What Happened Today - 2 June 2026
What Happened Today – 2 June 2026
The Iran War: A Mess With a Body Count and a $100 Billion Price Tag The Price Tag of The $1.8 Billion Slush Fund That Won't Die (Quietly)
Bill Pulte: The New Head of U.S. Intelligence Has Never Done Intelligence
Russia Bombed Ukraine Into Rubble Last Night
Delaney Hall, Newark: People Are Suffering and the Government Keeps Lying About It
Hegseth Is Having a Very Bad Week (And Deserves Every Bit of It)
Ebola: This Is On Trump and There's No Way to Spin It
Rubio on the Hill: His First Testimony Since the War Started
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The Iran War: A Mess With a Body Count and a $100 Billion Price Tag
Let's start with the chaos that is the Iran war, because wow, where do you even begin. Iran has officially put the brakes on peace negotiations — again — this time citing Israel's ongoing military assault in Lebanon as the reason. Their foreign minister made it pretty clear: a ceasefire with the U.S. means a ceasefire on ALL fronts, and if Israel keeps bombing Lebanon, the whole deal is off the table. Iran also started rattling the cage about potentially closing the Strait of Hormuz entirely, which sent oil markets into a full panic spiral on Monday. U.S. crude jumped over 5% to $92 a barrel, and gas prices — already 44% higher than when this war started — crept back up. But don't worry, Trump went on CNBC and said he "couldn't care less" if the talks were over and that gas prices would drop "very quickly." That sound you hear is every economist in America collectively groaning.
The man has spent weeks hyping a deal that doesn't exist. He's gone on Truth Social and to the press over and over again saying we're close, we're making progress, it's moving at a rapid pace — and yet here we are, three months in, with Iran pausing talks and no deal in sight. We are now well past $100 billion in spending on this war, and when that number comes up, Trump waves it off like it's pocket change. He's also promising gas price relief that public data simply does not support, given that prices remain dramatically higher than pre-war levels and the Strait of Hormuz is still a pressure point.
And then there's the phone call. According to Axios, Trump got on the phone with Netanyahu and absolutely unloaded on him over Israel's escalating attacks in Lebanon — which were threatening to blow up whatever thin threads of Iran negotiations remained. Trump reportedly told Bibi, "You're f---ing 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." After the call, Trump posted online that it was a "very productive" conversation and that no troops were going to Beirut. Sure. Very productive. Nothing screams diplomacy like a profanity-laced meltdown at your closest ally, but honestly, Trump isn't wrong that Netanyahu is lighting the whole region on fire.
Now here's where it gets really uncomfortable. On Sunday, May 31, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier were both killed at Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq. Both the U.S. Army and the UK Ministry of Defense are calling it a "training accident." The timing is more than suspicious — Iran had just launched retaliatory strikes targeting northern Iraq in that exact area at the exact same time. Two soldiers from two different countries die in the same training exercise at the same base at the same moment Iran is dropping bombs nearby, and we're calling it a coincidence? Both governments are staying tight-lipped on details, and the investigations are "ongoing." Whether you take the official line or not, two more service members are dead in a conflict that was supposed to be quick, decisive, and over.
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The $1.8 Billion Slush Fund That Won't Die (Quietly)
This one is a full-blown disaster for Trump, and somehow it's managed to unite Democrats AND Republicans against him, which is honestly kind of impressive in the worst way. Here's the background: in May, the DOJ — led by Acting AG Todd Blanche, who was literally Trump's own criminal defense attorney — settled a lawsuit that Trump brought against the IRS for $10 billion over the leaking of his tax returns. The resulting "settlement" created what they're calling the "Anti-Weaponization Fund," worth $1.776 billion in taxpayer money. The money is meant to compensate people who claim the government "weaponized" itself against them. Translation: it's a slush fund for Trump's allies, potentially including the nearly 1,600 January 6th insurrectionists he pardoned.
Oh, and buried in the fine print? The settlement also appears to prohibit the IRS, DOJ, and possibly every other federal agency from auditing or investigating Trump, his family, and his business empire for anything that happened before May 19, 2026. It's essentially a pre-emptive universal pardon for the entire Trump Organization. The settlement even had a clause saying it couldn't be appealed or reviewed by courts — which, turns out, was pure bluster.
