Report confirms Michigan residents doled out $4 million to out-of-state recipients
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he nominated Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to take over as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.“I am very pleased to announce that I have nominated Lance Schroyer to be our next ICE Director,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
President Donald Trump has nominated Lance Schroyer to become the next Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
President Trump nominated Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency hasn't had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration.
President Trump's carefully constructed vision for transforming the nation's capital is literally falling apart. The Great American State Fair, meant to showcase his grandiose architectural ambitions, has spiraled into a three-day disaster of musical acts boycotting, equipment failures, tiny crowds and now a deteriorating replica arch buckling under less-than-ideal weather conditions.According to New York Times reporting, the centerpiece of Trump's fair—a scaled-down version of his proposed 250-foot "Triumphal Arch"—is already showing signs of structural failure. The vinyl covering, stapled over a wood frame and emblazoned with "One Nation Under God," had begun "buckling" under the combined assault of high temperatures, humidity, and rain.The arch represents Trump's broader vision for the nation's capital: a planned White House ballroom, renovated golf courses, and the repainting and sealing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool – all of which have come under scrutiny and criticism.Three days into a 16-day event, Trump's showcase for his ambitions is becoming another debacle, with sparse attendance under a sweltering sun, power failures disabling the Ferris wheel for hours, and a cancelled concert by headliner Vanilla Ice with days still to run.Trump's opening performance set the tone. As the Times noted, "Trump gave a short campaign-style welcome speech on Wednesday before a thin crowd, asserting that in his second term he had brought back a country that was 'dead' under his predecessor."
Emmy Award-winning journalist Eric Flack of WUSA9, a CBS-affiliated D.C. news station, toured the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and found that the fair’s state exhibits ranged wildly in quality.Exhibits for Connecticut and Maine, for instance, were especially empty.“Connecticut and Maine are sharing a space and basically just put up some chairs and their state logos,” Flack said in a video he published Saturday on social media.Some states didn’t participate in helping craft their own state exhibits at all, Flack said. North Carolina’s exhibit, for instance, had no involvement from North Carolina officials, and instead was organized by the company that built tractor trailers for Freedom 250, the organization linked to President Donald Trump that organized the fair.“Their exhibit is a race car and some North Carolina potatoes,” Flack said, his video showing a small box of potatoes sitting on the ground.Some states saw above-average interest among attendees, such as Arizona’s, which featured a "black light star experience" and “free cactus pens.” Most state exhibits, however, were largely informational, Flack said.“Most of the rest of the states and territories just seemed to be using the Great American State Fair as a ‘great American visitors bureau,'” Flack said.Critics have also noted what appears to be small crowd sizes at the fair, officially started last Thursday but stumbled weeks earlier when performers pulled out after learning of the event’s ties to Trump, who went on to tout himself as a suitable replacement.President Trump wants all 50 states to show their pride at the Great American State Fair for #Freedom250 Here’s what we found when we visited their exhibits: pic.twitter.com/t6TvOhnrEp— Eric Flack (@EricFlackTV) June 27, 2026
Three days into the 16-day Great American State Fair organized by the President Donald Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the event is already “falling apart at the seams,” argued prominent liberal commentator and podcast host Adam Mockler on Saturday.“Just like everything else Donald Trump touches, this Great American Fair is falling apart at the seams,” Mockler said in a video published on social media Saturday. “We are at day three of his 16-day fair that is funded by our taxpayer dollars to the tune of $80 million, and it’s falling apart.”Critics have already noted what they say are small crowd sizes and near-empty exhibits, but several other issues appeared to plague the event within its first few days, including power failures that stalled a Ferris wheel and melted ice cream.“The exhibits are entirely empty, the fields have nobody in them. Even the main attraction, the Ferris wheel, ran out of power last night and was shut down all evening,” Mockler said. “We have melting ice cream, we have not enough tables so kids are being forced to eat on the ground. And on top of all of that, even some exhibits have a Confederate flag… I mean, it doesn’t really matter because they’re all empty anyway.”The Great American State Fair got off to a rough start weeks before opening to the public last Thursday after performing artists bailed on the event upon learning of its ties to Trump. The president would go on to attack the artists for “getting ‘the yips’” and floated himself as a suitable replacement for the musical acts.$80 million for this??? pic.twitter.com/jvBqQyo5Fy— Adam Mockler (@adammocklerr) June 27, 2026
Conservative lawmakers are stripping power from college faculty in a push for greater academic oversight.
Critics pounced on President Donald Trump Saturday after video emerged that appeared to show less-than-anticipated crowd sizes at the Great American State Fair.Organized by the Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the Great American State Fair officially got underway on Thursday, but had already stumbled weeks earlier when performers pulled out en masse after learning of its ties to Trump. In the wake of the mass exodus of artists, Trump floated himself as a suitable replacement.As of Saturday, the fair was described by The Atlantic’s Kelsey Ables as an event with “holograms, free Frosties and a lot of Donald Trump,” but its crowd sizes drew even more attention from countless political commentators.“I've seen more people at my local diner,” noted information technology expert Carl Sizelove, who runs the popular political commentary account “Badd Company” on X, in response to video of the fair that showed a sparsely populated National Mall.MeidasTouch reporter Aaron Parnas compared the fair to the infamous Fyre Festival, a 2017 music event that ended up as “the world’s biggest festival flop” and landed its creator behind bars. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) took the small crowds as a sign that “people aren’t very MAGA after all.”And Kyle Kulinski, a prominent progressive political commentator and podcast host, argued that the fair’s crowd sizes represented the United States’ deterioration under Trump.“We had a good run but clearly we didn't make it to 250,” Kulinski wrote Saturday in a social media post on X to his nearly 560,000 followers.Fyre Festival meets DC https://t.co/v7BPK344xj— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) June 27, 2026