Trump Border Czar Says ICE Made No Mistakes in Minnesota

Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s border czar, denied Monday that mistakes had been made in deadly shootings in Minnesota, and instead blamed the victims of Immigration and Customs Enforcement shootings for causing their own deaths.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Homan made the shocking remark while complaining that Democratic lawmakers had wrongfully withheld Department of Homeland Security funding over what they claimed were “mistakes” made during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. 

“They kept going to Minnesota, all the mistakes they say happened in Minnesota. I don’t think there’s a lot of—the mistakes they claimed in Minnesota, a lot of them were I don’t think mistakes,” Homan stammered. 

It seems that Homan hoped to blame the lack of body cameras in a recent shooting in Maine on Democrats. Instead, he suggested that federal immigration agents had not erred when they shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens who were protesting against ICE’s operations in Minneapolis. When a reporter pressed Homan repeatedly on his outrageous claim, the immigration chief struggled to dodge the question.

“No, I went to Minnesota and I said day one it was not a perfect operation. There were several chains of command, I had a problem with the targeting,” Homan said. 

Backed into a corner, Homan laid out why he believed these people deserved to die. 

“It comes down to one simple fact—these people failed to comply with law enforcement. Even some of the major chiefs in this country, who don’t necessarily agree with this administration, say you gotta always comply with law enforcement,” Homan said. 

“All they had to do was simply comply with law enforcement. If you don’t like what law enforcement did to you, then go to the courts. Sue. Call ACLU. Do whatever you want to do. You should always comply with law enforcement. If they did, they’d be alive today,” he added. 

Homan forgets that in the United States, failing to comply with law enforcement is not punishable by death. Federal immigration officers are similarly welcome to go to the courts and let the criminal justice system hand down decisions on fines and jail time for those who resist arrest or evade law enforcement. Instead, spurred by the Trump administration’s fanaticism, they are killing people.  

Since Trump returned to office, launching a widely unpopular mass deportation scheme, federal immigration officers have shot and killed 11 people.

Last week, an ICE agent shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man legally in the United States, while he drove with his three-year-old daughter in Maine. The week before that, an ICE agent shot and killed longtime Houston resident and father of three Lorenzo Salgado Araujo while he was driving. Federal agents claimed that he tried to ram the officers—a claim that eyewitnesses denied and that has crumbled under the slightest scrutiny. 

President Trump took to Truth Social to make unhinged threats of death and destruction against Iran just minutes after touting a nonexistent peace deal with the country.

“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” The president wrote Monday afternoon on Truth Social. “This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine, and every Leader in the Military.”

This outburst—which ignores the fact that the U.S. started the war, killed Iranian leaders and civilians, and attacked critical infrastructure—came after two American soldiers were killed and one went missing following an Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Jordan on Friday. A third U.S. service member was also killed in northern Iraq over the weekend, bringing the number of American casualties to 17. The U.S. has bombed Iran for nine straight days.

Three hours prior to Trump’s threat, the official White House X account posted an unattributed poll showing that 60 percent of voters support President Trump’s peace deal with Iran. The poll is captioned “TRUST IN TRUMP: Voters Overwhelmingly Support Iran Peace Deal.”

Even if this poll is accurate, there is no peace deal whatsoever. An initial memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran collapsed earlier this month, after just three weeks. To brag about a peace deal after nine days of bombings—and a threat to kill “many times over”—shows just how incapable Trump is of being any kind of wartime president.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the proposed $110 billion merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, determining that the combination of the two megacorporations would violate antitrust laws.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a 14-day restraining order on the transaction Monday. Martínez-Olguín ruled that the two companies should not be allowed to finalize the deal, agreeing with a 12-state coalition (led by California) that merging the media behemoths would result in higher consumer prices, produce fewer movies and TV shows, and ultimately “substantially lessen competition.”

“Plaintiff States’ showing at least demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive relief,” the judge wrote.

“Paramount and Warner Bros. will continue to operate as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they wait for the Court to adjudicate this case,” Martínez-Olguín continued. “The balance of equities, combined with the public’s vital interest in antitrust enforcement, therefore tips sharply in favor of the requested injunctive relief.”

Paramount disagreed with the judge’s determination. “We will vigorously defend the transaction and demonstrate that this challenge is inconsistent with sound competition policy and the competitive realities of the media marketplace,” Paramount said in a statement.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta praised the decision, describing it as a “critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day.”