A federal judge in Virginia already slapped a temporary block on it. Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges — yes, the same officers who defended the Capitol on January 6 — filed a lawsuit to stop the fund, because it could literally pay out money to the people who attacked them. A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges called the whole settlement "collusive" and a "fraud on the court." Senate Republicans are in revolt — Ted Cruz said roughly half the GOP caucus was ready to join Democrats to kill it. The reconciliation bill that funds ICE and Border Patrol stalled before Memorial Day recess partly because of this fund. Even Speaker Johnson raised concerns about it directly to Trump in the Oval Office.
By Monday, the administration appeared to back off — sort of. The DOJ issued a statement saying it would comply with the court's block, while also disagreeing with it. Trump says he'll honor the fund, but given the legal firestorm, the bipartisan opposition, and a hearing scheduled for June 12, "honoring" it is going to be an uphill battle. Schumer said it perfectly on the Senate floor: Trump's word is far from sufficient.
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Bill Pulte: The New Head of U.S. Intelligence Has Never Done Intelligence
This one is almost too absurd to type. Trump announced today on Truth Social that Bill Pulte will serve as the acting Director of National Intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who is out the door by June 30. The DNI oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies — including the CIA and NSA — and is the president's chief intelligence adviser. It's one of the most consequential national security positions in the country.
Bill Pulte's qualifications for this role? He has a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University. His professional career has been in private equity, residential homebuilding, and housing finance. His only government experience is running the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he oversees mortgage markets and serves as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That's it. Zero intelligence background. Zero national security experience. Zero military or diplomatic career.
What Pulte does have is a track record of using his government position to weaponize criminal referrals against Trump's political enemies. From the FHFA — a housing agency — he launched investigations into Senator Adam Schiff, former Rep. Eric Swalwell, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and New York AG Letitia James, all of whom denied wrongdoing. The James indictment was thrown out by a judge. The Government Accountability Office is currently probing whether Pulte misused federal resources to run these political attacks. There are also serious questions about him funneling money from a charity he controlled to a Wyoming LLC connected to Trump's legal team.
Trump praised Pulte's "deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America" — referring to his oversight of Fannie Mae. So the guy who ran the mortgage market is now running the spy agencies. Senator Mark Warner called the appointment a signal of "what this president expects from his national intelligence official" — someone who delivers the desired narrative, not the actual intelligence. Senator Elizabeth Warren put it more bluntly: "Today, President Trump is rewarding his lackey — who has no national security experience — with a position at the helm of our nation's intelligence community. What could possibly go wrong?"
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Russia Bombed Ukraine Into Rubble Last Night
While everyone was watching the Iran mess, Russia launched one of its largest overnight attacks on Ukraine in months. Russian forces fired 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukraine, targeting Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and several other cities. Ukraine's air defenses shot down 40 missiles and 602 drones, but 38 sites still got hit. At least 22 civilians are confirmed dead and more than 130 were injured. Residential apartment buildings were destroyed, a hospital was struck, at least two high-rise buildings collapsed, and first responders rushing to help were killed in a follow-up strike.
Zelenskyy said it clearly: "The current level of supplies for our air defense does not allow us to shoot down a significant share of the missiles." He has been begging for Patriot air defense systems from the U.S. and Europe. He wrote to Trump and Congress last week about it. Russia launched a record 8,150 drones at Ukraine in May alone — a 24% increase from April. Ukraine is essentially fighting off a swarm with a flyswatter while the U.S. remains mired in its Iran situation. Peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war remain completely stalled.
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Delaney Hall, Newark: People Are Suffering and the Government Keeps Lying About It
Delaney Hall, a privately operated ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, has become a full-on crisis — and the Newark mayor is now filing a lawsuit to shut it down. The facility holds roughly 300 detainees in a 1,000-bed center run by GEO Group, a private prison company with a billion-dollar government contract. Since May 22, detainees have been on a hunger strike to protest conditions inside, including inadequate food, lack of medical care, and deeply inhumane living conditions. One of the most disturbing reports: a woman inside suffered a miscarriage and was not given proper medical care afterward.
Protests have been ongoing outside the facility for nearly two weeks, with demonstrators blocking vehicles and ICE officers responding with pepper spray, batons, and tactical gear. The FBI arrested one protester for allegedly threatening an ICE officer. Senator Andy Kim got hit with pepper spray while trying to conduct a congressional oversight visit. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries visited the facility and confirmed conditions were inhumane. The New Jersey state attorney general's lawsuit alleges that GEO Group denied state health inspectors full access to the facility — blocking them from entering the medical unit entirely and refusing access once because there were too many congressional visitors.
