestBuy, Columbia Sportswear, Ford, Macy’s, Nintendo, Proctor & Gamble, Walmart, Target, Shein, and Temu.

Did Donald Trump fall for an AI deepfake of himself?

The president shared a video Saturday that showed him speaking from the Oval Office about a “historic new health care system.” But the video and announcement weren’t real, and the post was deleted from Trump’s Truth Social account just 12 hours later.

The clearly computer-generated clip shared to Trump’s Truth Social showed Lara Trump reporting on Fox News about the president’s new “medbed” hospitals, a far-right medical hoax. An AI-generated Donald Trump announced that every American would receive their own “medbed card,” which would give them access to facilities “designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength.”

“Medbeds” are a far-right conspiracy theory that claims the so-called deep state has access to futuristic medical pods that can cure any ailment. One faction of QAnon believes that the government has been using one to keep former President John F. Kennedy alive.

It’s not clear where exactly the video originated. Investigative reporter Jacqueline Sweet posted on X that the clip appeared to originate from an Instagram account under the name Dr. David Richard Simon, “a common fake name for fake doctors in romance scams.”

Trump shared the video as part of a late-night posting spree on Truth Social, where he pushed a range of news clips from right-wing networks. So it’s entirely possible that the president posted the video by mistake, thinking it was a real news story—and apparently forgetting he never made such an announcement. Either that, or he’s trying to elevate a far-right conspiracy theory as a means of waving to his extremist supporters, or just to troll anyone who cares about the difference between reality and fiction.

In any case, it is disturbing to imagine the president would “announce” a phony medical breakthrough only to revoke it hours later.

Thomas Jacob Sanford, the 40-year-old Iraq War veteran identified as the suspect in a fatal Sunday attack on a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan, seemed to own Donald Trump memorabilia, with a campaign sign on display outside his house.

His reported home on East Atherton Road in Burton, Michigan, according to public records, is located less than 20 minutes by car from the church into which he ran his truck, before opening fire—killing at least four people—and setting the building ablaze.

As of June 2025, the house had a Trump campaign sign posted on its fence, per a Google Maps image. A picture posted to Facebook in September 2019, of Sanford with his wife and son, shows him wearing a camo shirt that reads “Re-elect Trump 2020,” and “Make liberals cry again.”

Mark Grebner, a Michigan Democratic consultant and data expert, told local outlet Bridge Michigan that Sanford signed two petitions a few years ago, both of which seemingly aligned with right-wing causes: one for Unlock Michigan, against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions, and an anti-abortion petition by Right to Life Michigan.

Local authorities and the FBI have not yet identified a motive for the attack.

The Trump administration, which has seized on recent acts of violence to accuse the entire left of possessing a penchant for political violence, hasn’t commented on these revelations about the gunman. The president did, however, post to Truth Social that he believed the incident to be “yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”

MAGA is losing it after renowned Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime show performer on Sunday.

“I’ve been thinking about it these days, and after discussing it with my team, I think I’ll do just one date in the United States,” he wrote on X, referring to the Super Bowl.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, had previously canceled his U.S. tour dates due to fears of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his concerts. Now he’ll have a chance—if he chooses to take it—to give Trump and ICE the finger on perhaps the biggest stage in America.

“This is Bad Bunny. He was just announced as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. Massive Trump hater, Anti-ICE activist, No songs in English. He even canceled his entire U.S. tour for this reason: ‘F***ing ICE could be outside my concert. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,’” right-wing talking head Benny Johnson wrote on X. “The NFL is self-destructing year after year.”

“Bad Bunny is a demonic Marxist who was been granted the largest stage with the greatest audience in the middle of a Christian revival,” a large account by the name of “the Redheaded libertarian” said. “This is by design. We are in a spiritual war and once you see it you can’t unsee it.” She attached a TikTok from a conspiracy theorist saying that the singer had essentially sold his soul to the devil.

“Roger Goodell and the NFL just decided to make the Super Bowl political by picking Bad Bunny as the 2026 Super Bowl music act. The guy literally says he isn’t touring the US because of Trump’s ICE raids and just released a video mocking President Trump,” conservative Cuban American commentator Robby Starbuck chimed in. “Also, most of his songs aren’t even in English. This is not a pick designed to unite football fans or let people just enjoy the show. It was a pick designed to divide fans and no doubt Bad Bunny will find some way to push a woke message.

“Are NFL owners in on this idiocy or are they just culturally that disconnected from reality and how Roger uses the NFL to push left wing social issues?” Starbuck continued. “Is it that hard to pick a unifying music act who doesn’t want to peddle woke propaganda? Does this guy really scream American football to anyone? Be for real with me. No one thinks he does. This isn’t about music, it’s about putting a guy on stage who hates Trump and MAGA.”

Bad Bunny is easily one of the most popular artists in the entire world. He has won three Grammys, 11 Latin Grammys, eight BillBoard Music awards, and 13 Lo Nuestro Awards. He was named Billboard Artist of the Year in 2022, was the most streamed artist on Spotify for two years straight, and has sold over seven million records. He is more than qualified to headline the Super Bowl halftime show.

The MAGA-verse had a similar crashout when 22-time Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar’s performance earlier this year centered Black American history and culture. Bad Bunny will likely make it seethe even more.

The Super Bowl is on February 8, 2026.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune admitted that American farmers will need a bailout from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Speaking on NBC News Sunday, the top Republican said that farmers would need support in the face of markets that were “not open to some of our commodities,” referring to foreign tariffs on U.S. goods that had resulted in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

“As a consequence of that, we’ve got a big harvest coming in here in South Dakota, corn and soybeans, and no place to go with it. So, what the president has said is, ‘I’m gonna support and I’m gonna help our farmers,’” Thune said. “And so we are looking at—I’m a member of the [Agriculture Committee] and have been for some time—we are looking at potential solutions to make sure that we can help support farmers until some of those markets come back.”

