June 17, 2026

Marie: I remarked the other day that it seemed to me that Trump was sending JayDee out to take the fall for Trump's humiliating capitulation to Iran. (This is rather ironic, since JayDee reportedly opposed the war during strategy sessions.) Among the things JayDee has to do to appease the Unappeasable is to try to see this secret memorandum of agreement to the folks. Here's a ferinstance of how that's going: ~~~

     ~~~ “Delicate Diplomatic Things ... That I Don't ... Fully Understand.” Finya Swai of the Hill: “'The reason why we haven’t released [the MoU] yet is there are some delicate diplomatic things going on,' [Vance] said on 'The Meghan Kelly [Radio] Show.'... 'I don’t, frankly, fully understand it, but there are sensitivities that exist in the Arab and Muslim world that we’re trying to be responsive to,' he said.”  

Max Rego of the Hill: “Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) on Wednesday slammed the deal between the Trump administration and Iran, two days before the two sides are set to sign it. 'The details that I’ve seen so far look … awful. This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder,' Cassidy told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson on Capitol Hill.... [Donald] Trump has said the involved parties will not release the text of the agreement until the two sides sign it in Switzerland on Friday. But multiple outlets, including Bloomberg and CNN, have released details of a 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran.”

Of Trump's remarks at yesterday's G-7 meeting, Tom Nichols of the Atlantic wrote, “Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.” (Gift link to the Nichols article below.) Moving along to Day 2, we have this: ~~~

~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging Trump's performance at the G-7. From the pinned item at 12 noon ET: Donald “Trump swung on Wednesday between praising the preliminary agreement with Iran ... and threatening to resume bombing if he was unhappy with its implementation, hours after world leaders at the annual Group of 7 summit hailed it as a 'breakthrough.' The terms of the deal have not been released, a fact Mr. Trump acknowledged as he hailed it. 'Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong,' he said, adding that 'most people' and 'the market' were happy about it. But even as he and other leaders cast the preliminary deal in a joint statement as a 'historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon,' Mr. Trump also renewed threats of violence. 'If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head,' he said, speaking to reporters alongside President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt during the summit. Mr. Trump, who has been fixated on proving that former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran deal was weaker than the one he is negotiating, also became angry and used a denigrating term to characterize Iranian attitudes toward his predecessor. 'They laughed at Obama, and they said he’s a stupid son of a bitch,' he said.” 

Erica Green & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: Donald “Trump insisted on Wednesday that the United States was not in effect paying Iran to agree to the recently negotiated peace agreement, and he angrily proclaimed that his deal was better than the one former President Barack Obama signed with Tehran in 2015. Speaking to journalists on his last day at the Group of 7 summit in France, Mr. Trump denied reports that the preliminary deal, the contents of which have yet to be released, included any U.S. investment in a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran or any immediate sanctions relief.... In an expletive-laden rant on Wednesday, Mr. Trump repeated his claim that Mr. Obama had given Iran '$1.7 billion in cash,” and then he derided his predecessor.... That [$1.7 billion] payment was a debt owed to Iran, which bought military equipment from the United States that it never received. The $1.7 billion pales, however, next to the $50 billion or more in Iranian foreign assets unfrozen under the 2015 agreement.... On Monday, Vice President JD Vance told CBS that Iran could be given access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.” ~~~-

     ~~~ Marie: It's not clear where the $300BB would be coming from. It could be Iran's own frozen assets, or outright gifts, or loans, or some combination thereof. And it's not clear what conditions -- if any -- would be attached to release of the funds.  

Ha Ha. Marie: I didn't listen to it, but David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast did a podcast with Jon Wolfsthal & Joe Cirincione which caught my attention because of the title: “Trump’s Humiliating Defeat: The Next Edition of 'The Art of the Deal' Will Be in Farsi.” Kind of a riff, I guess, on Molly Ivins' famous commentary that proto-white-nationalist Pat Buchanan's 1992 Republican Convention speech “probably sounded better in the original German.”

