The Trump administration has not hired the best people to work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of them was arrested for sex trafficking as part of a three-day sting earlier this month.

The man is an auditor for ICE, and was one of 16 men arrested who were allegedly attempting to solicit a 17-year-old girl in Bloomington, Minnesota. The ICE employee, 41-year-old Alexander Steven Back, could face federal charges, said Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges at a news conference on Tuesday.

Back, a resident of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, responded to a fake online ad “offering prostitution services,” and wasn’t dissuaded when an undercover officer pretending to be 17 years old wrote, “U ok if I’m a lil younger than my ad says … just wanna be honest.”

“Sure,” Back responded, according to charging documents.

“K cause I am 17 and one guy got hella mad at me,” the undercover officer, going by the name “Bella,” replied.

“Bella” told Back that she was 17 a second time, and then gave him a Bloomington address, where police arrested him and took his phone.

“When he was arrested, he said, ‘I’m ICE, boys,’” Hodges said. “Well, unfortunately for him, we locked him up.”

Under the Trump administration, ICE’s hiring has become so haphazard that many people aren’t properly vetted, with some being turned away due to disqualifying criminal backgrounds or failed drug tests. Many end up being terminated because they don’t meet academic or physical standards. Back’s case seems to show that the agency is attracting the wrong kinds of people.

Indiana’s Senate has decided not to meet until January, signaling that redistricting will not be on the state’s legislative agenda this year.

The decision is in direct defiance of an order issued earlier this year by Donald Trump, who met privately with Indiana Republicans in August as part of a pressure campaign to maximize GOP House seats before the 2026 midterms.

The White House visits were, apparently, ineffective at changing the minds of state lawmakers. The issue came down to a 29–18 vote Tuesday, with 19 Republicans joining 10 Democrats to effectively adjourn until next year.

But the elected officials’ anticipated rebuke didn’t minimize the president’s gaze: Indiana Governor Mike Braun has remained in Trump’s hot seat so far this week. The two reportedly had a “good conversation” on Monday, in which Trump reiterated that he expected the state Senate to vote to draw up new maps.

“Unfortunately, Senator Rod Bray was forced to partner with DEMOCRATS to block an effort by the growing number of America First Senators who wanted to have a vote on passing fair maps,” Braun wrote in a statement after the vote. “Now I am left with no choice other than to explore all options at my disposal to compel the State Senate to show up and vote.

“I will support President Trump’s efforts to recruit, endorse, and finance primary challengers for Indiana’s senators who refuse to support fair maps,” he added.

The other half of Indiana’s Congress was not on the same page, however. House Speaker Todd Huston told state lawmakers to keep the first two weeks of December clear for a potential redistricting vote, reported the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

The White House’s intense focus on this issue illustrates just how nervous the GOP is about maintaining its razor-thin majority in Congress: Indiana holds nine seats in the U.S. House—seven of those are already held by Republicans.

Trump issued similar directives for a handful of other red states, including Missouri, Ohio, Florida, and Texas, though some of those redistricting efforts have also crumbled. After facing similar fire—including legal threats—from the Trump administration, a federal judge threw out Texas’s gerrymandered congressional maps earlier Tuesday, ruling that there was “substantial evidence” the state had “racially gerrymandered” its 2025 maps at the president’s direction.

If House Speaker Mike Johnson thought his buddy Senate Majority Leader John Thune would help hold up a measure to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, he was sorely mistaken.

The House voted 427–1 in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405) Tuesday. Shortly after, Thune sounded optimistic about advancing the effort to release a complete trove of documents on the alleged sex offender, who had ties to prominent figures such as President Donald Trump, through the Senate.

Thune said that the Senate would likely take up the petition “very quickly,” after Trump revealed he was “prepared” to sign it, according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett.

Thune acknowledged that Johnson hoped his colleagues in the Senate would amend the legislation but admitted that making changes “wasn’t likely” after the overwhelming support from the House.

That could spell bad news for Johnson. Earlier Tuesday, the staunch Trump ally said he was “very confident” that Thune and Senate Republicans would address his own laundry list of concerns about the resolution.

Alongside his supposed concerns about not protecting the identities of victims, or not adequately preventing the release of child sexual abuse materials, Johnson has also expressed fears that the release could potentially disclose “non-credible allegations” and risk “creating new victims.”

Representative Thomas Massie, the sole Republican co-sponsor of the resolution, dismissed Johnson’s so-called concerns as a “red herring” and warned they could simply be another “delay tactic.”

Donald Trump couldn’t handle a reporter asking about Jeffrey Epstein while he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday. 

ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump if the House of Representatives even needs to vote on releasing the Epstein files, when the president could just order the release of the files himself. That set Trump off.

“People are wise to your hoax, and ABC is, your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong. And we........

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