LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 13: U.S. Marine Corps soldiers stand guard outside of Wilshire Federal Building on June 13, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Trump federalized about 4,000 National Guard members and mobilized 700 Marines last week to reinforce immigration raids in the nation's second-largest city, saying the troops will protect federal property and assist agents. (Photo by Zhang Shuo/China News Service/VCG via AP )
ICE, ICE BARBIE
Donald Trump’s perplexing about-faces on immigration give a glimpse into his chaotic decision-making process… if you can call it that.
- Who last spoke with President Donald Trump? That seems to be the key to decoding his often nonsensical social media posts that ruffle world leaders’ feathers and even cause markets to tumble. Usually, the posts are intended to rile up his base. But once in a while, a different side of Trump emerges — like when he admitted last week that his own widespread deportation raids hurt farmers. In turn, raids on agriculture and hospitality industries were paused.
- Welp… the good things never seemed to last, as Modest Mouse once professed. The Department of Homeland Security reversed that policy yesterday, telling agency leaders that they can raid farms, hotels and restaurants in search of migrants to take into custody (even if they haven’t been convicted of serious crimes). It’s a reversal of the president’s reversal. I’m dizzy just writing that sentence.
- “Who’s running the show?” tweeted Joyce Vance (no relation to JD), former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama in the Obama administration. “Trump made the important point over the weekend that we’re losing essential workers, people who’ve been here 20 years & aren’t criminals. He reined in immigration raids. But it sounds like someone countermanded him.”
The answer is obvious: Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem.
- Shortly before Trump’s eye-popping post about farmers, the president was on the phone with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Axios reports. She went around Miller, Trump’s shiny-headed henchman who wants to deport 3,000 people daily, and Noem, who has been dubbed ICE Barbie for her performative photoshoots with agents.
- Miller and Noem were pissed, so they pushed back, the outlet reports. It worked: “ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” Trump posted on Sunday, calling for raids on Democrat-controlled cities.
- Trump’s orbit is out of sync. The same day, Rollins tweeted that “The President and I have consistently advanced a ‘Farmers First’ approach, recognizing that American households depend upon a stable and LEGAL agricultural workforce,” but warned that “severe disruptions to our food supply would harm Americans.”
Trump is easily influenced, and his mind changes often. Asked today whether there will be exemptions on ICE raids to some industries, he didn’t seem to know: “Everyone is being looked at, but the bigger problem is the cities right now.”
WAR WATCH
When Donald Trump was sworn into office, he made a lofty promise: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”
Fast forward five months, and the United States is on the brink of getting involved in a dangerous new war in the Middle East.
Trump is seriously considering entering the Israel-Iran conflict and launching a strike on Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities, Axios reports. Those sites are crucial to developing nuclear weapons, an issue that sparked the fighting. (Iran has denied that it’s developing nukes. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also said she doesn’t believe Tehran is building nukes.)
The U.S. has helped Israel defend against aerial attacks from Iran in recent days, but it hasn’t gotten involved otherwise. Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Trump will join the war in the coming days, two Israeli officials told Axios.
That bleak prediction aligns with what Trump has been furiously typing on Truth Social.
This morning, Trump posted a confusing message suggesting that Washington is already involved in the conflict: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” What do you mean “we”?!
He also called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” in a series of posts. “We know exactly where [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is hiding … We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.” Thanks for letting us know what “take him out” means.
The Pentagon already sent refueling planes and warships to the Middle East and Europe in case things become more intense. Based on the Trump administration’s rhetoric, it’s certainly possible that the situation will further escalate — even as Democrats and Republicans warn against striking Iran.
“He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president,” Vice President JD Vance tweeted today.
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"I don’t care what she said.”
— Donald Trump, on DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard’s testimony in March, when she said doesn’t believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
NEWS NEWS NEWS
Israeli tank fire killed 59 people in the Gaza Strip who were trying to get food today, according to medics. “No one is looking at these people with mercy. The people are dying, they are being torn apart, to get food for their children,” one eyewitness told Reuters. Israeli officials acknowledged firing in the area and said they’re looking into the incident.
Russian missiles and drones struck Ukraine overnight, killing 16 people and injuring more than 100 others, officials said. It’s one of the deadliest attacks on Ukraine in months, and comes as Trump balks at the idea of imposing more sanctions on Moscow. “That costs the U.S. a lot of money,” Trump said yesterday.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s running for mayor, was forcefully arrested at an immigration court hearing today. Lander said he was there to escort migrants out of the building, but masked agents detained him: “I’m not obstructing. I’m standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant,” Lander said in this insane video. Lander was later released.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election. That’s a huge score for Mamdani, who recently received Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement, too. Certified creep Andrew Cuomo is still the favorite to win, but the city’s ranked-choice voting system could make this race much tighter than anyone expected. My advice to Mamdani: Keep making Cuomo’s unhinged egg sandwich order known. It doesn’t even include a bagel!
Nearly twice as many Americans oppose Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” than support it, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is hoping to pass the bill through the Senate next week, but he has to put out some huge fires — on Medicaid policy, state-and-local-tax deduction caps, and green energy credits — to gain enough support. You know it’s a really good bill when everyone seems to hate it!
The NAACP won’t invite Trump to its convention this year because of his authoritarian tendencies, marking the first time in history the organization has shunned a sitting president. A White House spokesperson responded: “The NAACP isn’t advancing anything but hate and division.” Not sure why Trump was invited in his first term… but I’ll take it!
A meteorologist issued the first-ever heat advisory for Alaska, which is expecting to see temperatures reach into the mid-80s this week. That might not seem super hot, but the Last Frontier is warming two to three times faster than the global average. Long days of sunlight cause the heat to linger: “Those temps could feel like 110,” the meteorologist told Grist.
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