Kristi Noem Has Some Explaining to Do

On her way out of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem may have gotten one of her donors a sweet deal.

President Trump fired Noem from the Cabinet in March over a series of scandals including how DHS handled contracts. But she didn’t leave the agency until her successor, Markwayne Mullin, took over on March 25. Just before she left, the department agreed to pay $108 million to Daedalus Aviation Corporation for a Boeing 737 private jet with a bar, two bedrooms, marble showers, and a table covered in manta-ray skin.

The firm had acquired the plane for less than $90 million, and it wasn’t the only plane deal DHS made to the corporation. The agency bought two more luxury jets from it for $106 million, far more than the $83 million the company paid for them. It also bought two 17-year-old 737s for $45 million each, more than their typical market value, according to The New York Times. All five of those planes were bought on Noem’s last morning at the DHS.

Daedalus’s chairman, William Walters, gave $10,000 to Noem’s political action committee, American Resolve, in 2024. After she was appointed as DHS secretary, Walters’s companies got over $900 million in agency contracts. DHS hired his business Salus Worldwide Solutions to fly Noem and her aides on chartered jets, as well as to encourage immigrants to leave the country voluntarily.

Daedalus was given a no-bid contract to acquire planes for deportation flights, acting as a middleman by buying planes from elsewhere and reselling them to the government.

When Mullin was confirmed as Noem’s successor, he looked into backing out of the deal but was worried about paying a financial penalty. Mullin spoke to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who was also concerned about the penalty. She told him not to block the plane purchases, and ultimately, he didn’t.

The planes DHS bought from Daedalus were mostly unused as of August. The whole deal smacks of Noem making money for a former donor and saddling American taxpayers with the cost, without any benefit to them or the government.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have used peace negotiations with Russia to concoct a multibillion-dollar deal to benefit their foreign business partners and political allies.  

In the latest installment of the most corrupt administration in history, the dynamic duo behind multiple botched peace agreements has secured a massive deal to purchase a series of oil fields, refineries, and gas stations owned by Lukoil, one of Russia’s biggest energy companies, The New York Times reported Friday. 

One private firm had already reached a tentative agreement to purchase Lukoil assets earlier this year, but that deal was stalled as a new group of investors emerged—each with direct financial ties to Kushner, Witkoff, and President Donald Trump.

The new group of investors is led by Todd Boehly, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who donated $1 million to MAGA Inc. in 2025 and another $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee through Eldridge Industries, his investment firm. 

One major stakeholder would be an Abu Dhabi–based fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who oversees a fund called Lunate, which is among the largest stakeholders in Kushner’s shady private equity firm, Affinity Partners. Sheikh Tahnoon previously dumped $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Witkoff and majority-owned by the Trump family. Then the U.S. president lifted export restrictions on AI chips to the UAE. Nothing to see there, certainly. 

Another major stakeholder in the sale is a Qatar-based conglomerate controlled by Moutaz Al-Khayyat and his brother Ramez Al-Khayyat, who have helped finance Kushner’s shady luxury hotel project in Albania.

For Kushner and Witkoff’s friends, the best thing about this part of the peace deal doesn’t actually require any peace. The Trump administration has reportedly signaled that it is open to making deals with Russia before the war actually ends, and one person familiar with the matter told the Times that included the Lukoil sale. The potential deal stands to be extremely lucrative for the American buyers as the purchase would release the assets from Russian sanctions, causing their value to instantly increase. 

Hui Chen, a former Justice Department prosecutor and a white-collar crime and ethics adviser, told the Times that the deal was “an alarming and very concerning set of entanglements.”

“And it means you have to question how the Trump administration is evaluating the different bidders involved here. Are the personal interests involved going to wrongly influence the outcome?” Chen said.

News of this deal comes on the heels of a report exposing Kushner’s investment firm as the largest stakeholder in Phoenix Financial, a Tel Aviv–based firm that has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that have seen massive gains as a result of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The president’s son-in-law has previously used his gig as special envoy as an opportunity to try to raise funds from foreign governments and individuals in the Middle East. 

