← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"That bill is much more sizeable than previously thought"
00:41:52
August 12th, 2026; 5pm: Alicia Menendez, in for Nicolle Wallace, on new reporting in the Washington Post that taxpayers will foot most of the bill for Trump's D.C. vanity projects.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:05]
Donald Trump
There's a magnificent walkway that goes into what will be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world. So we did this. No charge to the taxpayer whatsoever. We're going to have the finest ballroom, I believe, anywhere in the world. We didn't ask for any tax money. We have no tax. This is taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents. There will never be another thing like this. I don't believe built from a cost standpoint. This is all my money and donor's money. This is tax free.
- [01:37]
Alicia Menendez
Hi again everyone. It is five o' clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace. Donald Trump said that the massive ballroom he's building after demolishing the east wing of the White House will be, quote, taxpayer free. Like so many things with the Trump presidency that was a lie. According to new reporting in the Washington Post, taxpayers will have to foot most of the bill when it comes to the ballroom and his other Washington, D.C. vanity projects. And that bill is much more sizable than previously thought. Quote, the Trump administration plans to spend at least $900 million for construction projects on the White House grounds, significantly larger price tag than has been previously reported and one that would be covered primarily by taxpayers, according to records reviewed by the Post. The Post reports that the money is being routed through a small White House office called the Executive Residence, which handles smaller upkeep projects and pay for White House residents workers. Bout it, the Post reports, quote, in recent years, Congress has appropriated $2.5 million annually to its maintenance account, known as the White House Repair and Restoration. Since Trump took office. The administration has directed $875 million to that account, public budget records show. Additional Reporting by Scott McFarland of Midas Touch adds more details to the overwhelming amounts of money going to Trump's construction projects in the nation's capital. He reports that money is being rerouted from America's national parks. Quote, the records Show More than $323 million have been made available for upgrades and projects on the White House grounds this year. That's a dramatic nearly 5,000% increase from the $7.5 million spent on the White House grounds projects in 2024. The internal park Service record show declines in the money allotted to or projected for use at dozens of other major US Parks. This year, there were multimillion dollar reductions in funds for Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks, which are some of the flagship attractions of America's National Park Service. And that is where we begin this hour with the Washington Post reporter who broke that story, Sarah Blasky. Also joining us, chief Washington correspondent and host for Midas Touch, Scott McFarlane. And Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is here. It is good to see you all. Sarah, talk us through your reporting.
- [04:02]
Sarah Blaskey
So our reporting is based on documents, contracting documents and related planning documents that show that the Trump administration is planning over $900 million of work on White House grounds alone. That includes the sort of the ballroom project that's at the center of this work, but it also includes a visitor screening facility work on Lafayette Park, a helipad that features the presidential seal. And this, of course, comes at a much higher price than the Trump administration has said publicly. And as you were mentioning, they have routed a lot of the funding for this project through this small maintenance account that typically only has a couple of millions of dollars. And so what this tells us is that the Trump administration is planning a lot of work. There certainly could be more than the contracts that we were able to review, but that's what the price tag seems to be as of right now.
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Alicia Menendez
When we talk about money that was rerouted. In your reporting, you talk about how hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted for the Secret Service was transferred. Tell me more about that.
- [05:12]
Sarah Blaskey
That's right. So starting last August, we see transfers into this account from Secret Service funds, but also from the White House military office and then also from the National Park Service, which is facilitating the transfer of donations. And so the president has said that the ballroom will be funded primarily or entirely, depending on which time he was talking about this. By Donations. Those dollars are coming through the Park Service. And then there are taxpayer dollars, the U.S. secret Service and the White House military office. We have not gotten clarity from the administration on what those dollars were originally for. Some of the U.S. secret Service dollars were part of a bill that was for training and recruiting Secret Service agents and that has been rerouted into this account. But there are still hundreds of millions of dollars that we don't know what the original purpose was for, Donald.
