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Mike Hixenbaugh

@mikehixenbaugh.com
28K followers 1K following 1K posts

NBC News senior reporter | Author of THEY CAME FOR THE SCHOOLS | Co-creator of SOUTHLAKE & GRAPEVINE podcasts | Retired t-ball coach www.mikehixenbaugh.com

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The government's retreat on Olmstead is significant. This story tells the complete story of how it came to be. Yes, it requires a subscription. Please give it a read if you're able www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...
nbcnews.com
How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights
After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The administration’s abrupt turn against Olmstead appears to trace back to one of President Donald Trump’s central fixations since his return to office: aesthetics and cleanliness in the nation’s capital. It began after Trump complained about unsightly tent encampments along his motorcade route...
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
To understand how the Trump administration reached this decision and its impacts, we interviewed five people familiar with internal discussions and a half-dozen former DOJ officials. Reporters also reviewed court filings and internal White House talking points prepared for the June meeting.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
In Florida, the Justice Department is seeking to roll back a court order it won to keep medically fragile children out of nursing homes. In Texas, the department walked away from a 16-year lawsuit aimed at helping people with developmental disabilities live in their communities.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The fallout has already begun. Since issuing the memo, the Justice Department has abandoned or weakened at least five investigations, lawsuits or settlement agreements rooted in Olmstead. This goes well beyond the administration's stated goal of forcing homeless people into treatment.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The 39-page DOJ opinion took a sledgehammer to that ruling. The June memo declared that states had no federal civil rights obligation to help disabled people stay in their homes through programs that millions of Americans rely on to live independently or to care for their loved ones.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
Hailed by lawyers and activists as the “Brown v. Board of Education of the disability rights movement,” the 1999 Olmstead ruling said that disabled people had a right to be integrated into their communities — not forced apart from society in institutions marred by a history of abuse and neglect.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The meeting with advocates and conservative think tank leaders came two days before the Trump administration did exactly what Miller's aide previewed: The DOJ issued a sweeping legal opinion repudiating decades of federal disability policy rooted in the landmark Supreme Court ruling Olmstead v. L.C.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
“I really cannot support this,” Dwyer, an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, recalled telling Wasserman. “You’re talking about forcing people into institutional settings.” He later told me: "I'm not sure how I got invited."
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
Hugo Dwyer, one of those seated around the wooden conference table, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The strategy described by Miller’s aide threatened to roll back decades of progress in the disability rights movement — all to serve Trump's demands to clear homeless encampments in U.S. cities
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
Scoop: At a secret meeting this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out Trump administration's plan to make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people — by pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.
nbcnews.com
How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights
After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
Not everyone at the secret White House meeting was on board with the plan to dismantle a cornerstone of the disability rights movement. “They pretty much thought that I was going to be on board with what they were doing,” one attendee told me. “I’m not sure how I got invited.”
nbcnews.com
How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights
After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
The fallout has already begun. In Florida, DOJ is seeking to roll back a court order it won to keep medically fragile children out of nursing homes. In Texas, the department walked away from a 16-year lawsuit aimed at helping people with developmental disabilities live in their communities.
nbcnews.com
How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights
After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
Two days before DOJ issued its memo abandoning the landmark Olmstead decision, Stephen Miller’s team previewed the broader strategy at a secret White House meeting with advocates and conservative think tank leaders.
In a secret meeting at the White House complex this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out the plan: To make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people, the Trump administration was pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.
Hugo Dwyer, one of those seated around the wooden conference table, couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The strategy described by Miller’s aide, Daniel Wasserman, threatened to roll back decades of progress in the disability rights movement — all to serve the president’s demand to clear homeless encampments in U.S. cities.

“I really cannot support this,” Dwyer, an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, recalled telling Wasserman. “You’re talking about forcing people into institutional settings.”