And just one day before the Times report dropped, Kushner himself took to X to insist that he does not let his business dealings influence his diplomatic work.

The president feels absolutely no remorse about doxing Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

Donald Trump rationalized the stunning overstep while speaking with reporters Saturday, defending the decision to post Cotton’s personal phone number as a method to pressure him into bending to Trump’s position on daylight saving time.

“We want to get away from this ridiculous way and custom of—every twice a year, turning your clocks back, turning your clocks forward, being late to dinner, being late for very important meetings, it’s ridiculous,” Trump said.

“We don’t want to change clocks twice a year. It’s very expensive, it’s got many problems,” Trump continued.

The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act in July, moving to officially do away with the notion of daylight savings within the 50 states. But Cotton’s staunch opposition to the bill—largely over the prospect of dark winter mornings—has stalled its progress in the Senate.

While addressing the matter on the Senate floor last year, Cotton warned that in some parts of Arkansas, sunrise would not occur until after 8 a.m. if they chose to do away with daylight savings, forcing children, commuters, farmers, and construction workers to begin their days in darkness.

“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote on X Saturday, responding to Trump’s remarks. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”

Trump’s pressure campaign was not as well received by Cotton’s fellow Senate Republicans, however. In an interview with NBC News, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said that Trump “can go from zero to a–hole in about three seconds.”

“Every now and then, there are disputes in Congress that have existential significance for the future of Western civilization. Daylight savings time is not one of them,” Kennedy told Kristen Welker on Sunday. “I don’t think he should have given out Tom’s cell phone number. I don’t think that’s going to help convince Tom.”

Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt—who resigned from her post in August to spend more time with family after birthing her second child—just got a new job at Fox News.

“Karoline’s firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape,” Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott said in a statement.

In her own statement, Leavitt promised to bring “the unique perspective and candor that defined my tenure with the Trump administration.”

Leavitt joined the Trump administration in 2019, and in 2024 ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in New Hampshire before returning to serve as White House press secretary. She was the youngest press secretary ever at 28 years old, and has still not been replaced. She often made headlines for complete falsities, lying about Trump blocking $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza, blaming a deadly collision between a military helicopter and an American Airlines flight on DEI, calling the Epstein files a “Democratic hoax,” and saying that wrongly deported Salvadoran national Kilmar Ábrego García was a “foreign terrorist” and “MS-13 gang member” who was “engaged in human trafficking.” All lies.

Trump’s “machine gun” will appear across various shows and time blocks on the right-wing network, using her voice and institutional legitimacy to push what will likely be an unapologetically pro-Trump agenda.

In a leaked audio recording, Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton lamented that he isn’t in control of his own campaign. 

At a fundraiser in September, Paxton spoke candidly about his flailing campaign, according to the recording shared with Politico and published Monday.  

“I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming—you know—from D.C.,” he said. “I don’t control the message or what we’re doing.

“I don’t have ability to change anything,” Paxton continued. “So I have to live with whatever I’ve got. So it is a challenge.”

The audio was leaked by someone who does not support Paxton, and confirmed by another attendee. One attendee said that Paxton never specifically referred to Donald Trump’s team. Nick Maddux, Paxton’s campaign adviser, said that the candidate was “obviously” referring to the fact that campaigns don’t coordinate with super PACs. 

Trump has repeatedly pledged his desire to see Paxton elected but hesitated to commit any part of his $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest to help him win. Instead, Trump has focused on making the midterm elections a referendum on his own presidency. Last month, Trump held a fundraiser in Houston that was touted as a lifeline to Paxton’s campaign—but the money actually went to the Republican National Convention, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Paxton has long struggled to match Democratic candidate James Talarico’s funding. According to their latest quarterly filings with the Federal Election Commission, Talarico’s campaign had raked in $31.6 million, while Paxton only raised $9.3 million. The latest New York Times/Sienna poll found that Paxton was six points behind Talarico. 

This is the second piece of audio leaked about Paxton. Last month, the attorney general was caught trashing Trump’s disastrous midterm convention.