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Alicia Menendez
We don't know what the original purpose was for. We have too many opportunities with this administration to talk about corruption of members of this administration enriching themselves while in office. This is another form of corruption, though, telling the US Taxpayer they're not going to have to pay a dime for this and then secretly rerouting money that they paid into a system for something that they did not nor their member of Congress co sign. What alarms does this raise for you?
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Donald Sherman
Well, every time we hear about the president's vanity projects like the ballroom, we find out that the project is more expensive. The way that the administration is paying for it is more corrupt, and there's less transparency about what they are doing with taxpayer money and who the money ends up going to. So really, this is a classic Trump pay to play situation. Pay to play on both ends. First, you have businesses that are seeking access to and policy outcomes from the Trump administration that have been giving money to the president through his ballroom organization in order to fund this vanity project. And then contractor dollars. And now taxpayer dollars are being funneled to the president's preferred vendors. And so again, every day we every day and every story that comes out about the ballroom is just another example of one. The president is lying to the American public about who's paying for his vanity projects and what the public is paying for the vanity projects. But also it continues to be a through line of the president creating these opportunities for corruption, creating opportunities for big business to pay for a seat at the table that regular folks can't afford.
- [08:03]
Alicia Menendez
Scott McFarland, let's make sure we talk about your reporting. I recently returned from my family. We were in Maine at Acadia National Park, a reminder that these parks are such a treasure that can be shared by all Americans. You see a cross section of individuals and families there. Talk to me about how this money is being taken away from other national parks like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and why.
- [08:28]
Scott McFarlane
There's a lot of gray area here. But the internal Park Service records that I obtained show where the priorities are. $323 million allotted for the White House grounds alone, beautification and vanity projects this year. That's compared to $7 million two years ago. It's a remarkable of magnitude increase. They're not necessarily moving money away from Yosemite and Yellowstone or Acadia to pay for that, but they're using a lot of donated money, money they could have, you know, banged the pot to get for Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount Zion, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon. There may be a little bit of movement of money away from the other parks, but here's the top line finding. There are millions of dollars less allotted for Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Mount Zion, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Yellowstone, less for those parks combined than just for the White House grounds. This is like think of a rundown school, needs new air conditioning, needs new desks, new supplies. And the principal is instead routing all the money and getting all the donations to upgrade his office. This has an issue of politics that's not lost on people. It looks like he's trying to gild everything and prioritize his own proverbial backyard.
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Alicia Menendez
Well, and to your point about how it's not lost on people, it's because there is a human cost to all of this. Part of what you write is that the shifting priorities could exacerbate a $30 billion backlog of deferred maintenance at federal park facilities nationwide. Trump's focus on vanity projects also risks further demoralizing and depleting a federal park's workforce. Records show the National Park Service has lost nearly 2,000 employees between May 2025 and May 2026 due to attrition, Trump's doge reductions and other trims. What did you hear from those who are still working there?
- [10:12]
Scott McFarlane
A lot of numbers. And the numbers tell the story here, Alicia. Between May 2025 and May 2026, they lost people. Plus from Elon Musk's fork in the road, to people who just quit because they were getting overworked or burnt out or disenfranchised by the Trump administration, to people who took their retirement and said, I've had about enough of this now. Park Service employees do not do this to get wealthy. They do this out of joy for their work and pride in the system. And if they start cannibalizing projects or inflaming this backlog of deferred maintenance, they're going to lose more people. No, it's not good for anybody. And national parks are a 50 state dynamic. They're big, they're small, they're from east to west. They're the pride of their communities. And I have a number of members of Congress who say they want to investigate this latest slate of reporting to find out if the money's being misappropriated or misprioritized.
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Alicia Menendez
Donald earlier today I was on with Congressman Robert Garcia, who if Democrats are to take back the majority in the House this November come January, he will hold the gavel on the House Oversight Committee. And as you know, they have a laundry list of things that they want to investigate, everything from the Epstein files to ICE's procedures. What is it going to take to have some accounting and accountability here when it comes to these vanity projects?
