… Trump held a press event in the Oval Office today with Sen. Katie Britt, RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz where the topic was Americans not having enough babies. The focus of the event was on IVF for women and finding a way to increase sperm count for men:
Trump to the women behind him: “You’ll speak not too long because I am being waited on by a large group of generals. That’s also important.”
Trump: “I must say, I shouldn’t admit this, but the first time I really heard about the fertility was through Katie. She said, ‘Sir, we have to do something’. So I learned everything there is to know about it in about 3-4 minutes and I became the father of fertility.”
Dr Oz: “One in three Americans are under-babied. That means either you have no children or have less children than you would normally want to have. We have a crisis that is causing our fertility rate to drop.”
RFK Jr: “We have a fertility crisis in this country right now. We are approaching the cataclysmic rates that China and Japan are experiencing that is threatening their economies. In 1970, men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today. This is an existential crisis for our country.”
Oz: “As IVF services get better and we make them more affordable, we’ll have more Trump babies.”
"I was the hunted, now I'm the hunter. These are bad people. That's why we call them the dumbocrats. We have a new name. Because they're dumb. They're dumb people."
Q: “Iran has agreed to allow the removal of all their enriched uranium? Trump: Yeah, they did two days ago. But they changed their mind because they didn’t put it in the paper.”
Trump: “In war, you have be flexible. You have a lot of plans, but you have to do different plans on different days. But I have a great plan.”
Q: “Does the ceasefire remain in place? Trump: It’s unbelievably weak. After reading that piece of garbage they sent us, the ceasefire is on life support.”
Q: “What do you say to infectious disease experts who are worried the country isn’t prepared to deal with something like hantavirus because of all the HHS funding and staffing cuts? Trump: Doc, you want to answer that? Dr. Oz: It’s just not true. Secretary Kennedy is involved.”
… I feel better.
… Sleepy Don also dozed off multiple times for extended periods during the press event.
… A group of former DOJ employees who have formed a new litigation team filed an emergency lawsuit today seeking to halt and/or reverse Trump’s painting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:
“The grey, achromatic basin was not incidental to the design. It was the design. The 1999 National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report for the Lincoln Memorial Grounds specifically identifies the dark-tiled basin as a character-defining feature of the historic landscape, noting that ‘the dark color of the tile created the illusion of greater depth and a more profound reflection.’”
“Defendants engaged a swimming pool contractor to resurface the Reflecting Pool with a vivid blue coating. Shockingly, Defendants started altering the historic character of the Reflecting Pool without following Congressionally mandatory procedures.”
“Trump stated he had originally wanted turquoise ‘like in the Bahamas’ but was persuaded by the contractor to choose a color called ‘American flag blue.’”
“The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year.”
“The project was awarded via a $6.9 million no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which had performed work at President Trump’s Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA.”
“The Reflecting Pool and its surrounding landscape are listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the National Mall Historic District. Accordingly, before making any changes to the Reflecting Pool, Defendants were obligated to follow the Section 106 procedures. This includes consulting with various interested parties such as experts and nonprofit orgs with relevant expertise that provide input on proposed changes.”
“Millions of visitors from all over the world walk along, gaze into, and/or photograph the Reflecting Pool each year. The pool is the site of the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, among the most consequential moments in American civic history.”
“This latest desecration of the reflecting pool is part of a pattern - epitomized most notably by the rush to destroy the East Wing of the White House - in which this Administration willfully disregards legal limits established by Congress.”
… NYT: “The cost of Trump’s plan to repair the Reflecting Pool has jumped by 88%, to $13.1 million, government records show. The price appears to include a 20% profit margin for Trump’s handpicked contractor, who got the job in a no-bid contract.”
PENNSYLVANIA: WHAT A MISTAKE TO ELECT THIS BOOB!
… Sen. John Fetterman: “Stop this henpecking. $13 million? This is an iconic American place and was in serious disrepair. Get over the TDS and celebrate this is getting done for our 250th.”
… CBS: “The Iranian govt insists it demanded only the country’s ‘legitimate rights’ and no ‘concessions’ in its response to the latest US peace proposal. Trump has rejected Iran’s reply as ‘totally unacceptable.’ Oil prices surged again Monday after Trump’s dismissal of the Iranian counter-proposal, with international benchmark Brent crude topping $100 a barrel in early trading.”
