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… Trump announced today an executive order to attempt to seize bank accounts and other assets from migrants:
“Access to our Nation’s Financial Systems must be limited to those who have a Legal Right to be here, and who are engaged in Lawful and Legitimate Commerce. Bank Accounts being used to enable Illegal Immigration, or to store the Welfare received by Illegal Aliens, will be shut down, and funds will ultimately face Impoundment and Seizure so they can to be returned to Taxpayers.”
“This also sends a clear message to the anti-ICE rioters that your violent disruptions are only strengthening our resolve. My Executive Order will also allow us to stop Billions in leaving our Country in all manner of criminal activity. It has been said this measure we are taking is the most effective means of reversing Biden’s Border Invasion. We shall soon find out!”
… Trump also posted that he was appointing federal housing finance director Bill Pulte as the DNI. Pulte has no military experience, no experience in the intelligence community, and no prior govt experience before Trump appointed him last year to the housing finance job. He did, however, inherit his wealthy grandfather’s home construction company and was a Trump mega-donor during the campaign.
… Trump: “I am appointing William J. Pulte, to serve as Acting DNI. William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago. During this period, he will remain Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.”
… Pulte is a Trump loyalist who has used his position in the past to bring criminal referrals for mortgage and insurance fraud against Trump’s political enemies, including NY AG Leticia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, and was the driving force behind the DOJ investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell over renovations at the Fed’s headquarters that Trump said were illegal. The DOJ dropped the probe in April.
… Sen Intel Committee ranking member Mark Warner: “This appointment speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation’s top intelligence official. Rather than selecting a respected national security professional capable of delivering independent judgments, the president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution.
… “Americans have already seen Pulte use the powers of his office at the FHFA to pursue the president’s grievances and lend credibility to dubious prosecutions of Trump’s perceived political opponents. Elevating him to oversee the Intel Community makes clear that this president is not looking for an intelligence leader who will follow the facts or speak truth to power, but rather someone who will be willing to shape intelligence around the president’s wishes, regardless of the cost to the American people.”
… “Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president’s political agenda rather than his experience. That is how intelligence becomes politicized, how inconvenient facts disappear, how agencies charged with protecting our democracy instead become tools to manipulate it, and how Americans are left more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.”
… Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) to Meidas: “He knows nothing about intelligence. His number one qualification is that he is totally devoted to Trump, and he will do whatever Trump wants. Does that mean intelligence will be by the book and on the level, or will it suit what Trump wants? I’m convinced it will be the latter.”
… Sen. John Thune who was with Intel Committee Chair Tom Cotton to CNN: Q - “Do you think Bill Pulte has experience to be acting DNI? Thune: I'll defer to Chairman Cotton. Cotton: I have no observations on the matter.”
… Profiles in courage.
… Former CIA agent Marc Polymeropolous: “I thought this was a joke at first. Wow. Obviously wildly unqualified, zero national security chops. By law, I believe the DNI is required to have such. But, nothing matters anymore, so ok. A worrisome message the DNI will be used for further partisan moves, which soils the intel community, who just want normalcy post Tulsi. All huge red flags. I mean, normie GOP folks, hello?”
… “The deputy Aaron Lukas would have been just fine and was in fact well received as potential future boss, as a former agency officer who had experience, but nope, Trump had to go to crazy town. Our allies will not laugh but be horrified by this. Further distrust in America as a professional intel partner will grow.
… “Perhaps this is ultimately designed to get rid of ODNI entirely. Just shut it all down. It’s that insane a choice, and may be the only explanation that does not go down a dark road.”
… Sen. Susan Collins to Punchbowl: “I do not know Mr. Pulte at all. I don’t know whether he has any intelligence or military background. I don’t even know whether he has a security clearance. Q - Does that concern you? Not yet because maybe there’s a lot in his background that is relevant to this important decision.”
… Axios: “Trump lashed out at Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon in an expletive-laden call. Earlier on Monday, Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the US over Israel’s actions in Lebanon. On the call, Trump called Netanyahu ‘crazy’ and accused him of ingratitude. He also put the brakes on Israel’s plan to strike Beirut.”