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Donald Sherman
It's going to take subpoenas, it's going to take lengthy investigations. But it's important to note that Congress right now could be looking at this. The president is usurping Congress's appropriations authority and is frustrating their oversight authority. Right now. The majority in Congress just won't do its job. I imagine that if Congressman Garcia has a gavel in the next Congress, there will be detailed and thorough investigations, both of how the administration is spending taxpayer dollars, but also what these big businesses that have been engaged in this pay to play opportunity that the president keeps presenting, what they are getting out of the deal at the expense of the taxpayers. I think Scott's reporting is really helpful to articulate what the human cost is for the president's grift. What is the impact on regular folks across this country that may want to visit national parks this summer, as well as the government employees who dedicated their careers to making our national parks available?
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Alicia Menendez
Sarah PolitiFact did something amazing. They crunched the numbers of Trump's speeches lately and found that, quote, Trump's remarks on the construction projects added up to nearly 45,000 words since January. He mentioned them at 84 events across 66 days, more than a quarter of all his public events during that period and events where the construction projects came up. He's talked more about the projects than topics such as the economy and immigration. It's very clear he is obsessed. I wonder, as you followed the numbers, if it gave you a sense of who or where inside the administration is actually executing on the president's vision of a reimagined Washington, D.C. in his image.
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Sarah Blaskey
I mean, that's absolutely right. What we understand from our reporting is that this is a topic that consumes a lot of the president's attention. He has certainly participated in some of these negotiations himself, you know, negotiating the price of concrete for a helipad or whatnot. And so I think it's A remarkable demonstration of his priorities. And I think what he has done and what his administration has done is basically align everyone to his will, his goals and his priorities around these projects. And what we can see from our reporting is that people are working behind the scenes to make it happen as quickly as possible and as creatively as possible. Frankly, the normal way to proceed with these kind of projects is to go to Congress and ask for money, say this is what we want to build, this is what we want to repair at the White House. And then Congress debates it and provides money and funding. And that isn't what happened in this case. Instead, people within the administration kind of pieced together the money is the way I would describe it, from donors, but also primarily from taxpayers, from other pools of money that Congress had initially put into or had appropriated for things that, you know, may or may not have been the White House ground, but certainly wasn't these projects in particular, the administration did go to Congress or, you know, the President's allies on the Hill went to Congress and said that they wanted $400 million for security related things for these projects. And, and that was denied. That was turned away. They were unable to pass that bill. And so what we actually see in some of the records is then after that a transfer is made, money that had been for that Secret Service fund for training and recruiting. In part that money then gets rerouted towards the White House maintenance account that they are paying for these projects through cooking the books.
- [15:41]
Alicia Menendez
Who could have guessed, Scott? I mean, listen, here's the thing which is this is all on its own and on its face be bad. The fact that it is happening at a time where inflation remains high, where people are feeling the pain at the pump, where you have credit card debt on the rise because people can't afford basic necessities with the cash that they have. And yet you have the President of the United States who campaigned in large part on a promise to be laser like, focused on the economy, spending almost a billion dollars on vanity projects. He is telegraphing to the American people what his true priorities are.
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Scott McFarlane
I was on the campaign trail today in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a battleground U.S. house race. The Democratic candidate there, Janelle Stelson, was talking about housing costs, can't afford to buy a house in Pennsylvania right now. If you're a young person, that's a problem. She's mixing it in though, that message with where are the President's priorities? How is he spending our money? And to Sarah's point, the President said this was going to be free to taxpayers this is like the worst dinner date ever where they say I'm going to treat you. Instead they buy the lobster and the steak and the baked Alaska and they say you're paying for it. This doesn't work politically and I'm not sure it's going to work in the long term, even for Republicans who like the idea of these projects.