“They are anxious, they want to see markets open up,” he noted.

Thune said that he believed Trump wanted to establish “reciprocity” with other countries—but it’s not clear that is even the president’s objective. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previously said that the U.S. accepting a reciprocal zero-percent tariff deal with a country was “the silliest thing we could do.”

Meanwhile, foreign countries are reportedly already filling the gap left by missing American goods. For example, China, the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, has not purchased any American soybeans since May, pivoting to suppliers in Latin America as Trump struggles to land an actual deal with Beijing.

Last week, Trump debuted his new plan to give farmers a cut of his “tariff money,” but recklessly mixed up “billions” and “millions” when talking about how much money would actually be available.

The state of Oregon is taking the president to court for sending the troops to its door.

One day after Donald Trump said he would issue the national guard to Portland, the Beaver State filed a 41-page legal complaint accusing the country’s leader of having “trampled” the U.S. Constitution by federalizing Portland’s law enforcement. The city of Portland also joined the lawsuit.

“Our nation’s founders recognized that military rule—particularly by a remote authority indifferent to local needs—was incompatible with liberty and democracy,” the lawsuit said. “Foundational principles of American law therefore limit the president’s authority to involve the military in domestic affairs.”

The lawsuit further condemned Trump’s “provocative and arbitrary actions,” which it argued legitimately threaten Portland’s peace by “inciting a public outcry.”

Rather than rely on data before commanding the National Guard across the country, Trump decided earlier this month to target Rose City after he claimed he witnessed its “destruction” when he “watched television.” On Saturday, he directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland” in order to defend ICE. He also supported their use of “full force.”

Hours later, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek publicly undercut the White House’s rhetoric, insisting there was no need to invite the military to solve the state’s problems.

“The president does not have the authority to deploy federal troops on state soil,” Kotek said. “There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security, and there is no need for military troops in our major city.”

Kotek further emphasized that the National Guard’s needless deployment sullied their commitment to national defense, and that they would be a wasted resource in Portland.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said that Trump’s solution to the fictional threat of violence was unpresidential and would never serve to solve any legitimate problems facing communities across America.

“If you really wanted public safety, you wouldn’t threaten to send the United States military into any city,” Rayfield said in a video statement Sunday. “I know for a fact, from talking to cities across Oregon and across the country, that if you pick up the phone and ask, ‘What do you need? What could be helpful?’ the answer would not be the United States military.”

After failing to correctly read and understand a batch of documents, Republicans have revived an old conspiracy theory that the so-called “deep state” staged the January 6 insurrection.

The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on January 6 announced on X Friday that the FBI had “finally” revealed that it deployed 276 agents to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A closer look at the document revealed that the agents were responding to the rioters, not inciting them. “This number includes agents that responded to the Capitol grounds as well as inside the Capitol, the pipe bombs, and the red truck that was believed to contain explosive devices as well as CDCs/ADCs.”

Crucially, Republicans have still provided no evidence that those working with law enforcement were involved in planning the deadly riot or instigating violence that day.

Not only is this not a bombshell—it’s not even new. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General already reported in December 2024 that the FBI had deployed agents to the Capitol as part of a review of its handling of the incident.

“After the Capitol had been breached on January 6 by rioters, and in response to a request from the USCP, the FBI deployed several hundred Special Agents and employees to the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding area,” the report said.

Still, Just the News, a conservative blog, reported that plainclothes agents had been “secretly” deployed, though the after-action report the it referenced said absolutely nothing about what they were wearing. President Donald Trump shared the article on Truth Social, writing “Wow: A Radical Left Democrat Scam!” And failed Arizona Republican Kari Lake shared Trump’s post on X, saying, “They staged a riot on January 6 to frame patriotic Americans and cover-up a stolen election. Justice is coming.”

But Republicans have never needed any proof to fuel this particular conspiracy theory. In July 2023, Trump shared a meme on Truth Social claiming, “JANUARY 6 WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE DAY THE GOVERNMENT STAGED A RIOT TO COVER UP THE FACT THAT THEY CERTIFIED A FRAUDULENT ELECTION.”

Superintendent Ian Roberts of Des Moines Public Schools was detained Friday by federal agents. The reason for his detention was not clear, according to the school district.

An email issued Friday afternoon by DMPS Board President Jackie Norris announced that Associate Superintendent Matt Smith would take over Roberts’s role effective “immediately” and “until further notice.”

“This action follows Dr. Ian Roberts being detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents this morning,” Norris wrote in an email obtained by Iowa Public Radio. “We have no confirmed information as to why Dr. Roberts is being detained or the next potential steps.”

Roberts’s whereabouts are also, alarmingly, unclear. A list of detainees on ICE’s website lists the educational administrator in the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs, but an employee at the jail told Iowa Public Radio that Roberts was “not located there.”

The ICE website claims that Roberts was born in Guyana. Roberts’s district profile states that the educator’s parents were immigrants from Guyana and that he grew up in Brooklyn.

Roberts has been responsible for the largest public school district in Iowa since 2023. At the time of his hiring, Roberts’s “focus on creating equitable experience for students” was openly celebrated by then–school board Chair Teree Caldwell-Johnson. Roberts was named a top 100 education influencer by a K-12 magazine, District Administration, earlier this summer for his Reimagining Education program, a plan to modernize the district’s classrooms as requested by local residents.

It’s not the first instance of federal immigration officers throwing their weight around to neutralize their dissenters’ influence. In June, masked ICE agents detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander after he tried to escort a defendant out of immigration court.