The June 16 meeting with advocates and conservative think tank leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which NBC News is revealing for the first time, came two days before the Trump administration did exactly what Wasserman previewed: The Department of Justice issued a sweeping legal opinion that repudiated decades of federal disability policy rooted in the landmark Supreme Court ruling Olmstead v. L.C.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026
We’ve got the inside story of how Trump’s displeasure with seeing homeless people in D.C. became the first domino in a series of actions that culminated in the administration’s stunning decision to weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans to live in their homes and communities.
nbcnews.com
How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights
After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 01/10/2026
Been a couple years, but still relevant imo bookshop.org/p/books/they...
bookshop.org
They Came for the Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America's Classrooms
NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe urgent, revelatory story of how a school board win for the conservative right in one Texas suburb inspired a Christian nationalist campaign now threatening to undermine public e...
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 01/10/2026
If you buy this framing on what fueled the right wing school board backlash and national voucher push, I’ve got a book recommendation for you…
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 29/09/2026
Appropriate deploymment of puns here www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
nbcnews.com
GOP senator airballs perjury claim against Jack Smith over apparent Hawks/Hawkeyes mixup
The Missouri senator’s shot at a gotcha moment against the former special counsel wound up being a very public miss.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/09/2026
Southlake Families PAC didn’t only conquer the school board
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/09/2026
Fortunately it won’t be difficult for me to maintain the moral high ground on this because we all know the Browns are not, in fact, going to actually start winning
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The vast majority denied SNAP are denied for procedural reasons. Even 4 in 10 of those with NO INCOME in the previous year are denied, with 80% of those denied for *procedural reasons*, or, effectively, missing paperwork. And The One Big Beautiful Bill is making this so much worse.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/09/2026
Don’t miss this one from @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...
propublica.org
The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way
After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump admini...
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/09/2026
Corner Bakery is the new golf course. It’s where business happens.
In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C.
For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising.
Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor, Navatek. A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multimillion-dollar Navy research contract in Maine. Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Jesse Eisinger @jeisinger.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
“This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.” A Russian oligarch close to Putin bankrolled Don Jr.’s wedding. www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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dan solomon @dansolomon.com · 09/09/2026
just today, texas democrats have: made an ad built around a "pronouns" joke, voiced their opposition to "biological males playing girls sports," and called the disabled governor "gov. hot wheels" in a press release
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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Last month, the Carroll ISD school board (in Southlake, Texas) unanimously passed an AI/screen time policy similar to -- if not stricter -- than the one Zohran announced last week for NYC schools It shows how bipartisan this push is, if you understand the background of the Southlake...
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 08/09/2026
Hard to overstate these folks’ desperation. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
LINCOLN, Neb. — The question haunted Susan Browne for decades: Who would care for her two disabled sons after she and her husband were dead?

Her fears took on new urgency last year when Browne, 72, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive breast cancer.

Her sons David, 47, and John Michael, 45, have profound autism and need help with every daily task, from bathing and dressing to using the bathroom — care that has grown harder for Browne and her husband, Mike, to manage as they’ve aged.

She sometimes lay awake, her mind racing. Who would sit with them at meals to keep them from choking? Who would patiently roll their favorite ball around the living room or take them to the park? Would they end up locked in an institution?

The Brownes believed they had finally found a solution: Using Medicaid funding for people with disabilities, they created a nonprofit and assembled a trusted team to care for David and John Michael at home for the rest of their lives.

Now that plan is falling apart — thanks to a secretive computer algorithm.

The assessment tool, called interRAI, determined that David and John Michael, who without constant supervision might run into traffic or touch a hot stove, no longer needed one-on-one, around-the-clock care. It slashed their combined Medicaid funding by more than $220,000 a year.