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Alicia Menendez
Sarah Blaskey, Scott McFarlane, thank you both so much for bringing us your incredible reporting. We are so grateful. Donald Sherman, I'm going to ask you to stick with us because when we return, it's extraordinary. Corrupt and unconstitutional. That's how a brand new lawsuit against Donald Trump. Trump describes his social media company and how they are selling advance access to his market moving posts. That lawsuit against Trump is our next story. Also had a major defeat for Donald Trump's plans to seize control of the midterm elections and a big win for the pro democracy movement. We're going to tell you how a judge ruled on a key make or break issue heading into this November. And later, outrage over ICE was already Scottish high. Now there's new a new ICE plan to equip agents with special gloves that can deliver painful electrical shocks during arrests. That is actually happening in the United States of America. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Stay with us. Extraordinary corrupt and unconstitutional is how the new feature of truth Social where individuals can pay extra for early access to the president's post is described in a new lawsuit filed today. Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press organization are suing Donald Trump over the new service. The suit says this scheme is profoundly corrupt. The president stands to gain financially by giving market moving government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company. Want to bring in legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance. She is now a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law. Plus writer and editor for Protect Democracy, Amanda Carpenter is here. Donald Sherman is still with us. His group crew brought the lawsuit trying to stop Donald Trump from profiting off advance access to his post. Donald, tell me about this suit.
- [18:48]
Donald Sherman
Well, once again the president is selling access. This time it relates to market moving information which include true social posts from the president and other government officials that that have a significant impact on our economy and on small investors. More importantly for our clients, the Intercept and the Free Press Foundation. Granting this kind of preferential access to the president's public statements to paid subscribers violates their First Amendment rights which guarantee Americans equal access to the president's public announcements. Then it also violates the Fifth Amendment which prohibits the government from imposing extortionate or unreasonable conditions on the availability of government benefits. And I think having to pay $100,000 per month to quickly access the president's official statements certainly qualifies as that.
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Alicia Menendez
Joyce, I believe that you and I were on maybe a week or two ago when this news came out, and I said to you, how is this legal? And you're like, I'm not sure that it is. Of the arguments that are being made in this suit, which do you think is most likely to persuade a judge?
- [20:03]
Narrator/Announcer
Well, all of them. For exactly the reasons, you know, that we just pointed out. In any other universe, this whole scenario would be laughable. The idea that a president would sell access to market moving information, which is how they advertise this, there's reporting that they've already got 10 subscribers, so they're making about a million dollars a month off of this already. It's insane. And so crew, when they call it profoundly corrupt in their complaint, they hit the nail on the head. There are legitimate first and fifth amendment claims here, both free speech, free access claims, as well as the equal protection claims. I would expect to see a judge rule that this is unconstitutional for all of the above reasons.
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Alicia Menendez
So, Amanda, a question that I have occasion to ask you more often than I would like, where is the outrage, particularly on the part of Republicans, of corruption that is just happening out in the open?
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Amanda Carpenter
Well, you don't see it from his MAGA defenders in Congress, unfortunately. But I do think this is one of those stories where people saw it, they instinctively knew there was something wrong with that. I think the suit is definitely strong and first amendment and fifth amendment grounds. But on the conflict of interest angle, the idea that a president is making a commercially viable product off his public speech that is supposed to be in the public interest. He created his own network. He is not using official government channels which everybody has equal access to. He created a private social media channel that he is selling access to off his public speech. I mean, people know there's something wrong with that. You shouldn't be able to monetize the presidency in this kind of fashion. He is making the policy and also profiting off the policy. And this is just such a brazen instance of it, I think you can see in other arenas, but especially when it comes to this, when he is making policy statements and then making money personally off those statements, it's particularly outrageous.
- [22:05]
Alicia Menendez
Well, especially because there sort of can be a relationship that moves both ways.
- [22:10]
Amanda Carpenter
Right.
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Alicia Menendez
Where there is an incentive on his part to begin to calculate some of his policies based on the way in which they move the markets down. Can you give us a sense of timeline here? What happens next with this suit?
