Heart & Soul Conversation #15……A Beautiful and Fun Friday in the Neighborhood

When former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security, he stated that his key goal was that "we’re not in the lead story every single day.”

According to Jonathan Derbyshire of the Financial Times, he has failed utterly in this goal, as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement killings have continued to generate public outrage, and DHS has continued to skirt all accountability for it.

Multiple ICE agents were involved in shooting deaths in the past few weeks in Texas and Maine. Shortly after, "ICE suspended vehicle stops in the wake of the shootings," with border czar Tom Homan calling it a "short pause just to make sure we're doing the right thing" — only for Trump to decree the pause over hours later on Truth Social.

Part of the issue for Mullin, said the report, is that he has done little to change the toxic hiring culture at the agency that is setting ICE up for abuses of power. "In January, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had hired more than 12,000 officers and agents in less than a year and that it had received 'more than 220,000 applications to join ICE from patriotic Americans'" noted the report — but an Associated Press investigation suggests "many of those applying, and indeed a significant number of those who ended up getting hired, were unsuitable for the job."

Ultimately, Derbyshire continued, Mullin could end up falling from favor just as his predecessor Kristi Noem did — and the president's move to countermand the ICE traffic stop pause could be the first signs of it.

"Mullin would do well to remember that in this White House, presidential loyalty and support is a scarce and finite resource," he concluded.

Final whistle. After six weeks, that’s a wrap on our World Cup coverage and live analysis — tracking not the goals and games, but the power plays, political battles and geopolitical stakes shaping the tournament. Thanks for following along.

A political correspondent flagged Trump's "Hunger Games-style" competition as auditions began for kids who will compete.

During an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, Farrah Tomazin wrapped a conversation about Trump's D.C. beautification projects and spectacles, like the Great American State Fair, by pointing to the next big events he has planned in the nation's capital.

Even though July 4 has passed, "more America 250 spectacles are going on very soon," like an Indy car race and an event Trump is calling the "Patriot Games." It involves bringing together kids from around the country to compete against each other.

"Keep your eye out for this," Tomazin said about the Patriot Games. "It's essentially a Hunger Games-style event."

She was evoking the famous Hunger Games franchise from books and movies, where kids from a dystopian world fight to the death.

"This will not include death and destruction or the like," Tomazin said about the Patriot Games. "But it's basically getting kids from different schools to compete in the nation's capital for a made-for-TV ESPN spectacle."

According to Tomazin, "auditions" to recruit kids to compete in the Patriot Games are "going on at the moment," and the Trump-backed Freedom 250, which organized the Great American State Fair, has "called for auditions where you have to provide an audition tape."

She also compared it to America's Got Talent, the reality competition show, as kids "have to provide them with an audition tape to talk about yourself and how much you love the country, and then you'll get to go to the nation's capital and compete in some sort of Patriot Games."