“History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans’ lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people,” Bonta said in a statement shortly after the ruling was announced. “With our lawsuit, we’re fighting for a free and fair market and a thriving film and television industry that serves creatives and audiences alike. We have a full tank of gas, the law on our side, and look forward to continuing to make our case.”

The merger would have fused two gargantuan film studios, two streaming platforms, and two news organizations under the helm of David Ellison, the millennial son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, who’s a close friend of Donald Trump.

The decision has put Paramount executives in a bind: the company placed a bet against time, promising Warner Bros. shareholders 25 cents a share each quarter if the deal isn’t wrapped by September 30. That could potentially penalize Paramount by more than $600 million per quarter.

The gamble may have seemed less perilous earlier this year, when the younger Ellison was courting Trump while his administration weighed whether or not to approve the merger at the federal level. Ellison hosted a much-critized private dinner “honoring the Trump White House” on April 23. Trump attended, as did Secretary of State Marco Rubio, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Seven weeks later, the Justice Department’s antitrust division granted regulatory clearance by closing its investigation into the merger.

The younger Ellison transitioned from a major Hollywood producer to a media mogul almost overnight last year when his company Skydance merged with Paramount in a deal predicated on an $8 billion investment. The deal made Ellison chairman and CEO of a combined entity that owns the CBS network, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Skydance Animation, and more.

Paramount Skydance came to an agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this year when it undermined a previous deal between Warner Bros. and Netflix by offering an all-cash bid to buy the company with $31 per share.

The deal would have also granted Ellison control of CNN, TBS, TNT, HBO, Cinemax, Discovery, HGTV, and more.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s administration demanded the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their families in an effort to track down the sources who spilled on the president’s new Air Force One.

Late last week, the Department of Justice told the publication it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers in order to acquire records of journalists’ phone calls and text messages—including messages with one reporter’s mother and two reporters’ spouses, the Times reported Monday.

Those subpoenas were issued in addition to ones earlier this month compelling the reporters to testify before a grand jury. Lawyers for the Times journalists filed a motion Saturday to quash the new subpoenas.

White House officials were left fuming earlier this month after the Times reported that Trump had ditched his Qatari-gifted Air Force One in Europe because it was missing certain security and communications capabilities. Trump claimed that U.S. forces in Europe were clamoring for a chance to see the magnificent plane.

But it seems the Times’ reporting was right on the money: The president announced plans Sunday to further “max out” Air Force One, suggesting that the $400 million luxury jumbo jet had insufficient security features.

The Air Force has already spent roughly $400 million on renovating the plane, changing the cabin layout, communications system, and security upgrades. That doesn’t account for the taxpayer-funded continued maintenance of the plane, either. The jet—one of the largest presidential gifts ever—will be moved to Trump’s presidential library foundation in 2029, where it may be available for him to use as a private citizen.

This story has been updated.

The State Department is trying to smear left-wing organizations and activists as “front groups and fellow travelers” for the Cuban government.

In a report published Monday titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” the State Department singled out political commentator-streamer Hasan Piker, Amazon union leader Christian Smalls, the Democratic Socialists of America, and environmental activist Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, for allegedly supporting the Cuban government.

“This constant stream of Western left-wing activists, influencers and organizers is coordinated by a network of Cuba-backed nonprofits, foundations, academic and cultural partnerships, and even dedicated U.S.-based travel agencies,” the report said, mentioning the activists’ visits to the island.

The report also asserts that the DSA, an organization claiming over 120,000 members, “maintains a fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime—not because the group is controlled by Cuban agents, per se, but because that commitment is now simply the de facto policy orthodoxy on the American far left.”

It seems to be part of the administration’s attack on “far-left political terrorism,” coupled with an attempt to engineer regime change in Cuba, both led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Under his watch, the U.S. government has taken the decades-long economic embargo against Cuba and escalated it into a de facto oil blockade that has crippled much of the country.

Rubio has refused to answer questions about whether the U.S. plans to invade Cuba or to elaborate on long-term plans for the island. In January, the U.S. military abducted and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an overseas raid and brought him to the U.S. to face trial. Is Cuba headed toward a similar fate? And will the White House brand its left-wing opponents in the U.S. as terrorists who support Cuba?