“This just blew me out of the water,” said Browne, who has been appealing the decision while traveling to Houston for cancer treatments. “I’m so terrified for my sons now. Terrified.”
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 08/09/2026
After Nebraska adopted an algorithm to assess the needs of people with developmental disabilities, more than 900 had their home care slashed—leaving families terrified their loved ones could be forced into institutions. A preview of what could soon be coming nationally after Trump’s Medicaid cuts.
nbcnews.com
A secretive computer algorithm is taking caregiving money away from disabled people
After Nebraska used a new interRAI tool to slash Medicaid funding for nearly 900 people, NBC News uncovered the hidden logic behind some of the cuts.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 26/08/2026
"The cost of living in America has surged in recent years. So has the cost of dying." www.nbcnews.com/business/per...
nbcnews.com
Even death is unaffordable in America now
Funeral credit cards, rented caskets, Amazon urns: Here’s how Americans are coping with the rising cost of dying.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 02/08/2026
New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo
wapo.st
She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.
Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.
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Hannah Natanson @hannahnatanson.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
It's been hard to do my job this year. Being back reporting — and in print again — means more than I can say. Please spend some time with my story about a Trump administration crackdown on faculty speech at West Point, and one professor's lonely rebellion. wapo.st/4fo0lts
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
This is outstanding reporting but be warned: a really, really hard read.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 19/07/2026
A father in Idaho, speaking to police after his child died by suicide: “There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids. The whole fucking country. The whole fucking administration, every single fucking day.” Please read this important story by @joyurcaba.bsky.social
nbcnews.com
Idaho pushed anti-trans laws for years. Then a teen died.
The life and death of May Pollard, 16, provides a window into the tragic effect that legislation and political rhetoric have had on trans people in America.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 19/07/2026
Please read this story by @joyurcaba.bsky.social.
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 16/07/2026
Over a two-day hearing, nearly a dozen witnesses — nine women and two men — testified in graphic detail about how Joe Campbell, a longtime Pentecostal preacher, groomed and abused them when they were children in the 1970s and ’80s.
nbcnews.to
They say their pastor abused them as children. This week, they confronted him in court.
Following an NBC News investigation, nearly a dozen witnesses testified that Joe Campbell, a Pentecostal preacher, groomed and sexually abused them in the 1970s and ’80s.
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Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 17/07/2026
NYT nails it.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 16/07/2026
"The criminal case against Campbell began after an investigation by NBC News. ... The state began pursuing criminal charges following a May 2025 article and documentary that chronicled years of alleged sexual abuse by Campbell and repeated failures by church leaders to stop him."
nbcnews.com
They say their pastor abused them as children. This week, they confronted him in court.
Following an NBC News investigation, nearly a dozen witnesses testified that Joe Campbell, a Pentecostal preacher, groomed and sexually abused them in the 1970s and ’80s.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 14/07/2026
Happy pub day, @pamelacolloff.bsky.social! Trust me, you’ll want to order a copy of this one: bookshop.org/p/books/catc...
bookshop.org
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
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Reuters @reuters.com · 14/07/2026
Security camera footage obtained from local businesses showed individuals who are believed to be U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounding a car and pulling the driver onto the street, in events connected to the fatal shooting of a man in a coastal town in Maine on July 13.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 13/07/2026
Have you noticed it can cost hundreds of dollars for a family bowling outing? Thank private equity. @spettypi.bsky.social reports. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
nbcnews.com
Wall Street goes bowling for profits, driving up the price of a middle-class pastime
Fueled by private equity investments, Lucky Strike Entertainment went on a buying spree and now owns more than 1 in 10 American bowling alleys.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
The OBBBA was signed on July 4th a year ago. This is a great summary of some of the changes it will make. The SNAP changes (4 million lost coverage and counting) are already happening. Medicaid changes were timed to occur after the midterms, but may be even worse.
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Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 06/07/2026
“In Jim Comey’s misguided attempt to preserve the independence of the FBI, he set in motion a series of events that has basically undone the 50 years of reform and traditions and independence that had been carefully carved out and guarded since Watergate." — @vermontgmg.bsky.social
nbcnews.com
The Comey effect: 10 years ago, an FBI news conference changed America
“It is hard to think of another single event in the last decade that has had such far-reaching and sweeping and unintended global consequences as Jim Comey’s press conference,” said one historian.
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/07/2026
Public school teacher in Texas? You have my respect! Thank you for reading and sharing 🙏
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/07/2026
bsky.app/profile/ryan...
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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/07/2026
“There was … a violent effort to rip up the sealant.”
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Trump is now talking about his Washington construction projects *more often* than topics like wages and health care He invoked his DC building projects on nearly 80% of days in June analysis with @ence.bsky.social and Lydia Sidhom
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Sharita Gruberg @gruberg.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
“Once all of the law’s major provisions are fully phased in, Congressional Budget Office estimates show, the poorest households will end up with roughly $1,200 less each year on average, while the wealthiest Americans will gain about $13,600.”
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