… CBS: “As Pakistan positioned itself as a diplomatic conduit between Tehran and Washington, it quietly allowed Iranian military aircraft to park in its country, potentially shielding them from US airstrikes. Days after Trump announced the ceasefire in early April, Tehran sent multiple aircraft to Pakistan AF Base Nur Khan.”
… Sen. Lindsey Graham: “If this reporting is accurate, it would require a complete reevaluation of the role Pakistan is playing as mediator between Iran, the US and other parties. Given some of the prior statements by Pakistani defense officials towards Israel, I would not be shocked if this were true.”
… Iranian Parliament Speaker MB Ghalibaf: “Our armed forces are ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression; mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results - the whole world has already figured this out.
We are prepared for all options; they will be surprised.”
… “Trump is expected to encourage China to pressure Iran into making a deal to end the costly war during his visit to Beijing later this week, when he will meet with President Xi Jinping.”
… Gas market analyst Patrick De Haan: “Gas prices pulled back over the weekend, with the average at $4.469/gal this morning, while diesel has fallen slightly to $5.610/gal - but I do believe price hikes/cycles will start today and tomorrow, and by the end of the week we could be pushing $4.60/gal and $5.85 for diesel.”
… CBS: “Trump told CBS News on Monday that he intends to suspend the federal gas tax ‘for a period of time’ and phase it back in ‘when gas goes down.’ Suspending the excise taxes - 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel - requires an act of Congress. Congress has so far shown little interest in suspending it to bring down costs. Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday.”
… Trump: “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”
… Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): “I’m introducing legislation today to suspend the gas tax.”
… Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): This week I will be introducing a bill in the House to suspend the federal gas tax in light of Trump’s recent remarks. American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American people.”
… Sen. John Thune to Semafor: “The best way to get gas prices to normalize, in my view, is to get the strait open. One of the huge advantages that we've had in our country is the transportation system that's made it easy to move people and goods to destinations. The Highway Trust Fund supports all those activities, and cutting the gas tax would affect that. So there are things we have to consider and take a look at, but we'll see where our members are."
… Fox host John Roberts: “When I talked to the president this morning, he kinda surprised me because he said, 'John, I just want to tell you. I'm very serious about this. I'm serious about beginning a process to make Venezuela the 51st state.'“ WH spokesperson Anna Kelly responded: “This is a president who is famous for never accepting the status quo.”
… Fox: Trump tells Fox in a phone call just now that he is “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state”, adding that there is $40 trillion in oil there and “Venezuela loves Trump”.
… WH chief economist Kevin Hassett was asked on CNBC why consumer sentiment just hit a record low in the US: “Trump has sort of taken every problem on Earth and gone 100% at fixing it. And I think that that can be stressful for people to see so much change going on.”
… House Oversight Chair James Comer on NewsNation: Q - “What do you make of the slew of AI images the president sent out on Truth Social this weekend? Drones falling from the sky, Iranian ships on fire with him at the helm of an US ship. Does that trivialize the seriousness of the war? Comer: That’s Trump’s style. His message is delivered loud and clear. He’s gonna continue to do it.”
… Comer on hantavirus: “I’m not worried. I have complete confidence in the Trump admin. I think we learned a lot of lessons, hopefully, from the covid pandemic.”
These Bulletins have no set-in-stone game plan from day to day - I try to be very flexible and go wherever the news takes me as the day goes on. I typically focus on brief hits from breaking news events but a significant portion of this one includes sections from longer analysis pieces on policy.
Normally I don’t do that because it is difficult to pull a paragraph or two from a long-form policy article and do it justice, but there were some out this morning that I thought were really good so I included them in the second half of the Bulletin. I also notice from the comments that people tend to like them whenever I include them - so hopefully you won’t mind if there are more than usual in this one.
Tomorrow is looking like a much busier day than today with multiple congressional hearings, so it should be interesting. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin recapping the weekend, you can find it here.
… Pete Hegseth is threatening another military tribunal for Sen. Mark Kelly after his comments on CBS yesterday on weapons stockpiles dangerously depleted by the Iran War. This is what Kelly said: “We’ve been briefed by the Pentagon on specific munitions. Actually, it’s been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM3s, Patriot missiles. It’s shocking how deep we’ve gone into these magazines. We’re going to be
in a worse posture than we otherwise would be in if this war in Iran didn’t happen.”
… Hegseth posted: “‘Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again? Dept of War legal counsel will review.”
… Kelly responded to Hegseth: “We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is.”