- [22:24]
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- [22:39]
Donald Sherman
Well, the next thing that happens is that the president and the other defendants in the case have to respond. Certainly, we would look, we look forward to this case moving forward as quickly as possible. But I think, as the other panelists said, this is not complex and you don't need to be an ethics expert or a legal expert to understand the issues here. The problem with the president selling access to his public statements, which are in fact, government records. And so we are hopeful that the court will move quickly and certainly we're going to use all of legal tools at our disposal to move this case along as quickly as we can so that we can get resolution on behalf of our clients and so that this corrupt scheme that the president has orchestrated with his private business is unwound.
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Alicia Menendez
One of the things I have trouble wrapping my mind around, Joyce, given that this is not my area of expertise, is that we are talking about milliseconds and that milliseconds in this case can amount to millions. Can you give us just a sense of the size and scale of the corruption, even if it is only 10 who are currently subscribed to the service?
- [24:05]
Narrator/Announcer
You know, the number of subscribers may seem small, but it's absolutely immense when you think about the kind of information this president traffic graphics in on social media. There's no way of knowing how he might evolve into this new profit model and continue to monetize the presidency. But there are all sorts of decisions, perhaps some that impact the prediction markets, that have cropped up around political decisions. But perhaps, and I think more on the darker side of the equation, decisions about military movement, decisions about policy changes, decisions about what companies might be getting contracts in what area of government. The real problem here is it's absolutely unbounded in scope in terms of what the president might choose to reveal and who might then have for pay access to it.
- [24:57]
Alicia Menendez
Donald Sherman, thank you so much for being with us. Please continue to come and join us as this all unfolds. Joyce Vance, Amanda Carpenter, I'm going to ask you both to stick around. When we return, a major victory for the pro democracy movement and a big defeat for Donald Trump's plans to take over the midterm elections. How a federal Judge ruled on mail in voting. After a quick break, A federal judge is expanding an already massive loss for Donald Trump's assault on the midterm elections and who he thinks should vote by mail. District Judge Indira Talwani is now banning the US Postal Service from carrying out key parts of Trump's executive order in all 50 states, adding to her previous ban on the 23 states that sued. In his order, Trump directed states to send the Postal Service a list of voters wanting to vote by mail and for the Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots to or from voters not on a pre approved list. In her latest ruling expanding the ban nationwide, Judge Talwani says, quote, that is now less than 90 days before the midterm elections, underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election. She adds that, quote, the federal government has declined to defend the constitutionality of the executive order's directives and provided the court with no, quote, declarations or evidence to suggest that mail in voting has resulted in voting by noncitizens. We are back with Joyce and with Amanda. Joyce, your reaction to the fact that this ban against Trump's order is now nationwide. How significant is that?
- [26:39]
Narrator/Announcer
It's incredibly significant because it does precisely what the Supreme Court has always directed courts to do. That's to avoid any changes in election procedures and policies so close to an election that voters get confused. So this decision seems to be heartland, and I know people will want to make a lot about the fact that the decision is now nationwide in light of the Supreme Court's recent rejection of nationwide injunctions. That's not what's happening here. Previously, this order that Judge Talwani had issued covered only states whose attorneys general had sued. But this is a separate case brought by plaintiffs like the League of Women Voters who operate nationwide, which is why the ban on Trump's executive order is now operating on a nationwide basis.
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Alicia Menendez
Amanda, this is like a really sharply worded ruling. And one of the things that I appreciated from Judge Talwani, which was like, you haven't proven that there's actual harm here, right? There's no there there. Which you and I are not attorneys, but we knew that going in because this is a solution in search of a problem on the part of the Trump administration.
