6.30 According to financial disclosure forms, Trump reaped a stunning windfall in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency. All told, the president pulled in at least $2.2 billion. That compares to a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.
6.30 In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship, a major decision that rejects a push by Trump to fundamentally redefine who is American in ways not seen for more than 150 years.
6.30 In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld two state bans preventing trans women and girls from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity.
6.30 In a 6-3 decision, The Supreme Court sided with congressional Republicans and ruled that limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates violated parties’ constitutional free-speech rights.
6.30 Regime Change, by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann. Trump, at his final interview with the authors: “They illegally indicted me, they impeached me, they did everything–they shot me, I guess you could say. But I won the election in a landslide. Nobody else could have done it. And there’s only one thing that you could say about me that anybody believes, and you know what it is. Essentially I won every fucking time.”
6.27 Maggie Haberman, in an interview with Channel 4: “I’m not sure that he wants a successor. I think that if it was up to him, he would just be the last.”
6.26 David French in the Times: “What if we don’t actually have a competitive two-party system? What if our nation actually has two one-party systems, instead? And if the United States has two one-party systems, then that means that each way they turn, voters are confronted with the arrogance, stagnation and corruption that almost always disfigures single-party rule.”
6.25 Axios: “American politics, reordered and reimagined by a decade of President Trump‘s rise, fall and resurrection, is imploding in substantial ways. MAGA is splintering between Trump enthusiasts and true “America First” believers. Socialism is rising in popularity and clout. Democratic leaders are flailing. Israel is bleeding support in both parties. Pro-Palestinian politicians are winning elections. AI is dividing both sides of the aisle, with pro-worker coalitions forming among Republicans and Democrats. Trump’s unpopularity seems locked around 60%.”
6.25 The Supreme Court undercuts the asylum system. In the majority opinion, the six conservative justices zeroed in on the part of the law that says an asylum seeker who “arrives in” the US must be given the chance to claim its protection. If they don’t actually step foot over the border, poof goes the statute, or so the logic goes. This undermines the entire purpose of asylum itself: To give the oppressed a chance to live a better life somewhere else. Noah Feldman on Bloomberg: “In a decision that redefines what it means to be heartless, the Supreme Court has held that by stopping asylum seekers from crossing the border, the US can avoid ever having to determine whether their lives are in danger if they return home. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is a case study in the absurdities of legalism, and why it has been condemned since the days of Jesus of Nazareth. . . .It is perverse to bar asylum applications from people who follow the rules and show up at established border crossings, while allowing asylum applications from those who manage to get across the border unlawfully.”
6.25 Thomas L. Friedman in the Times: “[T]here is a parallel between Trump’s failure to clean up the Persian Gulf and his failure to clean up the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. Both, to me, are failures of a commander in chief, because both were done, in their own way, through no-bid contracts — and no-bid contracts, which don’t allow any other bidders than the one the president anoints, always get you in trouble. In the case of the Reflecting Pool, we know that the National Park Service bypassed competitive bidding and gave the $1.7 million contract to a firm called Greenwater Services, which happened to be run by a Trump campaign donor. But not any Trump campaign donor, one who had been convicted twice — once for bribery and once for some other campaign donation shenanigans. What happened? Instead of turning the Reflecting Pool blue the way Trump wanted for the Fourth of July, it’s turned into an algae of green blooms that have basically wrecked the whole scene. Now, why do I compare that no-bid contract with the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran? Because in a way, Trump approached it, too, in a no-bid fashion. Trump invited in Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel [to] the Situation Room. It was a no-bid moment where Netanyahu then brings onto the screen the head of the Mossad, and the Mossad tells Trump that through aerial bombing, they can decapitate the regime and trigger a popular uprising in Iran. And, of course, none of that happened. Trump didn’t even have in the room his energy secretary or his Treasury secretary. And his own experts, the director of the C.I.A., called the Israeli idea farcical, and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, reportedly called it bullshit. But Trump went with his gut, with his no-bid contract with Bibi Netanyahu, and the result has been the Strait of Hormuz has been turned from blue into green, red and white — the colors of the Iranian flag.”