… Politico’s Jonathan Martin: “The convergence of his successful intimidation campaign in Indiana and the Supreme Court’s termination of majority-minority districts will tempt the GOP to lunge for more seats. But they do so at their own risk. Not only may Republicans unwittingly create more competitive races for their own members, they will energize Democrats and set back their party in ways that will linger beyond this president.”
… “To you Republicans coveting new seats and considering whether to move forward: caveat emptor. The Supreme Court may argue, in gutting the Voting Rights Act, that they’re creating race-neutral districts. But the practical reality of what this means is staring political leaders and, more to the point, Black voters in the face: white Republicans fracturing African-American districts to unseat mostly Black Democrats so they can elect more white Republicans.”
… “In their rush to grab an extra seat or two, Southern Republicans should consider what may happen to their 2024 gains with Black voters. Do you think GOP nominees will get 21% of Black men, as Trump is estimated to have received in 2024, in future elections when you’re handing Democrats perhaps the easiest racial messaging they’ve had in the post-Civil Rights era? In case you needed a primer, that would be: You can’t trust Republicans, they only want to silence your voice.”
… “Which raises the second obvious case for caution. Given Trump’s unpopularity, the price at the pump and the precedent of most every modern midterm, this was already shaping up to be a forbidding election year for Republicans. To pick at the rawest of American wounds as the country marks 250 years would only turbocharge Democratic enthusiasm and turnout.”
… “Finally, there’s a reason why the non-aggression pact between old-school Black Democrats and white Republicans endured in the South over the last few redistricting cycles. Both got safe seats. You draw a Clyburn, for example, out of his district and his former voters could help create new, competitive seats in SC in a Democratic-tilting year such as this - as Clyburn himself said out loud to CNN.”
… CNN: “US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba. Since February 4, the US Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most of them near the country’s two biggest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some coming within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.”
… “Most of the flights were by P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which are designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, while some were by an RC-135V Rivet Joint, which specializes in signals intelligence gathering. Several MQ-4C Triton high-altitude reconnaissance drones have also been used.”
… “The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance – prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area – and for their timing. Similar patterns occurred in the lead-up to US military operations in both Venezuela and Iran.”
… NBC: “Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the Cuban govt’s ability to maintain power despite months of sustained US pressure and has been pressing his advisers about why his admin’s efforts to tip the regime into collapse have not yet succeeded.”
… “US officials believe the regime could still fall by the end of this year without US military intervention, but Trump has found that timeline insufficient. In response, the Pentagon began updating plans for a possible military action against Cuba in the event he orders one.”
… Robert Kagan in The Atlantic: “It’s hard to think of a time when the US suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of WW II were eventually reversed.”
… “The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America’s overall position in the world, because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors and kept the US dominant in the region.”
… “Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be ‘open,’ as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the US, substantially diminished.”
… “Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.”
… “Trump likes to talk about who has ‘the cards,’ but whether he has any good ones left to play is not clear. The US and Israel pounded Iran with devastating effectiveness for 37 days, killing much of the country’s leadership and destroying the bulk of its military, yet couldn’t collapse the regime or exact even the smallest concession from it.”
… “Now the Trump admin hopes that blockading Iran’s ports will accomplish what massive force could not. It’s possible, of course, but a regime that could not be brought to its knees by 5 weeks of unrelenting military attack is unlikely to buckle in response to economic pressure alone.”
… Arnaud Bertrand on Kagan’s article: “There’s no overstating how extraordinary this Atlantic article is, given the author and the outlet. As a reminder Bob Kagan is:
The co-founder of Project for the New American Century, probably the single most imperialist Think Tank in Washington (which is quite a feat).
A man who spent his entire life advocating for American military interventions, especially in the Middle East, and a vocal advocate of the Iraq war. He started advocating for intervention in Iraq before 9/11, which speaks for itself.
The husband of Victoria Nuland, an extremely hawkish former senior US official.
The brother of Frederick Kagan, one of the key architects of the Iraq surge.
… “In other words, we ain’t exactly looking at some sort of anti-imperialist peacenik. This is quite literally the guy Dick Cheney called when he needed a pep talk. And the man is writing in The Atlantic, the most reliably pro-war mainstream media outlet in the US.”
… “So when HE writes that the US ‘suffered a total defeat’ in Iran that has no precedent in US history and can ‘neither be repaired nor ignored,’ it’s the functional equivalent of Ronald McDonald telling you the burgers aren’t great: it means the burgers really, really aren't great.”
