by Steve Benen | May 29, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics, travel
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has spent months talking about removing federal personnel from airports in so-called sanctuary cities, and by all appearances, the Oklahoma Republican is increasingly serious about the idea. During a Fox News appearance on Thursday, he described a potential scenario in which he’s “gonna have to pull” customs officials from these airports.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin: “This may affect international flights coming in and out of their airports because I’m gonna have to pull CBP officers out of being able to process international flights and put them helping our ICE agents.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-28T12:16:12.451Z
This was hardly the first such threat. Earlier in the week, Mullin also said he and his administration colleagues are “currently drawing up plans” to stop “processing international flights” into these cities. (“Sanctuary cities” refers to areas in which local governments limit police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.)
The public comments came on the heels of multiple reports that the DHS secretary privately told U.S. travel executives that his department was prepared to stop customs and immigration processing for international travelers in these cities. Soon after, the U.S. Travel Association said it had also spoken to the secretary and that he told the trade group’s representatives he’s serious about these plans.
What’s more, it’s not just Mullin. On Thursday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, still engaged in a shameless audition to receive a permanent nomination from Donald Trump, also appeared on Fox News and defended the DHS threats.
A day later, Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana also offered his enthusiastic support for the tactic.
Banks: “It’s a great idea, blocking int’l flights into sanctuary cities harboring
by Steve Benen | May 28, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Under existing law, American consumers pay a gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon (24.4 cents for diesel and 19.3 cents for jet fuel), which generates revenue that is used for road maintenance through the Highway Trust Fund. Earlier this month, however, as the war with Iran pushed prices at the pump higher, Donald Trump announced plans to suspend the tax as a way to reduce costs.
There was some pushback, not just because of the nation’s infrastructure needs, but also because the savings would be minimal. As MS NOW’s Hayes Brown explained two weeks ago, “If put into place today, one economist suggested that a gas tax holiday would only save drivers roughly 60 cents total per trip to the pump, a drop in the tank compared to the $1.50 per gallon leap we’ve seen since Trump launched the Iran war more than two months ago.”
The president didn’t care. The pause, the Republican told CBS News, was “a great idea.” He also made it sound as if the change was definitely going to happen, adding, “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time.”
So what happened? Toward the end of the latest White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump about his expectations for the federal gas tax.
“A gas tax holiday?” he replied. “Well, it’s something we might talk about. Let’s see what happens over the next week or two weeks.”
As always, the president’s “two weeks” reference effectively gave away the game: Every time he uses the phrase (which is painfully often), he’s trying to avoid giving a straight answer to a question he doesn’t know
by Steve Benen | May 28, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Partway through Donald Trump’s latest White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked the president a relatively straightforward question related to the Strait of Hormuz and its future: “Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait, and would they have to open immediately, or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?”
Trump responded that the waterway will “be open to everybody.” Pressed further on which country would control the Strait, the Republican added, “It’s international waters. Nobody’s going to control it. We’re going to watch over it. We’ll watch over it but nobody’s going to control it.”
If he’d stopped the answer there, the exchange would have been largely unremarkable. The president, however, decided to add one additional thought.
Trump: “Oman will behave just like everyone else, or we’ll have to blow them up”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-27T17:00:28.657Z
“Oman will behave just like everyone else, or we’ll have to blow them up,” Trump warned. Referring to officials in Oman, he added, “They understand that.”
In other words, according to the American president, he’s prepared to start bombing a longtime U.S. ally if it partners with Iran to share control of the Strait of Hormuz.
As part of the network’s on-air coverage of the Cabinet meeting, Fox News’ John Roberts noted Trump’s threat and told viewers, “Not quite sure what that was all about.”
Oddly enough, I had the same reaction.
A Politico report noted that Oman “has been a key interlocutor in behind-the-scenes negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and more recently in the push to end the war between Tehran and Washington.” Those diplomatic efforts
by Steve Benen | May 27, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
On the surface, Donald Trump’s obsession with renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is a political problem for obvious reasons: The more the public expects the president to do real work on the challenges facing the public and the nation, the more the Republican fixates on personal distractions and vanity endeavors.
But the closer one looks at the no-bid contract for the dubious renovation project, the more one realizes that Trump’s tone-deaf crusade is a mess for multiple reasons.
According to the president’s initial claims, the handpicked contractor would charge only $1.8 million to repair the iconic pool. Two weeks ago, that price tag soared to $13.1 million. Last week, Trump said he thought the overall cost to American taxpayers would “probably” be “less than $20 million.”
It reached the point that the president insisted online that he wasn’t involved in choosing the contractor, whom he said he “did not know and have never used before.” He had previously said the exact opposite, sparking questions as to which version of his contradictory story was true.
Last week, the overall story managed to get a little worse when The New York Times reported that the general manager of one of Trump’s golf clubs has helped with plans for the project, despite the inconvenient fact that he’s “a private citizen with no known training in engineering or architecture.”
This week, the burgeoning fiasco became even messier. The Times reported Wednesday that the no-bid contract, which circumvented federal procurement laws for dubious reasons, has also generated an inflated profit margin for the contractor whom Trump claimed to choose before changing his story. From the article:
A National Park Service
by Steve Benen | May 27, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
JD Vance’s vaunted task force, focused on uncovering fraudulent federal spending, is off to a rough start, and this week’s meeting added to the project’s troubles. Nearly two dozen state attorneys general skipped the latest gathering because they were invited on Friday — and given a deadline to RSVP by Saturday.
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that all of these state attorneys general are Democrats. Indeed, the result was an all-Republican meeting, which likely suited the White House just fine, given that Vance’s endeavor has been brazen in its partisan intentions.
Nevertheless, the meeting on Tuesday proceeded as planned, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller took the opportunity to share a claim that warranted a closer look.
Stephen Miller: “Based on what I’ve heard, we could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-26T18:32:08.726Z
“Based on what I’ve heard, we could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them,” Miller said.
Roughly a day later, at a White House Cabinet meeting, his boss made the same point.
Trump claims preposterously that if Vance does a good enough job rooting out fraud, “we’ll have a balanced budget without having to do anything. This is the kind of money they stole. I hope Todd is gonna do a real job.”— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-27T16:08:37.519Z
If Vance’s task force roots out enough fraud, Donald Trump declared, “we’ll have a balanced budget without having to do anything.”
Notwithstanding what
by Steve Benen | May 26, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Just three months into Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Veterans Affairs did something unusual: It required a group of employees working on the administration’s layoff plans to sign nondisclosure agreements.
A report in Government Executive described the move as “highly unusual,” adding that NDAs are “typically limited to procurement-sensitive discussions and national security settings that include classified information.”
In the months that followed, there were sporadic related reports — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for example, was so preoccupied with staunching leaks that he, too, took steps to use NDAs broadly — but it was tough to predict just how far the Republican administration was prepared to go.
MS NOW reported:
In a draft notice obtained by MS NOW, the Office of Personnel Management requests comment on a draft NDA for use by federal agencies. The NDA would bar federal employees from sharing “confidential government information,” in an effort to curb leaks to the media.The draft cites several high-profile leaks that have occurred in the past year, including “unauthorized disclosures” from federal workers “divulging the secret U.S. raid on Venezuela prior to it occurring.”
Under the draft notice, all federal workers could be blocked from sharing “non-public, confidential, or proprietary information” or “any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material that is not currently publicly available and should not be disclosed under applicable law.”
What’s more, the restrictions would apply not only to the existing federal workforce, but also to those who leave their positions for jobs elsewhere. Those who are found to have broken the agreements would be subject to financial penalties, among other things.
For all of Team Trump’s obsessive boasts about being the “most transparent”