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Giorgio Leali of Politico: “G7 leaders including ... Donald Trump have backed a joint declaration promising to boost military support to Ukraine and to strengthen sanctions against Russia. 'We, the Leaders of the G7, stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,' they said in a declaration published on Wednesday shortly after midnight. G7 leaders 'commit to increase the pressure on the Russian war economy' and to 'strengthen our sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors,' they said. The declaration name-checks Trump three times, saying that with the U.S. and Iran having reached an agreement to end hostilities, it is now easier to take more economic measures against Russia.... On Tuesday, Trump also hinted that he was ready to reinstate sanctions on Russian oil, which Washington previously suspended until mid-June.”

Mark Landler of the New York Times: “Europe’s alliance with the United States may still be on the rocks, but on the first full day of a Group of 7 summit meeting at ... Evian, the leaders showed they remained ready to behave politely toward Mr. Trump.... Now ... [that] Mr. Trump has presented at least the contours of a peace deal with Iran, and Europe’s leaders have gone back to charming him.... [The Iran war has] put Europe’s leaders in a nearly impossible position. They have been caught between Mr. Trump, who castigated them for failing to support the effort even as he demeaned their potential contributions, and their own populations, which are mostly opposed to the war and increasingly frustrated by the economic fallout from it.” (Also linked yesterday.)

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, great. Macron invited Trump to dinner at Versailles. As Trump takes in the Grande Galerie des Glaces, the Galerie des Batailles and so forth, the cost of the White House ballroom will soar. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Dan Diamond & Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: “The French palace embodies many of the qualities that Trump has long sought to associate with himself — wealth, prestige and power — as he built a personal brand designed to project luxury and command attention. Like Louis XIV centuries ago, who took his father’s hunting lodge and increasingly expanded and bedazzled it, Trump has used golden adornments and metaphors to convince the world of his success.... For [Trump], the French palace is a model for his own construction projects, from its Corinthian columns to its ample use of gold leaf. Trump’s renovation of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida also included an expansive ballroom explicitly inspired by the palace, he said in a 2005 interview with Florida Design magazine.... Architectural critics and designers have for years called Trump’s use of gold overdone and ostentatious — a complaint long leveled at Louis XIV, too.... A wide array of preservationists, historians, designers and politicians have charged Trump with acting not as a duly elected representative, but as a king seeking to remake his court. During last year’s government shutdown, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called Trump’s planned White House ballroom a 'knockoff Versailles.'...”

David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald “Trump is caught in what could best be described as the Obama-deal bind.... Mr. Trump clearly knows he must significantly improve upon Mr. Obama’s results in order to justify the huge human and economic cost of taking the United States to war over the past three months.” MB: Obama may be living rent-free in Trump's head, but it's Trump's own fault: he gave Obama the keys to the apartment and promised he could stay as long as he wanted.

Dave Lawler & Barak Ravid of Axios: "The still-secret terms of ... [Donald] Trump's Iran deal have triggered a furious debate over how much Tehran stands to gain financially — and how soon.... The deal is expected to allow Iran to sell oil freely during a 60-day negotiating window, while opening the door to broader sanctions relief, access to frozen funds and a potential $300 billion rebuilding investment fund if a final nuclear agreement is reached.... Critics argue that after shredding the 2015 nuclear deal in his first term, Trump is now following the same playbook — unfreezing cash in exchange for nuclear concessions — while potentially going a step further with the rebuilding fund.... Here's a breakdown of the financial incentives at play."

The following is the lamest report from an MSM outlet I've read in a long time: ~~~ 

~~~ Alayna Treene & Kevin Liptak of CNN: “US negotiators are working to quickly release the text of the agreement between Washington and Tehran, even as they downplay the significance of the specific language in the document, US officials told CNN. The officials described the text of the agreement as incredibly vague, mainly intended to create a more favorable environment for the highly technical, in-person talks to come. They added that the framework is aimed at providing Iran the ability to sell it politically to their internal audience. Additionally, the officials said that the text of the memorandum of understanding — which Vice President JD Vance told CNN Monday is one-and-a-half pages long — didn’t reflect critical back-channel commitments Iran has made to the US, which they argued gave them more confidence in signing on to the arrangement.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: (1) So the agreement was reached Saturday, today is Wednesday, the document is a page-and-a-half long, and they're "working quickly" to release the text??? Are they waiting for the typist to come back from vacation, or what? (2) AND the language is vague to accommodate Iranian leaders' need to assuage their public. Please. If the public don't like it, the leadership will just shoot them. I mean, we were supposed to be saving Iranians from that type of brutal autocracy. But we didn't. (3) AND don't believe whatever the document says when we do release it because it doesn't reflect all those wonderful "back-channel commitments Iran made to the U.S." I suspect that the "back channel" only exists somewhere in the shallow recesses between Donald Trump's ears. The article does go on to discuss some of the problems with the release of the agreement and what-all may be in it, but these more nuanced assertions down the page, IMO, don't make up for the declarative assertions in the first few grafs. Maybe this is a preview of CNN's planned "Paramount-owned" reporting. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Given all that, I'm not so sure how secret the secret agreement is: ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Tirone, et al., of Bloomberg News, republished by Yahoo! Finance: "Below is the text of the 14-point draft memorandum, as seen by Bloomberg News." Can we assume this is the text that Trump & JayDee docu-signed? I don't know.

Without the U.S., there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel because no other president was willing to do what I did.... I have had a great relationship with Bibi. Now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday ~~~

