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President Donald Trump's newly-minted Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, vowed on Wednesday morning to find nearly half a million "unaccounted for" kids, based on an internet conspiracy theory that misinterpreted a number about migrant minors.

We're setting up a special department that's going over especially kids," Mullin told Newsmax's Rob Schmitt. "There was roughly 450,000 kids that are unaccountable, or unaccounted for under the Biden administration."

The unrelenting flow of statements about the state of the war with Iran, with positions and plans changing from hour to hour depending on who is speaking, has the White House “flailing” to come up with a coherent message for a deeply skeptical US populace, according to analysts.

On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was on Truth Social claiming the end of war is at hand, which Iran immediately disputed, less than 24 hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the war is already over.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett crowed about "through the roof" credit card spending on higher-priced gasoline.

During a Wednesday interview on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo noted that President Donald Trump had "paused" Project Freedom, an attempt to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz despite a threat from Iran.

A superclip of Donald Trump in the Oval Office jumping from topic to topic — some of them inappropriate — while surrounded by children, drew amused and incredulous looks from the co-hosts of “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning.

It left co-host Mika Brzezinski sputtering and almost speechless.

Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul admitted he was startled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the war with Iran over at a time when hostilities continued and no agreement is in place in particular with regard to future nuclear capabilities.

Speaking with the hosts of “Morning Joe,” McFaul noted Rubio’s remark that “The Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. I'm not going to, you know - we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the president would prefer is a deal.”

An offhand comment about the war in Iran by Vice President JD Vance during a speech in Iowa on Tuesday set off a chorus of harsh criticism on MS NOW on Wednesday morning.

The vice president spoke at a manufacturing facility during a rally to boost the candidacy of Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst (R) and, while downplaying the economic devastation being visited on US consumers by the war, he awkwardly admitted, "We also know that a lot of our farmers are struggling with high fertilizer prices. I'm aware of that. As the president of the United States has said, we got a little blip in the Middle East. We gotta take care of some business on the foreign policy side."

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco squirmed Tuesday night in a televised California gubernatorial debate after denying a past remark attributed to him, only to ultimately concede that he had likely said it when pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“You've actually had some harsh words for your fellow Republican [GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton]; you've called him 'unethical' and 'dishonest,' and said that he is trying to 'manipulate Californians' and 'swindle his way into the Republican side,'" Collins said. “Are you saying that you don't think Republican voters can trust Mr. Hilton?”

Republicans may have gerrymandered themselves into a blue wave, according to a legal analyst.

President Donald Trump boasted last week that Republicans could remain in power for 50 years if they could get rid of the Senate filibuster, and legal analyst Michael Propok said that public statement revealed an alarming truth about GOP intentions now that the Supreme Court had cleared the way to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority has quietly abandoned one of its own legal doctrines — and it did so in the middle of an ongoing election, in the dead of night, and without explanation, according to two lawyers.

The so-called Purcell principle, which the Court has invoked repeatedly over the past several years to protect the rights of minority voters, holds that state legislatures cannot change their election maps when an election is too close. But that principle was just thrown out the door in Louisiana v. Callais, according to legal experts Marc Elias and Joyce Vance.

President Donald Trump's latest glitch at a small-business event stunned a political analyst on Tuesday.

On May 4, Trump attended a small business event in the East Room at the White House, accompanied by Kelly Loeffler, his Small Business Administration secretary. During the event, Trump appeared to nod off while Loeffler was speaking, and at one point looked like he was sleeping while standing up, according to political analyst David Pakman.

President Donald Trump's legacy hinges on an issue he has no interest in addressing, according to one of his biographers.

Journalist Michael Wolff argued during a new episode of the "Inside Trump's Head" podcast, co-hosted by Nico Hines, the Daily Beast’s global editorial director, that Trump's war in Iran is shaping up to end a lot like the oil crisis that plagued former President Jimmy Carter long after he left office. Wolff noted that Americans have become increasingly sensitive to rising gas prices resulting from the war, similar to the crisis Carter faced when the former Iranian regime fell, he added.