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Amanda Carpenter
Not only is there no there, there, there is no rule according to the Constitution for the federal government to oversee or engage in election administration, much less. But the U.S. postal Service in charge of maintaining these lists. I mean, Donald Trump has been adamant at a national voting takeover by issuing the executive order in which he attempted to have the federal government do these things, admonishing the Republican Congress to pass the SAVE act, which the Republican Congress did not do because it was unconstitutional, because it was unworkable, and because there was no reason to engage in this kind of election takeover. And then his Department of Justice has been suing the states to try to get voter data access and is 0 for 21 in those cases. So this is a loser up and down for all the reasons that we stated. But that does not mean that Donald Trump is going to stop trying. Like, this is great news. It is great to have this so explicitly stated so that we can have things in place going into the election. But you know he's going to direct that attention elsewhere. He's flirting around with invoking some kind of national emergency, even though there is nothing in the laws that Congress created for national emergencies that would allow him to engage in election takeovers. But he's going to keep pushing this button. So it is, it is a huge victory for the pro democracy democracy community because everyone seems to be speaking with one voice on this issue, right? From all the courts, from the Republicans, even the Republicans in Congress who usually defend him, saying that the SAVE act is not something we're going to go forward with. This is a huge step in the right direction.
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Alicia Menendez
Well, to the point, Joyce, about how he keeps pressing the button, you can almost hear, or maybe I'm incepting this, but the irritation in Judge Tewani's ruling where she writes the court has already answered and will again resolve the question clearly and affirmatively, the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections. I mean, in addition to sort of speaking specifically to the EO as it relates to the usps, there's also a bigger statement here about the fact that whether it is him on Real America's Voice saying yeah, maybe I will do will declare a national emergency or the actual executive orders coming out of this White House, he does not have the authority over federal elections that he claims to have.
- [30:08]
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- [30:22]
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- [30:39]
Narrator/Announcer
He doesn't and he can't somehow by an executive order change The Constitution. He's already learned that in other contexts. So I think you're right when you say Judge Talwani has a little bit of, at least, least frustration, probably irritation when she issues this decision. And the important point to make here is that constitutionally, Congress does play some role in national elections. They are allowed to set some laws that issue national standards, for instance, the Voting Rights Act. But when it comes to the executive, for exactly the reasons that Donald Trump has put on full display here, the president have a role interfering in elections. The president doesn't determine who can vote and who can't vote, which is what this executive order tries to do. So I would expect this result to be affirmed on appeal. The Trump administration is certain to try to get a different read at the Court of Appeals and from the Supreme Court. But this is a solid opinion.
- [31:38]
Alicia Menendez
Wade, just stick on that point about the Supreme Court, because we're still waiting on whether they're going to rule on the initial ruling. Does this ruling from Judge Tawani make that more complex change anything in regards to the Supreme Court?
- [31:53]
Narrator/Announcer
This is already complex because there are so many lawsuits challenging the variety of Trump executive orders on voting that I've literally lost count. I think that there are three on this provision alone. So the Supreme Court and Judge Talwani, to some extent, by the way, has combined them. The court may well issue a global ruling rather than be piecemeal. But remember that this is going to the Supreme Court on the notorious shadow docket, where they'll make procedural rulings about the legitimacy of injunctions rather than deciding substantive issues fully briefed on the merits, which is, of course, a process that many Supreme Court observers continue to complain about. Some Supreme Court justices seem less than thrilled with that process. The question here, I think, is less how the Supreme Court will rule. It's very likely that Judge Talwani gets affirmed. It's whether they'll deliver reasoning and whether they, too, will tell Donald Trump no firmly, or whether this will just be one of those oblique procedural rulings off of the shadow docket that comes back without an explanation.
- [32:59]
Alicia Menendez
You know, Amanda, I've heard a wide variety of analysis as it relates to why there's Republican pushback on the Save America Act. Some folks say that it's just because it's not not politically popular. Other folks say that there are Republicans who actually believe that it would damage voters in their own party and in their own base who either do not have voter ID or in the case of something like what we're watching with this EO who do vote by mail. I mean, it seems so disconnected from their understanding of how members of their own party engage with our democracy.