6.24 Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic: “[T]he war confirms some of the great lessons of the Russia-Ukraine war: that it is much easier to deny access to or use of key terrain than to seize it; that there is an urgent need to shift to cheaper, mass-produced precision munitions for both offensive and defensive use; that numbers matter; that air supremacy—the kind of control the Allies exerted over Normandy beaches in 1944, for example—is a thing of the past, having been subverted by ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones; that swift, smashing victories are usually chimeras of the political imagination; and, unfortunately, that indifference to the suffering of one’s own population and a readiness to inflict misery on an opponent’s civilians pay strategic dividends. Most of all, this war has demonstrated profound American weaknesses. The damage will not be undone when the Trump administration is gone, two and a half long years from now, because it is the American way of war itself that this conflict has called into question. That way of war was a strategic and operational style relying on relatively small, extremely advanced forces that did not have mobilizational depth behind them—not people, not munitions, not platforms. It was predicated on having enough time to build up to confront an enemy, as was the case in both the Gulf and Iraq wars. It rested on secure bases near the enemy, which would suffer only attacks that could be easily parried. It assumed that the initiative would rest with the U.S., and that allies would play along, despite whatever doubts they might have. It underinvested in both active defenses (e.g. surface-to-air missiles) and passive defenses (e.g. hardened aircraft shelters). It reflected not only the errors of an unusually feckless administration, but the accumulation of poor decisions and inadequate or misdirected investments by the Pentagon and Congress, civilian and military leaders alike. It was caused only partly by the distractions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but resulted even more from decades of loose thinking and self-serving assumptions about the changing character of war. Much of the problem was simple arrogance.”
6.24 David Clayton-Thomas dies at 84.
6.23 Trump on Truth Social: “Six people have been arrested, and seven people have been cited, for the damage they did to our Country’s now beautiful Reflecting Pool. The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition.”
6.22 Keir Starmer resigns as PM. Axios: “His resignation, less than two years after a historic Labour landslide, reveals Britain’s chronic instability has outgrown partisan explanation. For many Western leaders, the U.K. is the ultimate cautionary tale — a live experiment in modern populism, unfolding inside one of the world’s oldest and wealthiest democracies. Brexit began with utopian promises of an unshackled “Global Britain” that could curb immigration, slash red tape and take back control of its borders and budget. Instead, a succession of Conservative prime ministers plunged the country into deeper dysfunction: Theresa May was broken by the Brexit negotiations, Boris Johnson by scandal, Liz Truss by market panic, and Rishi Sunak by electoral humiliation. Today, Britain remains marooned in a low-growth cycle — saddled with trade friction, high prices, strained public services and a hyper-sensitive electorate that tolerates virtually no political failure.”
6.22 Tucker Carlson on his podcast: “How could I support a political party that is not loyal to the United States?” he said. “I voted Republican my entire life. I have been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party, but there is no defending this. It’s immoral. It’s exactly the opposite of what a political party is charged with doing. I’m out.” 6.22 Clive Davis dies at 94.
6.22 Alan Greenspan dies at 100.
6.20 Played my 1000th Wordle. Of the 986 I solved, I got none on the first try, 52 on the second, 267 on the third, 419 on the fourth, 192 on the fifth, and 56 on the sixth. On the same day, I played my 700th game of Connections, where I have a more modest 77% success rate.
6.19 A Pair of Aces, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christoper Murray.
6.19 James Burrows dies at 85.
6.18 Knicks get their Canyon of Heroes parade. The City Hall speech by Mayor Zohran Mamdani is praised as “the best sports speech in history.” In the speech, Mamdani pointed out Game 4, when the Knicks fell behind by 29 points in the second half, at which point oddsmakers gave them just a 0.4% chance of winning. “There is one thing that the pundits just don’t get about this team, what they don’t get about this city: it is in that 0.4% that we go to work,” Mamdani said. A great line.
6.17 Peter Wehner in The Atlantic: “The event was garish, lurid, and crass—perfectly calibrated to appeal to the president. A massive military flyover. The use of honor guards to usher UFC fighters into the cage. “Octagon Girls” in sequined red-white-and-blue costumes parading around the cage between rounds. A UFC fighter, during a post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, praising “my Lord and savior Jesus Christ” before repeating a long-running conspiracy theory: “Michelle Obama is a man!” This smear seemed to bring a half smile to Trump’s face. The main event, a lightweight championship bout between Justin Gaethje and Ilia Topuria, left Topuria bloodied and battered, his face mangled, his vision so impaired that he was hospitalized. As Gal Beckerman put it, “Not a single one of these seven fights was won on points. They all resulted in one man’s rage and another man’s pain and humiliation.” It was Trump’s version of the Roman imperial games—state-sponsored brutality as public entertainment, staged to please the emperor and his courtiers, desecrating a public space. He clearly relished every second of it. But the MAGA movement—and the 80-year-old man who leads it—is breaking apart. The UFC event captured an essential truth of Trump’s second term. He believes that he made a mistake the first time around by hiring too many subordinates who did not allow Trump to be Trump. He wanted full fealty. By discarding institutional restraints, he was convinced he could deliver what he had promised. Trump has always been a man of epic indiscipline, but in Trump 2.0 there would be no brakes. It would be all improv. . . .[A]s a result, the world now faces something new and frightening: a psychotic state.”
