Bruce Stokes

visiting senior fellow German Marshall Fund

[Steve Rattner @SteveRattner]

It's not just Trump who has made a fortune off the Presidency.

After Trump was reelected, Jared Kushner became a billionaire.

His estimated net worth is up roughly 1,440% since 2009—compared with ~160% for the average U.S. household.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

🚨🚨🚨

Pulte begins a purge of the intelligence community. Add it to what Hegseth is doing w/ the military, Blanche w/ Justice, Patel w/ FBI, and hirings at ICE, and we’re entering a very dangerous period, one that makes Watergate look like child’s play.
https://t.co/T0MxVKYyLb

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Step 1: Remove filters in Reflecting Pool because Obama put them in.
Step 2: Give your criminal neighbor who runs "Greenwater Services" a $20 million no-bid contract to paint the pool.
Step 3: Fill the pool with water from the Potomac River, the phosphates from which cause algae blooms.
Step 4: Freshly sealed pool and extreme heat result in a super scum event
Step 5: Direct National Park Service to dump hydrogen peroxide into the pool which causes the paint to peel.
Step 5: Deploy US National Guard to stop people from taking photos of the swamp as a perfect metaphor for the administration.
Step 6: Blame someone else.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This would be a scandal that would have ended any other presidency.

Qatar gave a $400 million Boeing 747 to the Pentagon. Trump calls it a “free” gift. It is not free. The Air Force just spent months retrofitting it with secure communications, missile defense, and electromagnetic shielding.

The cost of that work is classified.

Estimates say north of a billion.

The number is enormous, and you are paying it.

Now the part they bury.

Under the memorandum signed by the Pentagon and Qatar, ownership of the plane transfers to Trump’s presidential library foundation when he leaves office. His own son says it will sit in the lobby of a future Trump hotel.

So follow the chain.

A foreign government hands a luxury jet to a sitting president. American taxpayers rebuild it from the inside out. Then Trump takes it home.

A gift you use for four years and then keep is still a gift. The Constitution bars foreign gifts to a president without the consent of Congress. This one never got that consent.

We are paying a fortune to gift wrap a luxury jet that ends up in his private collection.

Grift in plain sight.
https://t.co/RqGjdCjV6n

[Mark Leonard @markhleonard]

10/
The lesson isn't "relitigate Brexit." It's the opposite: stop fighting 2016 and build a new consensus for the Britain of 2026.

My full ECFR report is here 👇
https://t.co/YsV7PyH0ha

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

News: Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, celebrated Mass for 500 participants (some pictured here) at the @OutrchCatholic conference for LGBTQ Catholics at @Georgetown today. We will post his homily, which moved many to tears, later. So grateful for His Eminence.

[Karim Emile Bitar @karimbitar]

🇮🇱 “These are unprecedented and harsh accusations against an Israeli government and the defense establishment, especially from a former prime minister. But after years of restraint, I have no choice but to make them.”
Ehud Olmert

via @abaaboud https://t.co/HAisqXQws3

[Rahul Shivshankar @RShivshankar]

"I AND ITALY NEVER BEG"
MELONI SLAYS TRUMP AFTER HE SAY: "Meloni? She begged me for a photo, I felt sorry for her"

Giorgia Meloni's rasping response: "Donald Trump's statements are completely made up, I'm frankly appalled. I don't know why the President of the United States behaves this way with his own allies; after all, it's not the first time it's happened. I can only say it's a shame that he doesn't show the same determination with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, with leaderships toward which he instead proves much more accommodating; however, one thing he must remember: I and Italy never beg."

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

🚨 TRUMP SPARKS DIPLOMATIC CRISIS WITH ITALY: Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has canceled his planned June 21–22 trip to Washington after President Trump insulted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, claiming she “begged” for a photo with him at the G7 and that he “felt sorry for her.”

Meloni released a video firing back at Trump’s comments, calling them “completely fabricated.”

“I am frankly appalled,” she said. “I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way towards his allies.”

She added that Trump appears to show more accommodation toward “the enemies of the West” than America’s allies and concluded by saying: “Italy and I never beg.”

[ABC News @ABC]

ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool where workers continue to battle algae – and the new paint job appears to be falling apart.

The Department of Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment. https://t.co/7TzBngVdyc

[Ronen Bergman @ronenbergman]

דקה ועשרים שניות של טקסט שקשה להיזכר מתי נאמר כמוהו על ידי איזשהו נשיא או סגן נשיא אמריקאי על איזושהי ממשלה ישראלית והעומד בראשה. למרות ההתנגשויות החריפות עם נתניהו, לא קלינטון, ולא אובמה, לא ביידן ולא האריס התקרבו בכלל לעוצמת הכעס הבוקע מכל מילה של סגן הנשיא ואנס, אולי הקול החשוב ביותר היום במפלגה הרפובליקאית. דקה ועשרים שניות שאומרות הרבה מאוד על מצבה של ישראל בוושינגטון.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

Holy shit. This video of a Trump advisor saying on CNN that the White House is “not afraid” to cut Medicaid and says “everything” is “on the table” including cuts on Social Security.

MAGA is about to lose their health care. #HandsOffOurSocialSecurity

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

“Trump's administration has redirected $352m in federal funds toward the president's ballroom project…The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.”

https://t.co/w0IV41aMD6

[Chris D. Jackson @ChrisDJackson]

📸 Great photo of @JoeBiden and @DrBiden with the Obamas, Bushes, and Clintons in Chicago today.

This is America. Not what is currently in the White House.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Enten: "With independents, Trump is 55 points underwater. I mean, my goodness gracious! This was a political disaster. No wonder the president wants to move on from it ... there was no president ever before that had any poll in which he was 50 point underwater inflation. The Iran war absolutely drove Trump to new lows."

[Steve Rattner @SteveRattner]

Warsh inherits PCE inflation at 3.8% — higher than Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, or Powell faced on day one.

He faces the toughest price spiral of any Fed chair in decades.

My @Morning_Joe Chart:

[Sheldon Whitehouse @SenWhitehouse]

When both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal call out Trump’s Iran deal as a U.S. defeat, that’s telling.

[Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian]

8D Chess

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

The question inside Trump's White House wasn't whether suspending habeas corpus was a good idea. It was how much the administration could get away with before the courts stopped them.
That's a warning worth paying attention to.
Read here:
https://t.co/jRv5GR7PGa

[Kenneth P. Vogel @kenvogel]

SCOOP from @By_CJewett & me:

Markwayne Mullin urged @HHSGov to remove warnings from the @US_FDA website about the health risks of the gas station drug kratom.

Mullin owns equity in a leading kratom company called Botanic Tonics that could have benefited. https://t.co/rzkImei3VI