View the full interview here. 

Sen. Schiff: “We wanted to go through DHS’s contracting records and document just how much they’re spending to militarize this new police force, this palace guard of the president’s that is wreaking such havoc in our cities. And we found dramatic increases in spending on weapons.”

February 28, 2026 - Washington, DC – On Thursday,  U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his new oversight report exposing the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) multi-million-dollar surge in spending and contracts to amass deadly weapons and ammunition since the start of the second Trump administration.  

Schiff also warned about massive amounts of waste and fraud as the Trump administration continues to fund and militarize the administration’s unchecked immigration enforcement.

Key excerpts: 

On the key findings in Schiff’s ICE and CBP weapons report:  

[…] We wanted to go through DHS’s contracting records and document just how much they’re spending to militarize this new police force, this palace guard of the president’s that is wreaking such havoc in our cities. And we found dramatic increases in spending on weapons. As you said, ICE agents will be equipped with now three to four times the amount of weapons as the previous year, Customs and Border Protection [is] doubling their expenditure on the same. And I think what we’re seeing is a dangerous combination of a much more heavily armed immigration law enforcement complex. 

At the same time, we heard whistleblower testimony this week that they cut the training for these new ICE agents, and they’re getting inadequate training on when to use these weapons and how to use these weapons. That is a really dangerous mix. And we wanted to sound the alarm with this report that we’re seeing the emergence of a kind of law enforcement or immigration enforcement industrial complex, because it’s not just the weapons. We’re seeing dramatic increases in expenditures on detention centers they want to build around the country. And this has a way of gathering its own momentum, and we need to be aware of what’s happening, that we’re building a not small army now that’s going to be policing American streets. 

On the massive amounts of money spent to fund the administration’s unchecked immigration enforcement efforts:  

[…] We’re broadening our look at what DHS is doing, because I think undoubtedly, we are going to find just massive amounts of waste and fraud. We’re going to find no bid contracting by DHS, that the beneficiaries of which are friends of Kristi Noem and friends of Corey Lewandowski. We have thrown so much money at DHS in that Big Ugly Bill, just billions and billions and billions of dollars that you know they are going to rush to spend, that it is just a feeding frenzy. 

And so, there’s undoubtedly going to be, over time, the exposure of massive amounts of insider deals. This is just the beginning. This is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of what ICE and DHS and border protection are spending. Who is going to get the contracts when contracts are going to be set in a matter of hours without real competition? Undoubtedly, the graft, like in other parts of this Trump administration will be profound. 

On the Trump administration’s corrupt federal contracting and abuse of the pardon:  

[…] We’re already seeing the pardons that are being given out by the president to people that have donated to him or donated to his Inaugural Committee or this or that or are represented by close friends of the president that are managing to get pardons. So, pardons seem effectively for sale. In, the Gulf, I think our national security is for sale to the highest bidder that will invest the most in the Trump family crypto currencies. We’re seeing, I think, really throughout the federal government, at the Justice Department, for example, whether it’s Bondi’s family cutting deals, antitrust cases going away. It is just like a corrupt feeding frenzy, with everyone trying to grab as much as they can, knowing that they’re just going to have three more years to do this. And they need to get while the getting is good. 

Source: Senator Adam Schiff