6.17 Axios: “According to a Pew Report, 52 percent of U.S. families have two parents who work full-time, up six points from a decade ago and 21 points since 1975. The share of families in which dad works full-time and mom is not employed fell from 42% in 1975 to 23% last year.”
6.16 At a closed-door Teamsters national convention in Las VegasSen. Josh Hawley endorsed the Teamsters’ position that Congress should pass legislation barring self-driving trucks from replacing commercial drivers, slammed “AI cheerleaders” as corporate goons who “want to replace every job they can with an algorithm,” and said “we need to give workers rights over AI in the workplace.”
6.16 Tom Nichols in The Atlantic: “Trump has tried to conjure new circumstances by speaking them aloud and attempting to wish them into existence. His tired garble in France, however, is something different. It suggests that Trump, more than ever, is unable to fathom what’s happening in the world around him and has been reduced to turning all of his previous statements upside down: A regime that was once the epitome of evil is now a reasonable partner; nuclear material that once represented an existential threat to America might now sit in Iran forever; Syria and Iran and Israel and Lebanon will now do things that they would never do, just because he wants them to. None of this makes any sense, except as desperate rationalizations from a man who cannot face facts and admit defeat. Trump has always had a tenuous relationship with the truth, but evidence is mounting that on the most important questions of war and peace, the president of the United States seems to be losing his grip on reality itself.” 6.15 Disclosure Day with Ginny at Trilith
6.15 Monica Hesse in The Washington Post: “The Ultimate Fighting Championship event that happened on Sunday night was not a celebration of a sport, it was a celebration of slop. It was a pseudo-patriotic grift that tried to convince us that fighters wheel-kicking each other for the chance of $1 million in crypto deserved the same level of hero admiration as the boys who launched onto the beach at Normandy; it was an infomercial that paused every seven seconds to advertise Starlink internet or Starry soda or Ram trucks or flavors of Monster energy drink that God forgot. It was “the next chapter of America’s fighting story,” an announcer intoned over footage and images of historic battles, as if the Declaration of Independence was brought to you by the less popular Musket company and a knockoff beverage everyone drank because they threw their tea off of boats. As if William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta and then raised his weary head to whisper, “It’s up to you, Bo Nickal. Go to Washington and use an arm bar. For the Union.”
6.15 Jim Geraghty in the Post: “Do the U.S. and Iran even have an agreement? Bloomberg reported that the Iranian government is circulating at least three different versions of the deal; one has the U.S. and regional partners providing $300 billion for the country’s reconstruction. At one point Monday, in an interview with CBS News, Vance said that sum is something Iran “could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast Coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation.” Later in the day, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “The story that the U.S. is paying Iran 300 million [sic] Dollars is Fake News, put out by the Dumocrats!!!” Clear as mud. The final copy, whenever it’s released, is probably going to stink. It fits a well-established pattern of an administration that habitually overpromises and underdelivers. A vice president who apparently never wanted to start the war now gets the job of selling the country on a deal with one of the world’s most untrustworthy and treacherous regimes, with ideological opponents like [Lindsey] Graham ready to blame him when the deal goes sour.”
6.15 The Atlantic: “A mark of how much the U.S. has deviated from its aims at the conflict’s outset is the fate of the Strait of Hormuz. Its centrality to the new memorandum might suggest that Iran’s blockage of the narrow channel was a reason for the U.S. and Israel to go to war in the first place. Not so. The strait was open on the day the war started. Iran closed it, snarling global energy-supply chains, to gain exactly the leverage now being employed at the negotiating table. By contrast, none of Trump’s initial goals for the conflict has been achieved. The negotiations are designed to address the nuclear program, but it is not clear whether reducing Iran’s missile batteries and its proxy militias will be on the agenda for the 60-day talks, or the additional negotiating increments that will almost certainly follow. “I worry about results, and I worry about getting to a place that is good for the American people,” Vance told us in a brief interview. “Right now, we’re on a pathway to get to a very good place for our country. I want to keep on working towards that end.”’