… Summarizing Trump’s remarks to Netanyahu, a US official said: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” A second source briefed on the call said Trump was “pissed” and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: “What the fuck are you doing?”
… Trump has repeatedly posted statements on Truth Social demanding that Israeli courts postpone Netanyahu’s corruption trial until after all his wars are over, while adding that the charges should be dropped since Netanyahu is a “war hero” according to Trump.
… “Another US official said Trump was concerned by the fact that Israel had killed so many civilians in Lebanon, and objected to the Israelis knocking down buildings to take out a single Hezbollah commander. Trump’s anger appeared to be driven by the fact that Netanyahu’s decision to escalate in Lebanon was threatening to implode his negotiations with Iran.”
… Israeli TV host/journalist Amit Segal: “A very senior source in the PM’s Office paints a completely different picture. According to the source, the conversation was significantly less dramatic—less Real Housewives and more actual strategic dialogue. The source insists Trump did not say anything personal to Netanyahu along the lines of warning him to stay out of jail, nor did he claim that Netanyahu or Israel is hated around the world.”
… “The conversation was indeed tense, but the friction came from mutual complaints over their dueling social media posts the night before, where both leaders were trying to publicly spin the outcomes of the ceasefire on their own terms. Ultimately, the discussion ended with Israel agreeing to the ceasefire conditions so long as Hezbollah upholds its obligations.”
… “The conditions in question appear to be a quid pro quo: Israel will not strike Beirut and, in exchange, Hezbollah will not strike Israel proper. Meanwhile, the grinding war in southern Lebanon continues exactly as before, with ongoing IDF ground maneuvers and Hezbollah drone strikes. In short, it is a ceasefire for the cities and a continue-fire for the rest of southern Lebanon.”
… Greg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist: “Listen I think it’s entirely plausible that Trump said this to Netanyahu. It’s almost a rite of passage for every American president since Clinton. But one thing we should remember from the Biden years is that the ‘POTUS swore at Netanyahu’ news cycle is often followed, some days or weeks later, by Netanyahu finding a way to continue doing the thing that prompted the call in the first place.”
… Punchbowl: “GOP lawmakers are bucking Trump on his WH ballroom, shelving plans to spend $1 billion to secure the new facility and other areas of the presidential compound. The ‘Trump battleships’ are steaming into a wave of skepticism at the House Armed Services Committee as lawmakers prepare to mark up the FY2027 defense authorization bill this week.”
… “The House may vote this week on a discharge petition for a Ukrainian aid bill that Trump is certain to oppose. Several dozen House Republicans could back the measure anyway. Most prominently, Republicans are also in the process of killing Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund, a direct rebuke to the president.”
… Meidas Capitol Hill reporter Scott MacFarlane told CNN that he thinks the report that Trump is moving on from the slush fund is a smoke screen to get congress drop bills to block it: “Nobody thinks this fund is dead and there is nobody, and I mean nobody. Nobody on capitol hill or elsewhere outside the Trump admin thinks this thing’s a good idea.”
… Thune was asked about it today: Q - Speaker Johnson told us it's his understanding that the weaponization fund is off the table. Is that your understanding as well after speaking with the acting AG? Thune: That is correct.”
… Unlike Thune and Johnson, I don’t believe the Trump admin on this. Legislation is needed NOW to make sure this never happens.
… Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA): “Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund isn’t going away. We can’t trust the WH and the president will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. If Republicans actually wanted to stop Trump’s slush fund, they would vote with Democrats to permanently block it.”
… Acting AG Todd Blanche was asked about it today in a hearing before Congress: “We’re not moving forward with the fund. Period. Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY): Not moving forward ever? Blanche: Correct. Meng: Will you put that in writing? Blanche: I’m not putting anything in writing.”
… NYT: “For the first time in more than two decades, CA voters are about to pick a new governor who is not already a national figure. The race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a tumultuous affair. It began with Kamala Harris’s flirtation with a run. It continued with Sen. Alex Padilla’s brief consideration. Rep. Eric Swalwell entered the race, only to implode with a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations that resulted in his resignation from Congress rather than promotion.”
