Conservative sounds alarm on under-the-radar Trump move to pay off cops to assist ICE

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Raw Story

February 9, 2026 9:51AM ET


During an appearance on MS NOW Monday, conservative commentator Matt Lewis raised the prospect of Donald Trump taking over local police departments by paying them off to help out in rounding up immigrants.

Using his Substack column from Sunday as a jumping-off point, Lewis claimed the American public is likely unaware of a program in place that allows local cops to take part in a “Task Force Model” offered by the federal government to supplement and assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The federal government is reimbursing for the salaries and benefits (including perks like overtime and equipment) for these officers — a financial arrangement that raises the sort of eyebrow-arching questions usually reserved for lobbyists and free steak dinners," he wrote.

“The unspoken point here is that the person who pays you becomes your boss,” he insisted, while adding that there should be concerns about future elections. Speaking with the co-hosts of “Morning Joe,“ Lewis elaborated that the TFM program has existed for years, but it has exploded under Trump as his DHS agents invaded cities and forcefully started snatching people off the streets.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/ice-midterms/

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1. Buchanan County (VA.) Sheriff: the department netted $115,000 for vehicles and equipment, and more money for

the salaries of cops who worked the task force (the task force who helped with finding and apprehending people to deport). The sheriff "referred all questions to an ICE spokesperson (they never answered any of my questions)."
- Mother Jones March-April 2026, p. 24

The story features conditions in Grundy, in Buchanan County, a little town in southwestern Virginia right near where Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky all meet. For those who zoom in trying to find it, find the farthest east tip of Kentucky, and about 5 miles east of the border is Grundy.

Title of article:"He Thinks Our People Are Idiots." Trump betrayed the people of coal country. They love him anyway.

About how poor the people there are, on average, and how dependent on the programs that Trump is cutting. And how they rationalize it the way only goobers can.

DJT isn't even saving the coal jobs there -- the coal mined there is the type used for making steel, not for powering electric power generating plants. And DJT's tariff war with China (a 15% tariff on the coal) has meant China, which was the main customer for this coal, is not importing any. And DJT put the Biden silica rule on hold, which limited miners' exposure to silica dust, which causes the most severe forms of black lung disease.

Trump told Playboy magazine back in 1990:
"If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don't have the imagination -- or whatever -- to leave their mine. They don't have it." p. 22

In short, Hurley says, "He thinks our people are idiots".

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I sub to Mother Jones

Here's that article - Trump Has Betrayed the People of Coal Country. They Love Him Anyway.

That article mentions an article in The Atlantic 10 years ago about the same place - Life in the Sickest Town in America (gift link)

A lot of the problem with these people is that they think/imagine/fantasize that he "came from them" - i.e., "a poor boy who managed to "work hard", get rich, make it big, and reach the Presidency".

But 45 is nothing more than a nepo baby.

Anyone who lives in the NE knows his background but I suppose further south and west, all they knew was what they saw on his TV shows.

I do keep in mind that they also voted for a wealthy Rockefeller - Jay IV - as their Governor for 2 terms (8 years) and Senator for 5 terms (30 years). So I expect they view people like them as "benefactors".

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3. "I sub to Mother Jones" - I remembered that you did, I didn't want you to miss seeing that article

I'm now reading the one about how crazy northern Idaho is. p.36 IIRC.

I lived in the southeastern part of the state, in Idaho Falls, for a year, in 1975 (Gerald Ford was prez). I loved it (scenic, near the Snake River.). Fortunately back then it wasn't quite so intense politically, and I didn't get into the politics there at the time anyway, or with the "natives" except for one, and I don't remember any political conversations with her.

On one short plane trip, I sat next to my U.S. House representative, according to a label on his brief case. We didn't converse.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. MJ sends out daily (sometimes a couple times per day) emails

So I did see that. They sent one mentioning that article last Friday (2/6/26)

Mother Jones Daily Newsletter
 

February 6, 2026

I remember the weeks following January 20, 2025, as a blur of story drafts, phone calls, and panic on the Mother Jones team covering gender and LGBTQ issues. Almost every other day, President Trump signed another decree targeting the transgender community, from schools to doctor’s offices to the military. The bombardment started with one foundational executive order laying out narrow definitions of “male” and “female.” It reduced transgender existence to “ideology” and women and men to egg- and sperm-producers.

Once I could finally catch my breath, I decided to start reporting on where these definitions, and the effort to enshrine them in law and policy, came from. That’s how I found out about May Mailman.

Mailman, a former Trump administration lawyer and policy strategist, is sort of like the Stephen Miller of Trump’s gender policy. To write the sex-definitions executive order, she adapted state legislation known as the Women’s Bill of Rights, which was in turn produced by an unlikely alliance between a powerful conservative interest group called the Independent Women’s Forum and a fringe group of radical feminists who do not believe trans women should be treated as women.

As I delved deeper, I started to hear warnings. The effort to enshrine a narrow legal definition of sex has mostly been discussed as an attack on trans rights. But its potential consequences could be much broader, feminist legal experts told me—upending 50 years of progress fighting sex discrimination.

The term “biological sex,” says legal historian Mary Ziegler, has become “the new takedown strategy for anti-discrimination law.”

—Madison Pauly

(snip)

When Jeffrey Epstein was the world’s leading expert on getting away with it

BY ANNA MERLAN
 

One protest after another: images from Portland's resistance

BY RIAN DUNDON
 

Testing Kristi Noem's transparency claim

BY RACHEL DE LEON


Trump has betrayed the people of coal country. They love him anyway.

“He thinks our people are idiots.”

BY STEPHANIE MENCIMER

(snip)

The one thing that I think about regarding Idaho (aside from potatoes) was the fact that portions of "Star Trek: Generations" (1994) were filmed there. That was the movie when Kirk first met Picard.