- [33:34]
Amanda Carpenter
See, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why I think it ultimately wasn't successful. Even though was tremendous pressure coming from the White House in order to get it passed. I mean they're even talking about nuking the filibuster to do it. There's a big push on that. But largely it just is not workable. I mean, listen, there's a lot of appetite among the Republican base and even broader for things like voter id. There are a lot of people that buy into the conspiracies that did not buy into the SAVE Act. But when it came down, I think at the end of the day it was not feasible or workable to set up some kind of nationwide mail in voter base maintained by the post office, possibly with information that was compiled by dhs. When it comes to citizenship verification and things like that, there was too many steps and let alone setting it up on something like three months notice before the election with untested technology vendors, etc, I just think even for people that, that may have been interested in accomplishing these directives, it just was not going to be feasible at the end of the day. Which is why I don't think this issue is going away after the midterms. For, for that reason, but also for context, Donald Trump is talking about invoking a national emergency because the SAVE act was not passed. Like this is going to lay the groundwork for the conspiracies and lies going into the midterms and ahead where he is going to go the public and has been going to the public really since June saying because we don't have these alleged safeguards there fraud. And then I will have reason to
- [35:01]
Alicia Menendez
take action later sowing those seeds of doubt early and often. Joyce Vance, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Amanda, I'm going to ask you to stay with us because the headlines are hard to believe how ICE is planning to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money on gloves that deliver painful electric shocks. The latest on that story and the growing outrage around it is next. There is growing outrage over an alarming announcement by the Trump administration now planning to equip ICE agents with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks. For months, ICE officers have been criticized for their violent use of force, the deaths of two Americans and little accountability. But according to the government's notice first reported by The Associated Press, ICE plans to spend up to $20 million in taxpayer funds to purchase thousands of the gloves, which are marketed as distraction and de escalation devices, have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments. Want to bring in senior fellow for the American Immigration Council, Dara Lind. Amanda is still with us. Dara, your reaction to this announcement?
- [36:12]
Dara Lind
I mean, it's very funny that Amanda was just talking about the difficulty of, you know, implementing the SAVE act, even if it were going to be passed because of the difficulty of working with vendors who are inexperienced. This is a small company with a 5 million doll budget right now that's being asked to fulfill a $20 million contract. It speaks to the fact that this is. ICE and DHS have so much money right now. Congress gave them a tremendous amount in the OBBA last year and then gave them another $70 billion this year. The amount of money that ICE is working with is something like 11 times its 2025 budget. It's so, so much money. You can kind of tell that they don't necessarily have strong feelings about how it's being spent, but it speaks to the lack of seriousness that they take the law enforcement part, that they are more afraid of the people who they might be interacting with on a daily basis than they are about, you know, actually keeping the communities safe that they're theoretically supposed to be operating in.
- [37:10]
Alicia Menendez
Amanda, Dara is so smart, and one of the ways in which she is so smart is to frame this as a question of financing and resources. And I mean that in a few ways. One in which this Congress has absolutely turbocharged ICE and dhs. They have done that without specificity around what those funds were supposed to be used for. But it is amazing to me, the part of the argument this administration and other xenophobes have made around immigration is that somehow the reason the US Economy is as it is is because you have a bunch of undocumented folks here who are either taking jobs or using government resources. They've never been able to decide actually which side of that argument they're on. And now they are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on gloves. I mean, it just shows you how. How undisciplined, unfocused they are. And about the fact that this has never actually been about an economic imperative. It has been about changing the face and the composure of this country.
- [38:09]
Amanda Carpenter
I mean, yeah, the thing that's particularly abhorrent about all of this is that not only are they so flush with money, an agency that utterly does not deserve it in terms of the performances that they're churning out, but apparently they're so flush with money, they can buy gloves, gloves that are experimental in the way that they treat people, with utter inhumanity. Right. Like, in what case is it that an ICE agent has hands on a person and now needs electrified gloves to handle them with? We've all seen the videos of how these ICE agents handle people on the street. And like, I understand there, there's going to be immigration enforcement in America, it's not always going to look pretty, but the way that it has been conducted under the Trump administration, where you see these agents yelling at people, we've seen them shoot people in the street, streets, and now we're going to give them electric gloves. I mean, it's really one of those stories I had to look and read three or four times because it seems so inhumane on its face.
