Trump News

Newly confirmed Department for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is running into a buzzsaw since leaving the Senate and ground zero for him is in a tiny town in Pennsylvania where Donald Trump is massively popular.

According to the New York Times, Tremont, Pennsylvania — a deep-red town of just 2,000 people in Trump territory where the president won 70 percent of the vote — is mounting fierce resistance to a proposed 7,500-person DHS detention facility that would dwarf the entire community.

"Across the country, the plans to convert warehouses into detention spaces have been met with fierce local blowback, even in deep-red areas, like Tremont, that have backed Mr. Trump," the Times is reporting.

The rebellion is coming from Trump's own supporters. Republican Mayor Justin Moeller estimates that 60 percent of his constituents oppose the facility. Former Mayor Roger Adams, now on the borough council, rejected the federal government's take-it-or-leave-it approach:

"Don't just throw it in our backyard and say, 'This is where it is, now you got to deal with it.' That's not the way I do business."

The concerns are fundamentally local, not ideological. Residents worry about overwhelming water, sewer, healthcare, and emergency response systems. They fear losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost property tax revenue — money that would normally fund schools and municipal services.

The federal government pays no local property taxes. Though the warehouse was previously unused, the owner was still contributing to the tax base. A detention center would change that calculus entirely.

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) has vowed to weaponize state authority against the project. "Every tool at my disposal" will be used to stop it, including withholding essential permits if DHS doesn't comply with state environmental laws, Shapiro declared at a February news conference.

Notably, local Republican leaders are taking a convenient neutral stance, letting Shapiro do the heavy lifting while privately sharing the same reservations. "If the governor thinks he can stop it, that's on the governor's level," said Larry Padora, a Republican county commissioner. "My job is to make sure that if this facility comes here, that my residents and my taxpayers aren't left holding the bag."

DHS under Mullin has provided virtually no detailed planning. Despite state demands for information about water supply, healthcare, and sewage systems for 7,500 detainees, the agency has released almost nothing — leaving the community guessing about the facility's actual impact.

With an eye on his own political future, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has an opportunity to graduate from a thorn in Donald Trump’s side to a roadblock halting some of the president’s key policies in their tracks.

According to Politico's Jordain Carney, Paul's fellow Republicans are racing to pass aggressive immigration enforcement legislation, but Paul — a perennial maverick who has repeatedly defied Trump on tariffs, the Iran war, and fiscal spending — is in position to upend their plans.

"Rand generally votes no," Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said in an interview, capturing Paul's reputation as Washington's most reliable contrarian.

Paul secured his committee chairmanship by seniority rather than Republican confidence. His colleagues would never have voluntarily placed this fiscal hawk in position to shape immigration enforcement policy — but here he is, with real power.

The Republican establishment already has history with Paul's obstruction. The Politico report notes, "It was Paul’s spending-hawk tendencies that got him sidelined by the White House and his GOP colleagues last year as they sought to wrap up the party’s tax-cuts-focused megabill."

The funding gap was enormous. Paul proposed $6.5 billion for building the border wall, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pitched $46.5 billion. Graham proposed $45 billion for ICE detention facilities, roughly twice what Paul proposed. Graham dismissed Paul's lower funding level as "shallow," and committee members said Paul hadn't even consulted with them.

But Paul's track record of principled opposition gives him credibility now. He was the only Republican to oppose Markwayne Mullin's nomination as Homeland Security secretary, arguing Mullin lacked the temperament for the job. After federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January, Paul raised pointed concerns about Trump's immigration enforcement tactics.

Some say Paul is also eyeing a 2028 presidential run, positioning himself as the GOP alternative to Trump's expansion of federal power — a move that makes obstructing Trump legislation politically advantageous rather than risky.

Paul has already warned he won't support including Iran war funding in any reconciliation bill. On immigration enforcement, he remains strategically noncommittal about the June 1 deadline, suggesting he's preserving his options.