~~~ Mike Catalini & Thomas Beaumont of the AP: “... as Trump tries to finalize a deal to end the war with Iran, he’s unloading on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has dared to use publicly. He claimed credit for Israel’s existence — 'without me, there would be no Israel' — and cursed his judgment in interviews. He even described him as 'crazy.' Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister spans four U.S. presidents, and he’s frustrated all of them at one point or another. But none has voiced that as openly as Trump, who started the conflict in tandem with Netanyahu.”

Tom Nichols of the Atlantic: “Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning’s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America’s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.” Thank you to akaWendy for this gift link. This is an excellent essay, IMO, and gives a nice, succinct summary of Trump's positions (as of yesterday!) on Middle East matters compared to what they have been in the recent past. 

Justin Goldman, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump is using his executive authority to force defense companies to quickly produce more weaponry as his administration presses lawmakers to pass additional defense spending to replenish stockpiles depleted during the U.S.-led war with Iran. Trump quietly invoked the Defense Production Act last week to address rising concerns within his administration about the shortfall of munitions, according to a memo filed in the Federal Register on Tuesday."

Dan Diamond & Victoria Craw of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump said early Wednesday that his administration would cancel a planned Senate hearing to review his pick to serve as director of national intelligence, linking the nomination to his weeks-long efforts to pass new voting restrictions. Trump had tapped Jay Clayton, who is serving as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to fill the intelligence post. The president then nominated Jamie McDonald, a lawyer in private practice, on Saturday to replace Clayton. But Trump said on his Truth Social platform Wednesday that he would not proceed with the Clayton hearing for now, leaving Bill Pulte — a housing official who has no national security experience — as intelligence director. Trump also reiterated his call that the voting bill, the Save America Act, must be linked with efforts to pass national security legislation.... The abrupt cancellation of Clayton’s hearing — scheduled for Wednesday afternoon — tees up another clash between Trump and Senate Republicans, who have been unhappy with his pick of Pulte as acting intelligence chief and resistant to his efforts to attach his voting-rights bill to other legislation.”

