Noem and Mullin Swap Blame for Blowing Hundreds of Millions on Planes

The Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on airplanes that were supposed to be used for deportation flights, but instead have been sitting mostly unused at an airport in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The New York Times reports that the 10 used jets, which were purchased through a no-bid contract with a northern Virginia business with ties to former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, have barely been used. Seven of the planes, older Boeing 737s, aren’t being used because DHS doesn’t have the staff to operate them, the Times reports, citing an internal government document.

Three of the plans are luxury business jets, and DHS has sought to lease or loan two of them to other agencies, including one of them to the FBI for use by Director Kash Patel, the agency said in a letter to Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The firm that got the contract for the planes is Daedalus Aviation Corporation, whose chairman donated to a political action committee headed by Noem. But DHS may not have needed the planes in the first place, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a history of using planes chartered from private companies for deportation flights, as well as military and Coast Guard jets.

Former acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Sandweg, who served under the Obama administration, told the Times that “if you asked me to write a list of the things ICE needed to increase the number of deportations, buying its own fleet of airplanes would absolutely not make the top ten.”

When the Times contacted DHS for comment, a spokesperson blamed Noem, who President Donald Trump fired in March.

“The contract for Daedalus was made and approved by department leadership before Secretary Mullin was sworn in,” DHS said in a statement, adding that the department “reserves the right to adjust course in an environment with evolving requirements and demands.”

A spokesperson for Noem disagreed, telling the Times that the jet purchase was finalized under her successor Markwayne Mullin. The contract size reportedly went up by $303 million on the day Mullin was sworn in.

Regardless of who is responsible, the jets are wasting taxpayer dollars sitting on a tarmac. Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Patty Murray, who sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee, say that DHS officials told them that most of the planes would not be used for deportations after all.

“The American people deserve a full accounting of this gross misuse of their tax dollars,” Murray and Murphy wrote in a letter to the department.

Paramount Skydance has discussed establishing an independent editorial board for CNN to ease well-established fears that the network’s sale will reduce it to a mouthpiece for David and Larry Ellison—and by extension, President Trump.

Paramount already owns CBS News, a relationship that has resulted in the ascension of The Free Press’s Bari Weiss and the crippling of 60 Minutes. Now, the $81 billion deal to buy CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery—which would give Paramount Skydance a near monopoly on mainstream media—has been paused after 12 states filed an antitrust lawsuit to be heard in March of next year.

Larry Ellison reportedly met directly with Trump last November, and earlier this year was hit with allegations of “credible concern that Paramount leadership has offered, solicited, or effectuated a corrupt exchange: more favorable coverage of the Trump administration and its allies in exchange for favorable treatment by Trump administration antitrust and media regulators.” Trump has been critical of CNN for the greater part of a decade.

Everything the Ellisons have done so far at CBS News, from uplifting Bari Weiss to pushing the network in a more pro-Israel direction—has been to gain Trump’s blessing for this massive deal. It’s no wonder people are concerned—and unconvinced—about some independent editorial board actually doing anything to stop that from continuing. And while some referenced conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch creating a similar committee when he purchased Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones in 2007, others have noted that that too was simply all for show.

President Donald Trump reportedly wouldn’t stop harassing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt during her brief maternity leave.

CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene reported Wednesday that Trump had repeatedly called Leavitt while she was on maternity leave to have her second child. The president was apparently desperate to know when she would leave her children and return to her podium, Treene said, citing anonymous sources.

Treene also said that Leavitt’s decision took the administration by surprise, and Trump even asked her to stay.

Another source close to Leavitt told Daily Mail that she had been strongly considering whether to step down during her maternity leave—while she was fielding frequent calls from the president.

Leavitt left for maternity leave on April 27, three days later than she initially planned to leave. The press secretary gave birth to her daughter on May 1, and returned to work just nine weeks later on July 1. Federal employees are typically entitled to 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Two sources told the Mail that Leavitt’s decision, announced Wednesday, had been months in the making. “She was just trying to figure out how to politely step down with [Trump’s] blessing,” one of the sources said.

Another source told the Mail that Leavitt realized she needed to leave after returning from maternity leave. “First week back she realized she wasn’t feeling it anymore,” the source said.

Yet another source told Mail that Leavitt had been experiencing severe “burnout” from her job.

“It was a very stressful job to do with her children. She never got any sleep, and she didn’t want her performance to slip either, so she decided to stay as long as she could and do the job well,” the source said. “The president did everything he could to keep her.”

Leavitt said Wednesday that she was leaving to spend more time with her family. “The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary,” she wrote on X.

Trump initially announced Leavitt’s departure Wednesday, saying she was leaving in order to “spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect!”

But it doesn’t seem likely that the president has “respect” for Leavitt’s decision—after all, he couldn’t even give her three months off with her newborn baby.

It looks like White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was finally honest about something.

In a lengthy statement on X Wednesday, Leavitt confirmed that she would be leaving the White House at the end of the month and included two photos of her with President Donald Trump.

Soon after, the internet started claiming that one of the photographs appeared to have been edited with AI. The Daily Beast reported that Leavitt had been “busted” for using AI to alter her image. The publication even produced a graphic showing all the ways she’d touched up her appearance, “slimmed” her waist, “enhanced” her chest, and “volumized” her hair.

But for once, Leavitt was telling the truth. The contested photograph was taken by Anna Moneymaker outside of the White House on July 15, 2025. It can be found on Getty Images in all of its original glory.

So, Leavitt’s photograph isn’t a lie—but you know what is? Everything else she said during her time as fascism’s mouthpiece.

For example: Leavitt parroted a fake story about Trump blocking $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza. She played along with claims that a deadly aircraft collision which killed 67 people had been caused by “DEI.” She called the Epstein files a “Democratic hoax.” She played defense for Trump’s mysterious bruises. She claimed that the Democratic Party’s main constituency was “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” And much, much more.

So long, Leavitt. It’s been real. Not literally, obviously, but you know what I mean.

Intelligence officials didn’t have a lot of confidence that Iran threatened to assassinate President Donald Trump after a NATO summit in Turkey last month. 

The Washington Post reported Wednesday evening that the CIA was skeptical of reports of a threat, which were relayed by Israeli intelligence and led to Trump hiding in a catering truck to be moved to an alternate military aircraft, which then flew him out of Turkey. An unnamed official told the Post that the reports were deemed “Israeli-derived, not U.S.-generated, and viewed as low confidence.” 

Trump was originally going to fly out of Turkey aboard his new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 plane gifted to him by Qatar. But amid apparent concerns that the plane wasn’t fitted with sufficient security measures, Trump first switched to a second, older Air Force One jet before secretly leaving that plane aboard the catering truck, which took him to a military plane that flew him out with select aides. 

Despite the CIA’s doubts about the nature of the threat, the White House decided not to take any chances, leaving the media and key staff, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, aboard the older Air Force One plane. Meanwhile, Trump was on the military jet unbeknownst to the public and even some senior administration officials. 

One former official told the Post that some U.S. intelligence officials think Israel shared the plot against Trump with them not to inform the president, but to try and influence his decisions over U.S. policy and the war in Iran.  

It “fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it,” that former official told the publication, adding that Rubio was briefed on the intelligence behind the threat but decided to stay on the older Air Force One plane anyway, even though that plane was ostensibly in more danger.  

“I am very curious about the extent to which the Israeli-provided intelligence was not only credible but independently verifiable,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told the Post. “I have no doubt that Iran would like to see the president gone, but this all seems a little fantastical.”