6.15 U.S. and Iran reach a deal to end fighting. The limited agreement would end the U.S. naval blockade on Iran’s ports, open the Strait of Hormuz and extend a ceasefire. Many important issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, appear subject to more negotiation.
6.15 Paul Krugman: “Many people have compared our current era to the Gilded Age. But that analogy is deeply unfair to the Gilded Age. Like the robber barons of yore, today’s oligarchs are immensely wealthy — even wealthier, relative to the economy as a whole, than their predecessors. And extreme wealth corrupts our democracy. But the corruption is deeper and more destructive now than it was then: The mitigating factors that once put some brakes on the harm done by excessive wealth concentration are now mostly gone. . . .[T]he concentration of wealth at the very top is much higher now than it ever was during the Gilded Age. The robber barons were pikers compared with today’s oligarchs. This level of wealth brings with it immense political influence. A New York Times analysis found that 300 billionaires accounted for 19 percent of political contributions in the 2024 election. And since the election the power of money has grown even stronger. In part this reflects the way great wealth has been used to corrupt the media. Elon Musk bought Twitter, not as a financial investment, but to turn it into the right-wing fever swamp it has now become. Larry Ellison, America’s second-richest man, purchased CBS basically to destroy it as an independent news source and convert it into Fox News 2.0, a goal he is achieving — and he is now on track to do the same to CNN. On top of this, the presidency is now more or less openly for sale. “Donald Trump,” writes Forbes, “has presided over the most lucrative presidency in history,” adding $4.2 billion to his personal wealth since regaining the White House. There were many corruption scandals during the Gilded Age, but none on this scale.”
6.14 Bob Dylan in the Times: “The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to program. You’re not rushing to become anything and you’re not haunted by things that you did. You’re haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would. The worst thing about being 80 is that you still want to say yes to everything, but the world moves without asking. The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions. People treat you like either you’ve solved something or you’ve lost something, and you haven’t. You see life repeating itself everywhere. The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered. When you’re young you think that time moves forward. At 80 you know that it doesn’t, it stands still. We’re the ones that move.”
6.14 The White House hosts a UFC event. William Kristol on Bulwark: “The UFC event captures something about this moment in our history. After all, it’s vulgar, it’s violent, it’s commercial, it’s grandiose, it’s tacky, and it dishonors a place once thought worthy of care and respect. In other words, it’s Donald Trump.” UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit used his post-bout interview Sunday night at the White House to disparage former first lady Michelle Obama, shouting: “And lastly — Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?”
6.14 With a 3-0 victory, the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Las Vegas Golden Knights 4 games to 2, and become Stanley Cup champions. 6 .13 With a 94-90 come from behind victory, the Knicks defeat San Antonio 4 games to 1, and become NBA champions for the first time since 1973. 6.13 Trump‘s name is removed from the Kennedy Center.
6.13 Ivy‘s birthday party.
6.12 Space X’s IPO succeeds. Elon Musk become the world’s frst trillioniare.
6.12 Shutting out the Phillies, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski throws 95-pitch one-hitter, facing the minimum number of batters. Striking out 15, Misiorowski threw 58 triple-digit fastballs, including 31 at 102-plus.
6.12 Gene Shalit dies at 100.
6.11 David Hockney dies at 88.
6.11 Trump, when asked about a Consumer Price Index (CPI) report that showed annual inflation hit a three-year high of 4.2%: “No, I love it, the numbers were great… You know what I really love? I love the inflation.” 6.11 Marco Rubio: “President Kennedy announced that we were going to put a man on the moon. We did it. We are a nation founded on doing what no one else dared to do. And at some level, that’s what this whole company, what UFC has been…It’s a gift to the American people….a historic event.”
6.10 Down 27 at the half, the Knicks come back and defeat the Spurs 107-106, on an OG Anunoby tip-in with 1.2 seconds left. The Knicks lead the series 3-1 lead. Chris Mannix in SI: “Pick your New York moment. The 1986 World Series, when the ball trickled through Bill Buckner’s legs. The 2008 Super Bowl, when David Tyree made a game-saving catch with his helmet. This equals those. Probably better. It was over. And then it wasn’t. It was the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.”