⭐Everything Donald Trump Says Is a Lie. Here's a Big Fat Lie. Sarah Blaskey & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: “Five months after the demolition of the White House’s East Wing..., Donald Trump claimed that the project to construct a massive ballroom and a bunker in its place would cost up to $400 million and that private donors would pay for all of it. 'This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on March 31, describing the project as including bomb shelters and major medical facilities. But a detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the contractor more than three weeks before Trump’s comments estimated the total construction cost at $600 million — with more than half coming from taxpayers, according to a copy of the contractor estimate obtained by The Washington Post. By the time Trump made his comments in March, the federal government had already approved more than a dozen payments to the contractor overseeing the work, Clark Construction, totaling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, according to a log of the contractor’s invoices obtained by The Post.” Thanks to RAS for the link. Update: the link has been changed to a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course the reporters don't mention that -- as Patrick laid out several weeks ago -- ordinary taxpayers are effectively paying a chunk of those "generous donations," too, because the "generous donors" get "generous tax breaks," and the rest of us taxpayers have to make up the shortfall. And you can bet that the "quo" in the "quid pro quo" that inspired each donor's "generosity" will cost taxpayers, too. ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: “Here’s a look at what Trump and his administration have said over the past year about who would pay for the ballroom project.”  

~~~ Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump is planning another significant change to the White House grounds: a new permanent fence that would allow officials to close the public park across the street from the executive mansion, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration plans. The fence would be installed on the north and south sides of Lafayette Square, the people said, allowing officials to shut the park if they deem it necessary. The park, through which visitors commonly access the White House grounds, is across Pennsylvania Avenue NW from the White House and is managed by the National Park Service.” ~~~

      ~~~ Marie: Lafayette Park is already named for a French nobleman, and as you can see from the diagram above, the park also is currently laid out to resemble a Versailles-style parterre. So here is my suggestion for the design of permanent fencing around the park; it, too, is straight out of Versailles. You're welcome. ~~~

“This Reeks of Corruption.” Jake Johnson of Common Dreams: “The leadership of ... Donald Trump’s Justice Department shut down an investigation into Paramount’s widely criticized bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and issued a statement supporting the merger before career antitrust attorneys could finish scrutinizing the proposal, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. According to the Journal, which cited unnamed people familiar with the matter, 'a team of career lawyers who had spent months scrutinizing the deal were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit challenging it on the grounds that the combination of the two movie studios would be anticompetitive and violate antitrust law.' The newspaper reported that the antitrust staffers who investigated the $111 billion merger proposal 'didn’t participate in writing' the Justice Department statement greenlighting the deal.... 'The American people need to know if this merger was approved as a political favor,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the Journal’s reporting. 'This reeks of corruption.'” Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Rally, etc., to Ground Area Flights. Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “Ronald Reagan National Airport will be closed to flight traffic after noon on the Fourth of July, the local airports authority announced on Tuesday, as it warned would-be passengers to brace for several interruptions during the Trump administration’s planned events surrounding the nation’s 250th birthday. Flyovers, parachutists and fireworks over Washington will temporarily force National Airport to occasionally ground flights between late June and late August, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said in a news release. The authority, which manages National Airport and Dulles International Airport, listed the Great American State Fair, which runs from June 24 to July 10; the Grand Prix car race planned for Aug. 22 and 23; and Independence Day rehearsals and celebrations on July 3 and 4 among the events expected to ground traffic.”

Marie: TRUE: Trump Ruins Utterly Everything. In 1976, the country was in bad political shape. At the head of government sat the only unelected president in U.S. history. He was a rather dundering Republican who had pardoned the previous Republican president for crimes against the people. As always, the Congress had some very fine public servants, but also a lot of self-serving jerks. The Supreme Court remained an all-male institution, and even though Congress had passed Title IX to limit sex discrimination, the realities on the ground were abysmal. Civil rights for minorities were well-established law, but hardly as well-realized. Still, there was no federal attempt to shut out the millions of people who longed for better days, and most of us felt we could celebrate the bicentennial. That is not the way I feel about the semiquincentennial.  

Marie: Edward O'Donnell is an American historian ~~~

Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: “A federal judge who has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for renovations issued an order on Tuesday that gave officials three days to update him on its plan.... Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington asked for a status report from the Kennedy Center that would include plans for 'public access and ongoing programming, activities and operations' should the center stay open past July 4, which the president proposed as a closing date. The brief directive came days after the Kennedy Center’s board, composed largely of Mr. Trump’s allies, voted to appeal an order by the judge who found that the renaming of the institution after the president had been unlawful.”

Victoria Craw & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: “FBI Director Kash Patel said that 'multiple individuals' are in custody in connection with an attack allegedly planned for the UFC Freedom 250 event held at the White House on Sunday. 'On June 10, FBI and our law enforcement partners became aware of a potential threat to the UFC America 250 event in Washington, D.C. involving individuals outside of the National Capital Region,' Patel wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. Patel said that the FBI and Justice Department worked with local partners in a multistate operation and that the 'allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold.'... The White House declined to comment further Tuesday, and the FBI referred questions to Patel’s social media post.” An AP story is here; it provides more detail. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait! Wait! There's a planned attack on the POTUS* -- who previously has been the subject of a number of assassination attempts -- the VPOTUS, the Speaker of the House, Cabinet members (that is, several people in the line of succession to the presidency) as well as thousands of other people. I mean, we would have ended up with Chuck Grassley as president if a lethal attack had succeeded. And if some authorities or the media or whoever have question, they should go to Kash's X account??? An X account? That's how law enforcement is fielding follow-up to a planned attack on the titular leaders of our government? It's funny that Trump said he had never even heard about the attack. One would think he'd be told about it. If it was real. Is this even real, Kash? ~~~

     ~~~ Update. It appears that Evan Hurst of Wonkette is similarly skeptical of Kash's story. And colorfully so, of course. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update 2. Not surprisingly, the underlying story of Kash's news release is worse than the first reports indicate, and that story is a disturbing continuation of Patel's M.O. ~~~

     ~~~ ⭐Carol Leonnig, et al., of MS NOW: “Secret Service officials are angered that FBI Director Kash Patel prematurely announced on Tuesday the details of a largely sealed and ongoing criminal investigation into an alleged plot to attack Sunday’s White House UFC event with drones.... The case had been sealed in court and roughly 10 suspects had not yet been arrested and placed in custody at the time Patel shared his post. The people said Secret Service and FBI officials were surprised by Patel 'jumping the gun.'... The threat to the UFC event became known to the Secret Service and FBI in the last week when a relative of one of the suspects contacted local police in the Cincinnati area.... An advanced threat interdiction team at the Secret Service, with the help of the FBI..., was able to identify the plot being planned and some of the people discussing using drones and possible snipers to attack the UFC fight event.... Authorities then arrested one suspect, 19-year-old Tycen Proper of Ohio, on June 13 and moved immediately to seal the case so the FBI and Secret Service could continue investigating, identifying and arresting additional suspects....

“Matt Quinn, the Secret Service’s deputy director, appeared to allude to Patel’s premature announcement in a Tuesday news conference but did not use his name and said the Secret Service made a conscious decision not to reveal the existence of the probe prematurely. 'I’ll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office and that’s “Don’t choke on your own smoke,’” he said. 'I’ll tell you the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I’ll tell you that case is ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Better Than a Challenge Coin. Ken Dilanian of MS NOW: “FBI Director Kash Patel may have authorized taxpayer-funded special payments to his inner circle of FBI executives and agents on his protective detail, according to the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. 'We have been receiving troubling reports that you may be using part of the budget of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a personal slush fund to make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlawful “bonus” payments to loyalist MAGA henchmen who have engaged in misconduct,” says a letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., to Patel, obtained exclusively by MS NOW. Committee Democrats have information that Patel has issued more than $1 million in awards, the letter says. The letter says the money went to special agents serving on his Director’s Advisory Team, which Raskin’s letter describes as 'a curated group of agents who are willing to carry out your unlawful partisan and personal orders.' It also went to agents on Patel’s security detail, 'circumventing the mandatory maximum pay caps established by statute,' the letter says. 'By issuing these side payments, your office may be knowingly breaking federal law,' the letter says.” (Also linked yesterday.)

One use for the ballroom you are building for Trump: he can hold larger conventions of grifters. The Cabinet room is bursting at the seams: ~~~