… “Voters have been left sifting through about a half-dozen contenders who have mostly struggled to capture their imagination. The top two vote getters advance to a Nov runoff, regardless of party. The most intense contest has been between the race’s two highest polling Democrats, Tom Steyer, the billionaire financier who has run hard to the left, and Xavier Becerra, the former state AG and HHS secretary under former Biden, who would be the state’s first Latino governor in the modern era.”
… Trump: “CALIFORNIA: Vote today for Steve Hilton for Governor. He will work with me and the Federal Government, the money will flow because I have confidence in him (but not any of the others!), and we will MAKE CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN. Steve Hilton will NEVER let you down. VOTE NOW!”
… Same exact message Trump used the day of the elections in Hungary - I will redirect US taxpayers dollars to you if you vote for my guy. He’s also clearly referencing disaster aid in the case of CA, which he has weaponized against blue states.
… It was Dr. Oz’s turn to fill in for Karoline Leavitt at the WH press briefing during her maternity leave:
Q - “This is the 4th checkup that the president has had. He’s supposed to have one a year. He’s had several CT heart scans. What are the doctors looking for? Oz: I think it’s just a routine exam. These records are spectacular. That amount of energy and that amount of mental acuity does not exist in a vacuum. You have to have a vessel to carry it, and the president has unique ability to just keep going at all hours of the day with remarkable strength.”
… Journalist Aaron Rupar: “Trump has no public events on his schedule again today. The last time he was seen publicly for something other than a pre-taped interview was 6 days ago - May 27 - for his cabinet meeting. (He went to Walter Reed the day before.)”
Q - “If the president’s in such perfect health, why does he keep going back in for checkups? Oz: He likes the results. He does really well. Uh, he aces the test every single day.”
On Bill Pulte’s nomination for DNI: “I don’t know anything about Bill Pulte.”
Q: “Can you respond to any of the criticism from Republicans on Trump's decision to tap Bill Pulte, who has no intelligence experience, as acting DNI? Oz: I do trust the president's judgement. He is a very sharp and quick study of people, their emotional abilities and their ability to persevere in the face of hardship.”
Q: “The president recently invested in the parent company of UFC. Is it a conflict of interest for him to be promoting this event when he's invested in UFC's parent company? Oz: I don't think the president sits in the Oval Office and makes individual investment decisions, but I don't know about that issue.”
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… NYT: “In a move that disproportionately targets women and minority officers, Pete Hegseth recently blocked the promotions of 9 Navy officers who had been selected by a board of senior Navy admirals. The net result of Hegseth’s intervention is a slate of 22 nominees to be one-star admirals that bears little resemblance to the broader force these officers will help lead.”
… “3 of the officers removed by Hegseth from the promotion list are women and 2 are Black men. Hegseth’s actions appear to violate the rules governing a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit-based. No female officers were included on the new one-star list, despite the fact that women make up about 21% of the active-duty Navy. The list appears to include only 2 nonwhite officers, even though sailors who identify as racial minorities make up about 38% of the active-duty Navy.”
… “Hegseth’s removal of the officers from the one-star list is highly unusual. According to Pentagon rules, the defense secretary is supposed to pull officers from the list only for moral, mental, physical or professional failings that raise questions about the officers’ fitness to lead.”
… “Hegseth’s actions are the latest in a series of firings and personnel interventions that appear to be driven by his anti-diversity politics rather than the officers’ performance. Taken together, they could reshape the military’s top ranks for years to come.”
… On the left is the actual photo of Rep. Mike Rogers on the campaign trail in Michigan while running for US senate. On the right is the photo posted by one of his consultants.
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Reminder there is no Bulletin tomorrow because I do my weekly podcast Uncovered where we do a deep dive into the top stories of the week. This seems like it’s already been a long week already and it’s only Tuesday. I feel like every day during a Trump presidency ages all of us at least 3. That’s probably a low estimate.
If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.
… Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to CNBC on high gas prices: “I don’t think it’s gonna impact the midterms. I’ve seen no data that suggests this is having a big impact on the midterms.”
… Spoken like someone who doesn’t have to run this year.