6.8 Gordon Wood dies at 92.
6.8 Megan McArdle in the Washington Post: “The nation is in a hole, and if it’s going to climb out, Americans need to take a hard look at the bill that is rapidly coming due, rather than stuff the notices in a drawer and try to forget they’re there. The debt held by the public is roughly $31.6 trillion, and it recently surpassed 100 percent of the gross domestic product. In other words, if we wanted to pay it off next year, we’d have to stop consuming anything and turn everything we produce, from apples to zippers, over to our creditors. Sure hope you remembered to stock up the chest freezer, or it’s going to be a very hungry year. Thankfully, we do not actually have to pay off the debt next year. In fact, we don’t have to pay it off at all. A nation with a healthy economy can sustain a modicum of debt, and even modest budget deficits, essentially forever. As long as the debt isn’t too high, the deficits aren’t too outrageous, and the economy keeps growing, inflation and economic growth will keep the national debt-to-GDP ratio within healthy bounds. Alas, the United States is well past that point. The outsize debt was barely sustainable even with the abnormally low interest rates between the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. But with 30-year Treasury yields at their highest level in almost two decades, it is not. Interest costs alone exceeded 3 percent of GDP in 2025, more than the government spent on Medicaid or defense. That has helped push the annual budget deficit to almost $2 trillion, or 5.8 percent of GDP. Unless something is done, those numbers will get even worse as the boomers finish retiring and entitlements eat more and more revenue. There is only one way this kind of profligacy can end: in a fiscal crisis that forces Congress and the president to hike taxes and cut spending, very probably at the worst possible time, when the economy is already nose-diving for some other reason. And here’s the thing: Everyone knows this. There’s a reason you yawn when you’re asked to think about the national debt — it’s because you’ve heard this all a zillion times before. This slow-moving disaster has been on the horizon for decades. We’ve all decided not to think about it until we make landfall on whatever hellscape we’re approaching.”
6.8 Julia Ward Howe’s letter to James T. Fields, editor of The Atlantic, pitching the poem that would be entitled The Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Fields! Do you want this, and do you like it, and have you any room for it in January number? I am sad and spleeny, and begin to have fears that I may not be, after all, the greatest woman alive. Isn’t this a melancholy view of things? But it is a vale, you know. When will the world come to end?” The letter was written sometime in 1861; the poem was published in February 1862 issue. Howe was paid either $4 or $5.
6.7 Trump has a tantrum on Meet the Press. The Guardian: “When [host Kristin] Welker asked the president for any evidence on the gubernatorial race being fraudulent, he also accused the veteran reporter of being “crooked”. “They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked,” said Trump. Welker then defended herself and tried to ask additional questions, with Trump replying: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.” Trump then brought up previously repeated false claims that he won the 2020 US presidential election. When Welker later tried to ask additional questions, Trump continued to assert that NBC was “crooked” and ended the interview. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” said Trump, taking off his microphone. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”’ Tom Nichols: “Emotionally unstable man goes on paranoid, babbling rant. Somewhere in that suit, he has a small card with the codes to 1500 strategic nuclear weapons.” Mary Trump: “Donald had a temper tantrum on national television and walked out of an interview simply because Kristen Welker presented him with a basic fact. Note to other journalists: now is the time to pile on. He won’t be able to handle it.”
6.5 According to Lawfare, of the nearly 1,600 people who were charged in connection with the Capitol riot, at least 97 have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021, including 19 cases that happened after Trump granted clemency to Jan. 6 defendants on the first day of his second term.
6.4 Tetsuo, a teacher in The Fire Agent, by David Baerwald: “How may I serve with honor if my masters have none?” 6.4 The office of President Emmanuel Macron of France announces that Marjane Satrapi has died at 56.
6.2 Pressure 6.2 CBS fires Scott Pelley 6.1 Scott Pelley, to Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of 60 Minutes, about CBS editor in chief Bari Weiss: “She is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that. She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the Evening News have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
6.1 On the strength of Ginny‘s crossword skills and her knowledge of noble gases, Team 52 wins the Anthony’s Pizza trivia game. 6.1 After Iran threatened to quit negotiations with the U.S. over Israel’s actions in Lebanon, Trump called Netanyahu: “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. What the fuck are you doing?”