… Geopolitical analyst Michael Horowitz: “President Trump says he will speak with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about arms sales to Taiwan, despite longstanding US policy against consulting Beijing on support to the island.”
… Netanyahu on 60 Minutes last night: "We have seen the deterioration of support for Israel in the US. It correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media. While we were fighting the physical military battle on seven battlefields, 7-front war, we were completely exposed on the 8th front, the media war - really, the social media war."
… Ilan Goldenberg, chief policy officer with J Street:
“Social media has accelerated the trend, but let’s be clear: the collapse of Israel’s standing in the US didn’t just ‘happen’ to Israel. It was the direct result of a series of catastrophic political decisions by Netanyahu over the past decade. Netanyahu chose to drag Israel directly into partisan American politics. Opposing the JCPOA was not itself unique. The Gulf states also disagreed with the deal. But Netanyahu went far beyond policy disagreement.
He organized a speech before Congress behind the back of the sitting American president in order to directly confront Barack Obama and align Israel with one side of America’s political divide. That moment, ten years ago, was the beginning of the end of bipartisan consensus around the US-Israel relationship. It planted the seeds for Israel becoming a partisan issue in American politics.
Netanyahu chose to empower extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in order to maintain power. He helped engineer alliances with them, brought them into the center of Israeli politics, and handed them real authority over national security and settlement policy. The images Americans now see almost daily on social media - violent settler attacks in the West Bank, Ben-Gvir celebrating with a noose cake, a Palestinian journalist emerging from prison emaciated and abused under systems overseen by Ben Gvir’s ministry and being interviewed on CNN. All of that has done enormous damage to Israel’s image.
Those outcomes were not inevitable. They were the direct consequence of Netanyahu’s political choices. Netanyahu chose to prolong and prosecute the Gaza war in a way that maximized devastation. After Oct 7, there was overwhelming sympathy for Israel in the US. Americans broadly agreed Israel had the right to respond to Hamas’ atrocities. But the war did not need to continue for so long, nor did it need to be prosecuted this way.
A year before it ended, most Israelis were prepared to support ending the war in exchange for the hostages. Netanyahu repeatedly extended it because ending the war threatened his coalition and his political survival. At the same time, he refused to seriously empower or work with alternative Palestinian leadership that could replace Hamas. So Israel fought a devastating war while ensuring Hamas would still remain part of Gaza’s future afterward.
The images coming out of Gaza more than anything else have transformed global and American opinion. Had the war ended earlier after Israel had achieved what military objectives it realistically could, Israel would not be facing anything close to this level of backlash today.
Netanyahu also played a major role in pushing the US toward war with Iran. That war is deeply unpopular in the US. It directly cuts against what Trump promised much of his own political base, namely, avoiding getting bogged down in another Middle East war with no clear strategic rationale and no plan for how to win. It has dramatically driven up oil prices, and will have long term direct economic impacts that Americans will feel every day.
So no - this is not fundamentally about social media. It is not simply a mysterious surge of antisemitism, a lack of hasbara, or genius social media of Iran and Qatar. And it is not primarily the result of advocacy groups or messaging campaigns. At its core, what we are witnessing is the cumulative consequence of a series of disastrous decisions by Netanyahu - decisions that have been bad for Israelis, bad for Palestinians, bad for the US, and bad for the broader Middle East.”
… Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “TODAY is the day. The DOJ must charge Fauci for lying under oath or lose the chance forever. This man oversaw gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, lied to Congress about it repeatedly, and watched as you were called crazy for asking questions. The statute of limitations expires tomorrow. The American people have waited long enough for accountability.”
… DOJ did not indict Fauci. Fauci also has a pardon in case they did. Rand knows this but he has been fundraising off Fauci for 6 years and isn’t going to stop now.
… Shady things are happening with the 4,000 tickets available for the UFC fights on the WH lawn for Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14. NBC: “Trump is handpicking most of the 4,000-plus spectators lucky enough, cunning enough or rich enough to score a seat on the South Lawn.”
… “Technically, all of the tickets are free, and the UFC is footing the bill for the event. But sponsorship packages that include ringside seats have been selling for $1 million or more, according to a Republican lobbyist directly familiar with the process. One report put the figure at $1.5 million.”
… Rod Stewart today at an event in the UK greeting King Charles and addressing his meetings with Trump: “Hello, sir. May I say well done in the Americas. You were superb. Absolutely superb. You put that little rat bag in his place.” Charles then laughed and said something back that unfortunately was inaudible.
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