~~~ This Is Unbelievable. Kenneth Vogel & Christina Jewitt of the New York Times: “For years, federal health officials have warned about the risks associated with a supplement derived from the leaves of kratom trees that adherents say can kill pain or boost energy. Sold in gas stations across America, kratom has been linked to liver toxicity, seizures and thousands of deaths. Powerful figures close to ... [Donald] Trump, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, pushed to downplay those concerns. Mr. Mullin ... played a key role in a sprawling influence campaign spearheaded by the kratom industry that courted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Vice President JD Vance, among others in the Trump administration, an investigation by The New York Times found. Only when he was nominated by Mr. Trump in March to lead the Homeland Security Department did it become clear that Mr. Mullin had a financial connection to the supplement. In a disclosure statement, he listed an investment worth as much as $1 million in a kratom company, Botanic Tonics, that could benefit from the changes he has sought.” Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) 

The Ghost of Kristi Still Hovers Over DHS. Madeleine Ngo & Ann Marimow of the New York Times: “As the Homeland Security Department weighed whether to terminate deportation protections for more than 350,000 Haitians last year, agency officials repeatedly reached out to the State Department for its recommendation. It was a crucial step — the department is required to consult with 'appropriate agencies' to review conditions in foreign countries before terminating Temporary Protected Status.... But newly released internal emails and documents indicate that the Homeland Security Department decided to terminate the protections last June without obtaining input from the State Department, calling into question whether the department followed the required legal process. The ... [matter] is also central to a case now before the Supreme Court. A decision, which is expected to determine whether the administration can immediately end the humanitarian protections, is anticipated by the end of the month.... On Tuesday, lawyers for the Haitians took the unusual step of asking the justices to dismiss the case and send it back to the lower courts for further proceedings.”

