Donald Trump says he will be ‘not happy’ with any deal made over DHS funding
Donald Trump sent mixed signals on a nascent deal emerging between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate that could see funding restored to the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose agencies are currently unfunded.
“I’m going to look at it and we’re going to take a good hard look at it,” he said. “I want to support Republicans. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship. They don’t want to do anything about men playing in women’s sports.”
Returning to the issue later in the press conference following Markwayne Mullin’s swearing in, he said: “I guess they’re getting fairly close but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”
Asked about the plight of Transportation Safety Authority staff, who have gone unpaid during the partial shutdown of the DHS, Trump said: “Well, some of them are needing money, you know, because the Democrats cut off their money. I blame the Democrats more than anything else.”
Many staff members are no longer turning up for work, a situation the Trump administration has responded to by deploying ICE (immigration and immigration enforcement) agents in airports to carry out functions normally conducted by the TSA.
Key events
The Trump administration has seized on the killing of a college student at Loyola University Chicago in efforts to bolster a sharply anti-immigrant following reports that the suspect in the case is in the US illegally.
Sheridan Gorman, 18, was shot while walking with friends near a beach close to campus last week, and on Sunday, Chicago Police identified the suspect in the killing as Jose Medina. The Department of Homeland Security later released a photo of Medina and said he was in the US illegally.
On Tuesday, the White House posted on X that Gorman’s killing was a “result of failed border & sanctuary city policies.”
It is important to note that studies have repeatedly shown immigrants in the US are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born population. The Trump administration frequently instrumentalizes crimes involving immigrants to justify its restrictive immigration policy, as seen with Laken Riley’s death during the 2024 campaign.
Missouri lawmakers can redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade, the state’s supreme court ruled Tuesday, upholding a plan that could boost Republicans’ chances of picking up an additional House seat in this year’s midterms.
While opponents argued that Missouri’s constitution allows redistricting only immediately after a census, in a 4-3 decision, Judge Zel Fischer wrote that “the circuit court correctly concluded” the new map did not violate Missouri’s Constitution.
“Appellants acknowledge the Missouri Constitution does not expressly prohibit mid-decade congressional redistricting and, instead, argue the ‘Constitution denies such power by clear implication’,” Fischer wrote.
The redistricting ruling is a legal win for Donald Trump, who has previously urged Missouri Republicans to redraw the map as part of a broader national push to shore up the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.
The day so far
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Donald Trump sent mixed signals on a nascent deal emerging between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate that could see funding restored to the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose agencies are currently unfunded. “I’m going to look at it and we’re going to take a good hard look at it,” he said. “I want to support Republicans.” Returning to the issue later in the press conference after Markwayne Mullin’s swearing in, he said: “I guess they’re getting fairly close but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”
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Markwayne Mullin has been sworn in as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, who was fired this month after a succession of controversies. Trump sang his praises as “someone strong professional and fair” as Mullin and his wife, Christie, looked on.
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House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump “a complete fraud” after it emerged that the president – who has been urging senators to limit mail-in voting by pushing through his Save America act – cast his own ballot by mail in a special election in Palm Beach county.
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Donald Trump has appointed so-called “alpha male” influencer Nick Adams to the position of “special presidential envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values”. According to the state department website, Adams started the role last week, though it was only announced today.
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The supreme court is hearing a case on Tuesday that could decide whether Trump’s administration is allowed to turn away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. The case centers around the question whether people seeking asylum must fully cross the border in order to be allowed to claim asylum – or whether they can turn up at the border and seek entry.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio is expected to testify on Tuesday in former congressman David Rivera’s criminal trial on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s government.
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The former White House strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon has suggested the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at airports is a “test run” for using them at polling stations in the midterms later this year.
President Donald Trump endorsed TW Shannon, a former Republican Speaker of the Oklahoma House, for lieutenant governor of Oklahoma on Tuesday.
“As your next Lieutenant Governor,” Trump said in a post on Truth social, “T.W. will work hard to Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Support our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Advance Election Integrity, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Strengthen our Military, Veterans, and Law Enforcement, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”
According to Shannon’s campaign website, he identifies as a “Trump conservative” who “will fight alongside President Trump to stop the radical left and keep Oklahoma MAGA-strong.”
Shannon launched his campaign in January, joining other Democratic and Republican candidates, including Oklahoma auditor of state Cindy Byrd, business owner Victor Flores, and educator Kelly Forbes, among others.
Trump also posted a wave of endorsements for the Indiana State Senate on Tuesday, backing candidates like Michelle Davis, Jeff Ellington, Brenda Wilson, and Paula Copenhaver. He also pushed Sydney Gruters, wife of Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters, to run for Congress in Florida’s 16th Congressional District.
It may be all the more galling to Noem that Trump gave credit for a border he now proclaims as historically secure not to her, but on Tom Homan, the White House border czar.
“We created the strongest border with the help of that man right there,” he said, indicating Homan, who was looking on at Mullin’s swearing in ceremony.