… Republican pollster and political analyst Matt Towery on Fox: “I am concerned about Republican turnout for the midterms. In Georgia, Democrats turned out 150,000 more early voters. That’s not a good sign. I don’t think enough of Trump’s achievements are being out for the public to see.”
… What achievements?
… WH Trade Rep Jamieson Greer on CNBC: “There’s been more nuance to tariffs than people realize. We’re trying to be very careful. Host: To be fair, that’s a more recent approach. When we had ‘liberation day’ last April, we heard complaints from grocery store owners that they couldn’t buy bananas anymore. Greer: I never heard they couldn’t buy bananas. Host: That’s what Target’s CEO told us on air.”
… WaPo: Pete Hegseth has now barred reporters from entering its press office. Reporter Scott Norver: “The public affairs office used to be an open room where reporters could stop by the desks of military public affairs officials without escorts. It was a meeting area, and in previous admins the Pentagon press secretary or other officials would regularly hold off-camera gaggles and take questions from the news media, whose members would gather on couches in the room. But neither Hegseth nor his staff have continued that dynamic.”
… Congressional reporter Jamie Dupree: “Just bizarre stuff out of the Pentagon - making the Pentagon press office into a SCIF to keep reporters out of the building.”
… Military Reporters & Editors board: “We strongly condemn the Pentagon’s decision to designate its public affairs office as a classified space and bar journalists from accessing it. The public affairs office is not where secrets are protected, it is where information is provided to the public on behalf of DOD. Transparency and accountability are not obstacles to national security. They are essential to maintaining public trust in the military and the civilian leaders who oversee it.”
… “MRE calls on the Pentagon to immediately reverse this decision, restore press access to the public affairs office and rescind the broader restrictions that have increasingly impeded journalists’ ability to do their jobs. The Pentagon’s public affairs mission is to inform the public, not isolate itself from it.”
… Republicans continue to be trigged by Pride Month and rainbow flags. Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “Has corporate America not gotten the memo that WOKE IS DEAD? The ONLY THING we should be celebrating this month is our country’s upcoming 250th birthday. But the RADICAL LEFT MOB has completely radicalized June for their woke agenda, and countless orgs are still bending the knee. There’s only ONE FLAG that matters.”
… Trump endorsed Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) for re-election despite the fact that he’s been MIA for months and nobody has seen him. He hasn’t voted in the House since March 5.
… Long time Capitol Hill reporter Paul Kane: “So Tom Kean was last seen March 5. Today was the 88th since day his disappearance. He’s in a critical swing seat that Rs desperately need to hold. Never seen anything like this.”
… Former ‘60 Minutes’ boss Bill Owens addressed Scott Pelley’s comments torching Bari Weiss and her new 60 Minutes producer: “Scott Pelley can smell a fraud from a mile away. I couldn’t be prouder of him, and I know all of the people at ‘60 Minutes’ couldn’t be prouder of him.”
… On the journalists who were fired from 60 Minutes by Weiss: "They were fired by people who don't even know what we do. Who don't actually care. But they did put in a tech columnist to be the next executive producer of 60 Minutes.”
… Maine reporter Alex Seitz-Wald on the latest Graham Platner controversy: “Voter reaction I'm hearing so far in Maine feels different than Reddit/tattoo. Supporters were quick to brush those off, but this is raising doubts about whether he really is reformed, even among people who still plan to vote for him: ‘I feel sickened that I have vote for him.’”
… Plenty of people willing to give him a pass - ‘Amy Gertner has responded that the marriage is strong and she fully supports her husband. That's enough for me’ - but feels less than when I literally could not find anyone in Oct who said the Reddit/tattoo scandal changed their vote.”
… “That said, Platner has lock on the Dem nomination, we're a long way from Nov, we're a D+4 state, and Dems have tailwind. A vote with nose held counts as much as one with a smile. So it may not matter in final outcome, but next 5 months for Maine Dems could be extremely unfun.”
… Sen. Chuck Schumer: "I met with Graham Platner today. We’re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate."
… Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the senate today:
On Trump lifting sanctions on Russian oil: “There are time-limited extensions on sanctions waivers. Sen. Shaheen: It's certainly benefitted Russia. Can you commit not to extend them? Rubio: It depends. We would like to end it, because the underlying policy has been to sanction their oil. These are time-limited waivers. Shaheen: But if we continue to extend them, they are not time-limited.”
Sen. Booker: “You keep telling us how we’re winning this war. Rubio: The war is over. Booker: The war is not over. The American people see how we’re losing at the pump and with their costs, and yet this thing still hasn’t been resolved. Every day he tweets out, oh, we’ve obliterated them, we’ve annihilated them. They’re going to surrender. But yet we still find ourselves spending billions of dollars a week.”
Sen. Coons: “In those meetings in Beijing, did the president offer to condition arms sales to Taiwan in order to placate Xi? Rubio: I’m not going to discuss what was the president’s words in a meeting.”
Sen. Duckworth: “This is an astonishing figure. In just 14 weeks, Trump will have blown through as much if not more money in Iran than he thinks Congress should spend on US diplomacy for the entirety of the next fiscal year.”
Sen. Rosen asked Rubio why he was partying with Trump while Vance was in Pakistan negotiating with Iran: “I was not at a party. I was next to the president. I was co-located with the president in the midst of a high stakes negotiation so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world.”
… Here was Rubio at the time, “co-located with the president.”
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… Politico: “Trump on Tuesday signed a scaled-back executive order that seeks to address the cybersecurity threats of artificial intelligence - but with less-advanced govt scrutiny than the WH had been set to impose last month. The order asks some AI companies to submit their powerful new models to a voluntary govt review 30 days before releasing the products to the public. An earlier draft of the document had called for a voluntary review as much as 90 days in advance.”
… “Trump had been scheduled to sign the 90-day version of the order May 21, but abruptly rejected that draft just hours before the planned WH signing. (That usually means an oligarch got him on the phone). The WH’s changes to the executive order are just the latest in a series of huge shifts in the US’s AI policy.”
… CNN: “CNN spoke with more than a dozen current and former female staffers who say they’ve faced harassment from House members or senior congressional staff, nearly all of whom chose not to report the incidents and still fear publicly naming their harassers. They often felt discouraged about making a complaint, fearful they would get blacklisted from future jobs in Congress and that their anonymity could not be protected.”
A congressman asked a young female staffer to have a threesome.
A male chief of staff propositioned a former intern sexually, writing that he would “own” her.
A member of Congress texted a senior leadership staffer asking the color of her underwear while she was in his sight line.
… One female staffer: “The risk of professional exile – be it from being labeled a ‘problem staffer’ or cast as the center of drama - has always felt more immediate and certain than the possibility of accountability.”
… Nobody was named in the story.
… NYT: “The WH is seeking to exert more control over billions of dollars in annual govt grants, aiming to restrict a vast swath of funding — in health, housing, science and transportation — so that it primarily serves the purposes and organizations politically aligned with Trump. While the admin says that its primary goal is to safeguard taxpayer money, its proposal amounts to a major escalation in its attempt to reimagine the nation’s spending.”
… “Trump’s ambitions were made clear in a roughly 400-page blueprint that was released to little fanfare. If finalized, it would require all federal grants to be approved by the president’s political appointees, who must ensure that the money would ‘demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.’ For the agencies that issue those awards and the nonprofit groups, local govts, universities and other entities that receive the money, the Trump admin would also impose a set of highly prescriptive and political criteria.”
… “The govt could not issue grants to projects or groups that ‘deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans,’ for example. Nor could it seek to fund initiatives that ‘promote anti-American values,’ contribute to illegal immigration, advance diversity, equity and inclusion or assist in voter registration.”
… Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan was on CNN to explain why he’s refusing to perform at Trump’s Freedom 250 Concert: “I know how politics works. It’s a game of chess where everyone is using others as pawns. I don’t want to be part of that. This is why I’m stepping out.”
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… But Vanilla Ice told TMZ he is still in: “I’m here to party with America, man. Music is made to bring people together. And that’s what we’re here to do, man. We’re just going to represent the 90s. I don’t take anything too serious. I don’t think anybody else should. I think that we should just dance. You know, it’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
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