Douglas MacMillan of the Washington Post: “When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was revising the federal standards that govern immigration detention centers, one of its top contractors privately asked for changes that could benefit its business, according to a person briefed on the discussions. Geo Group, which oversees more than a dozen ICE detention facilities, has faced lawsuits in three states alleging it violates minimum-wage laws by paying some immigrant detainees $1 a day to work.... The new national detention standards, which ICE posted to its website Monday, include some of Geo’s requested changes. The document says detainees are not employees 'and are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable wage laws or labor regulations.'... Geo’s input in the new standards, which has not been previously reported, highlights the ICE contractor’s influence over the agency that is both its regulator and, corporate filings show, its biggest customer.”    

Pooja Salhotra & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unsealed conspiracy, assault and other charges against 15 people accused of violently impeding immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown this year. Daniel N. Rosen, Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor, said the defendants were members of two Minneapolis-based groups connected with antifa, a far-left movement. Twelve defendants were arrested on Tuesday, Mr. Rosen said, one was already in custody for other charges and two remained at large. Antifa, named for its antifascist alignment, is not an organization with a leader, but a diffuse and sometimes violent protest culture of activists who oppose the far right. The defendants were charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer; solicitation to commit a crime of violence; interstate stalking; assault on a federal officer; and destruction of government property.” The Guardian's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Heather Cox Richardson has more on this. At least as far as the prosecutors are willing to say right now, the defendants did nothing more than exercise their right to free speech. ~~~

~~~ Speaking of free speech & Minnesota, remember Greg Bovino? ~~~

     ~~~ Christopher Mathias of MS NOW: "A day after Gregory Bovino revealed he was exploring a 2028 presidential run last week, the former U.S. Customs and Border Patrol commander-at-large joined a prominent white nationalist’s podcast to renew his call for over 100 million people — roughly a third of the United States’ population — to be deported." 

 

Michael Bender & Dana Goldstein of the New York Times: “ The Trump administration announced on Tuesday plans to move two major functions of the Education Department to other parts of the government in the most aggressive moves yet by the White House to dismantle an agency it has pledged to dissolve.... Eliminating the Education Department requires an act of Congress, and disability groups have argued that so does moving the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.... The changes were expected to be challenged in court immediately as part of a continuing lawsuit that a coalition of Democratic attorneys general first filed last year over the administration’s attempts to dismantle the Education Department.” ~~~

~~~ Julia Métraux of Mother Jones: "On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it would move two key functions of the Department of Education — disability education oversight and the department’s Office for Civil Rights — to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, respectively, in a move that would give HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. oversight over the nation’s disability education system.... Even setting aside who runs them — Kennedy at HHS, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at the Justice Department — the new agencies aren’t appropriate choices to oversee those functions, experts say."

Rule No. 2 of the Trump Administration: Never Let the Facts Get in Your Way.  

Sammy Westfall of the Washington Post: “A giant banner bearing the face of Theodore Roosevelt decorates the facade of the Office of Personnel Management in downtown Washington and carries an inspirational quote it attributes to the late leader. There’s one problem: Historians say the 26th president never uttered the phrase. 'Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength,' says the quote, which is overlaid in serif font under Roosevelt’s portrait and attributed to him.” MB: A normal administration would issue an oops! and remove or alter the banner. But this is the Trump administration. So “McLaurine Pinover, an OPM spokesperson, said the department hung multiple banners on the building to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. The quote 'is commonly attributed to Roosevelt and captures the spirit of the federal workforce,' she wrote.” In addition to that, the first clause of the fake citation is awkward and easy to misinterpret. It could mean, “Courage is more than merely mustering the strength to continue”; OR -- as I can't help but read it, it could mean, “Courage is being too weak to continue.” The Trump administration is a band of dummies (most people don't know there is no “b” in “dummy”).

Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Tuesday thwarted Democrats’ latest attempt to force ... [Donald] Trump to seek authorization for the war in Iran, with Republicans largely banding together behind the president amid skepticism about a cease-fire deal he has yet to share with Congress. The vote was 48 to 47 on Democrats’ ninth bid to force action on a measure that would direct Mr. Trump to remove U.S. troops from the conflict and win approval from Congress before continuing.... Top Republicans have refrained from praising Mr. Trump’s agreement, noting that they have yet to see it or receive any details about it.

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: “Senate Republicans voted late Monday to put another one of ... Donald Trump’s personal attorneys into a lifetime federal judgeship, flouting the basic tenet that federal court picks must avoid even the perception that they cannot be impartial. The Senate voted 48-43 to put Justin Smith onto the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Every Democrat present voted no, and every Republican present voted yes, except for one, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.... Smith is best known as Trump’s personal lawyer who represented him in his presidential immunity case before the Supreme Court, and who fought to have the Supreme Court overturn the sexual assault and defamation case brought against Trump by journalist E. Jean Carroll. He continued representing Trump in Carroll’s case even after the president nominated him to the federal bench in March. During his Senate nomination hearing in April, Smith refused to say whether he would recuse himself in cases involving the president. He also refused to say who won the 2020 presidential election, a basic question that virtually all of Trump’s court picks have dodged in an embarrassing show of loyalty to the president....”

2024 Presidential Election. Tim Balk of the New York Times: “Hillary Clinton suggested in a new interview that the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 boiled down to a 'terrible miscalculation' — President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s decision to run for re-election. At an event in Manhattan on Monday, Mrs. Clinton told The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, that Mr. Biden had made a 'terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country' in trying to run again at age 81. If Mr. Biden had decided to 'pass the torch' and the Democratic Party had held a competitive presidential primary, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Remnick, 'whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the vice president, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump.'... Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden have long maintained a relationship that is warm in public but intensely competitive and even resentful in private.” MB: Balk, alas, ends his report with a reprise of “but the emails.” 

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Primary Elections Results.

Alabama. Megan Lebowitz & Bridget Bowman of NBC News: "Rep. Barry Moore won the Republican primary runoff in the Alabama Senate race, NBC News projects, making him the heavy favorite in the general election to succeed Sen. Tommy Tuberville this fall. Moore, who was endorsed by ... Donald Trump, defeated former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson for the GOP nomination. The two candidates were forced into a runoff after no one secured more than 50% of the vote in a crowded May 19 primary field."

Georgia. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: “Rep. Mike Collins (R) will face off against the incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff for a Senate seat in Georgia that will be crucial to determining which party controls the chamber. In a Republican runoff Tuesday, Collins defeated former college football coach Derek Dooley with the help of a last-minute endorsement from ... Donald Trump. Dooley was recruited by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R).” MB: Chris Hayes says it would be hard to find a more offensive general election candidate than MAGA Mike, so this is a boost for Ossoff. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: “Georgia Republicans gave ... Donald Trump a split decision Tuesday, selecting the president’s endorsed candidate as the state’s Senate nominee but rebuffing his choice for governor.... In the GOP gubernatorial runoff, billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson defeated Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, dealing a blow to Trump and [Gov. Brian] Kemp, who had both endorsed Jones.” Here is Politico's story on Collins' win. AND here's a Politico report on Jackson's win.

Idaho. Amy Harmon of the New York Times: “Idaho cannot immediately enforce its new law criminalizing the use of certain restrooms that do not match an individual’s sex at birth, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. The ruling provides a temporary reprieve for transgender people in Idaho, who faced up to five years in prison for using restrooms that match their gender identity. The state’s law, which is seen as the most restrictive measure on this issue in the country, was to go into effect on July 1.” The AP's report is here. 

Ohio. Madaleine Rubin of the New York Times: “Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said on Tuesday that his state should abolish the death penalty, the culmination of a gradual but stark reversal in stance and a marked split from his fellow Republicans, who broadly support executions. Mr. DeWine, who is term-limited, helped restore the death penalty in Ohio after a brief pause decades ago, but has repeatedly postponed executions as governor. Nationwide, the number of executions has swiftly declined as access to lethal injection drugs decreases and courtroom battles over other methods of capital punishment play out. 'The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists,' Mr. DeWine said during a news conference on Tuesday, adding that the death penalty was ineffective as a deterrent of violent crime.”