“Tom is, so incredible. And he’s going to be a big influence here, too. There’s nobody more professional, nobody better. There’s nobody better as a human being. You know, he looks tough, but he’s got a good heart. But not too good. Don’t make it too good.”
Kristi Noem, the former homeland security secretary – whose firing this month prompted the elevation of Mullin – appeared to make one final bid for the limelight on Tuesday, fondly invoking her time in the job.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as the 8th Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,” she wrote in a social media post that was conspicuously lacking in congratulations for Mullin but trumpeted her own supposed achievements.
Referring to her new non-cabinet post – recently created by Trump – she continued: “As special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, I will build on the years of national security expertise I forged during my time as Secretary of Homeland Security, governor of South Dakota, and congresswoman on the House Armed Services Committee.”
Even before Markwayne Mullin’s swearing-in as the new homeland security secretary, fresh controversy stalked him – in the form of a three-year-old video in which he happily admits to spanking his children.
In a speech to the City Elders, a religious group, Mullin said: ““I’ll tell you right now, I do spank, I have no problem with that.”
Referring to his twin daughters, the former mixed martial arts (MMA) combatant and father-of-six went on: ““I can spank them and I’m still upset and they’ll come and crawl on my lap two minutes later and just hug on me.”
He then described how one of the twins begged him from mercy: “‘No, Daddy. No, Daddy. No, Daddy! No! I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry, Dad, She’d just get madder and madder and she just couldn’t bring herself to even bend over for me to bust her butt.”
Other parts of the video – first reported by The New Republic – show Mullin talking about his own childhood punishments at the hands of his father, which he called being “raised by the fear of a belt,” and threatening violence against his daughter’s boyfriend if he kissed her.
“We got to discipline people. That doesn’t mean you gotta discipline with hatred, you can discipline with love,” Mullin said.
Recalling a conversation with his daughter’s teenage boyfriend, Mullin said he told him: “If I ever see you kiss her in front of me, I’m dragging your face across the asphalt.”
Critics have questioned Mullin’s temperamental suitability for high office, citing a history of physical confrontations.
Donald Trump says he will be ‘not happy’ with any deal made over DHS funding
Donald Trump sent mixed signals on a nascent deal emerging between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate that could see funding restored to the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose agencies are currently unfunded.
“I’m going to look at it and we’re going to take a good hard look at it,” he said. “I want to support Republicans. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship. They don’t want to do anything about men playing in women’s sports.”
Returning to the issue later in the press conference following Markwayne Mullin’s swearing in, he said: “I guess they’re getting fairly close but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”
Asked about the plight of Transportation Safety Authority staff, who have gone unpaid during the partial shutdown of the DHS, Trump said: “Well, some of them are needing money, you know, because the Democrats cut off their money. I blame the Democrats more than anything else.”
Many staff members are no longer turning up for work, a situation the Trump administration has responded to by deploying ICE (immigration and immigration enforcement) agents in airports to carry out functions normally conducted by the TSA.
After being sworn in, Mullin told Trump “I won’t let you down.”
“It just seems surreal being in the Oval Office and having the president of the United States speak so highly of me and then recognize my family and know my family by name. It’s humbling and I never take anything for granted…No one’s going to outwork me.”
Markwayne Mullin sworn in as new homeland security secretary
Markwayne Mullin has been sworn in as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, who was fired this month after a succession of controversies.
Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, officially became the new cabinet secretary in charge of enforcing Donald Trump’s flagship immigration policy in a ceremony at the White House. He was sworn in by the attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Trump sang his praises as “someone strong professional and fair” as Mullin and his wife, Christie, looked on.
“I have no doubt that he takes the helm at DHS that Markwayne will fight for homeland security, the United States and securing the country and making it really strong and the way it should be,” Trump said in a speech which quickly devolved into a rambling monologue about his favorite complaints and grievances.
Mullin’s fellows senators voted on Monday night, by 54 to 45, to confirm his nomination. Only two Democrats, Jon Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, voted in favor of Mullin, after intense questioning over his suitability from both Democrats and fellow Republicans.
Critics have said Mullin is an unsuitable choice to oversee bodies like the immigration and customs enforcement agency, whose staff have been criticized for their heavy handed approach to detaining presumed immigrants.
He faced criticism over his description of Alex Pretti, a nurse who was shot dead by border patrol agents in Minneapolis in January as he lay on the ground, as a “deranged individual.” He also came under pressure from Rand Paul, a fellow Republican from Kentucky, who challenged him to justify his comments expressing sympathy for a man who violently assaulted Paul over a neighborhood dispute in 2017.
US supreme court justices indicated sympathy on Tuesday toward Donald Trump’s administration in its defense of the government’s authority to turn away asylum seekers when officials deem US-Mexico border crossings too overburdened to handle additional claims.
The legal dispute centers on a policy called “metering” that the Republican president’s administration may seek to revive after it was dropped by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden in 2021. The policy allowed US immigration officials to stop asylum seekers at the border and indefinitely decline to process their claims.
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