- [39:04]
Sarah Blaskey
Right.
- [39:04]
Alicia Menendez
Dara, DHS responded in a statement. Let me read that to you. It says, ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our offices in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country. And that, quote, ice is targeting the worst of the worst. The problem is that's not true. It has never been true. And what I think maybe has changed in the last few months is that the American people now fully understand that while they might have promised originally the worst of the worst, the aperture opened so rapidly then. Now we're just talking about moms and dads who they're encountering on the streets.
- [39:40]
Dara Lind
Right. I mean, the, the times when ICE agents have been especially violent and confrontational have been these moments of being in communities, being on street corners, which is exactly the sort of thing that we had historically been told ICE didn't want to do because they wanted to be dealing with criminals who had already been apprehended. They wanted to be doing pickups in jails and prisons. And while that was never a perfect proxy for people who were actually a danger to the community, it. The turn away from that really gives the lie to the idea that they're going after people who have serious criminal records, who pose a public safety threat, when they're just going. When they're just hanging out on street corners and, you know, getting aggressive with anyone who gets in there.
- [40:21]
Alicia Menendez
Dara, we have seen ICE confrontations turn deadly. Just this week in Virginia, there was video that appeared to show agents pointing a gun inside a vehicle after a woman who yelled at them while they were making an arrest. The agents accused her of nearly hitting them with her car. We have heard that before, but she wasn't even arrested. I mean, I'M old enough to remember a few weeks ago when all of a sudden there was reporting that Stephen Miller was being sidelined inside the White House because there was an understanding that his policies were unpopular and outrageous. I mean, but I think this is important. A reminder, both the gloves and the video we saw out of Virginia, they are still on American streets. They have not been deterred. This continues unabated.
- [41:04]
Dara Lind
There are actually more bookings into ICE detention in July than we had seen in any prior month under this administration. Most of the tactics they're using are a lot less visible and aggressive. They're just going to people's houses. But it's really important that people remember that it's not just, just the things that are being caught on video. It's all of the neighborhoods where people are already too scared to leave their houses, where they're going and picking people up and still putting them in detention and still putting them on deportation flights.
- [41:30]
Alicia Menendez
Yeah, I live in North Jersey. I follow a bunch of accounts that are tracking this. And every day there are ICE agents in our streets. Darland, Amanda Carpenter, thank you both so much for joining us today. We're going to take a quick break, then we'll be right back. Nicole's guest on this week's episode of the Best People podcast is the one and only Mark Elias. He is on the front lines of so many legal fights against attempts to suppress votes and subvert election outcomes. Take a listen to part of his conversation with Nicole.
- [42:04]
Mark Elias
You could make the argument that right now the bravest people are the people with the least and the most cowardly people are the people with the most. And, and I'm sure there is some sociological reason why that's the case, but it's pretty despicable. And what I try to remind folks when they call me privately and I get calls from them asking me either to lay off them or to understand their circumstance, what I say is that what their children and their grandchildren are going to remember about this era is not what merger acquisition got done or who owned cnn. What they're going to remember about this E is what we remember about all historical errors. Kind of the big arc. And the big arc is going to be the fight for democracy and what Donald Trump was threatening. And they're going to want to be remembered as someone who stood up in that moment and fought back, rather than they capitulated and made a little more money and bought another home.
- [43:05]
Alicia Menendez
That entire conversation is out now on YouTube. Just scan the QR code on your screen to watch the rest of it or listen by downloading wherever you get your potential podcasts. We're going to sneak in another break and we'll be right back. Thank you for spending part of this Wednesday with us. If you're not, Nicole will be back tomorrow. You can catch me for on the Line weekdays at noon Eastern.
- [43:38]
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