DHS keeps insisting everything is fine. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, at a cabinet meeting last week, said that detainees were only refusing to eat because they wanted food matching their "ethnic preferences" and that "this isn't a Holiday Inn." That quote says everything you need to know. A nighttime curfew has been imposed around the facility, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is calling for immediate closure.
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Hegseth Is Having a Very Bad Week (And Deserves Every Bit of It)
Pete Hegseth is in full petty mode and the courts keep handing him losses. Let's go through it.
First, after a court ruled that reporters should be allowed back into the Pentagon press area, Hegseth's response was to declare the Pentagon press office a classified space — physically barring journalists from a room that has been freely accessible to reporters across multiple administrations of both parties. Reporters Without Borders responded directly: "No matter how petulant Pete gets, journalists will continue their tenacious reporting and hold the Pentagon accountable." Petulant. That's the word.
Second, Hegseth reportedly removed at least seven Navy officers from a promotion list that is legally supposed to be nonpolitical and merit-based. Of those seven, at least two are women and two are Black men. Under federal law, the military promotion system is designed to be apolitical. What Hegseth appears to have done is personally intervene to block women and Black officers from advancing, which four current and former officials described as a clear violation of the rules governing the system.
Third, and this is a big one: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Monday, in a 2-1 decision, that the Trump administration's ban on transgender troops is likely unconstitutional and was driven by animus toward transgender people. Hegseth's policy — which disqualified anyone with a history of gender dysphoria from military service — has now been ruled unlawful. The administration will almost certainly fight this through the courts, likely pushing it toward the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the ruling throws the Pentagon's enforcement of the ban into legal limbo. Hegseth built a significant part of his tenure around that ban, and the courts just called it what it is.
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Ebola: This Is On Trump and There's No Way to Spin It
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is now a full-blown international public health emergency, declared by the WHO. There are over 1,000 suspected cases and more than 220 deaths, and health experts believe the virus was quietly spreading for weeks — maybe months — before it was caught, specifically because the early warning systems weren't there anymore. Those early warning systems, the frontline surveillance programs, the community health workers, the lab infrastructure, the stockpiles of protective gear — all of it was gutted when Trump dismantled USAID in 2025.
The U.S. also withdrew from the WHO, which means the informal reporting channels that would have flagged an emerging outbreak earlier were severed. The International Rescue Committee says the funding cuts directly contributed to delayed detection. Former USAID officials say virtually everyone with Ebola response experience was fired and not rehired. The surveillance systems in eastern DRC were simply gone when the outbreak started.
Making it even more outrageous: the Trump administration has decided that any Americans exposed to Ebola will not be brought home for treatment. Instead, they're being sent to a 50-bed quarantine facility being set up in Kenya — on a Kenyan air force base — that is exclusively for Americans. Kenyans cannot receive care there. Kenyan citizens are so angry about this that protests erupted and two people were killed. A Kenyan court has now blocked the facility for at least three more weeks while legal challenges play out. The administration's reasoning, in Rubio's own words: "We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States." So Americans abroad get shipped to a foreign country for care, and the Kenyans whose base is being used can't access the facility at all.
This is the direct consequence of slashing global health infrastructure to save money. There is no vaccine for this strain. There's no approved treatment. And the systems that would have caught it early and contained it were intentionally dismantled.
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Rubio on the Hill: His First Testimony Since the War Started
Today was Rubio's first public testimony before Congress since the Iran war kicked off on February 28, and he spent most of it trying to convince senators that everything is fine and going according to plan. It is not. This is also the same man who spent years railing against the Obama nuclear deal with Iran, calling it weak and dangerous — and today found himself essentially defending a framework that looks a lot like a worse version of that same deal, except now Iran has more leverage.
Senator Cory Booker went directly at him on that point, noting that the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before this war — is now closed, Iran has been getting tens of billions of dollars from Chinese oil sales while we lifted sanctions to try to coax them back to the table, and we're somehow in a stalemate with Iran while Trump tweets daily about how we've "annihilated" them. Booker put it bluntly: "We are the strongest nation on the planet earth and we're in a stalemate with Iran and now we're begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place."
Rubio defended the war as necessary, claiming Iran was building a "conventional shield" to protect its nuclear program, and argued that Operation Epic Fury significantly degraded Iran's missile and drone capabilities — while also admitting Iran "still possesses a considerable number of drones." He insisted negotiations with Iran are ongoing and that Tehran has agreed to discuss aspects of its nuclear program it previously wouldn't touch. But between the talks being "paused," the Strait still disrupted, oil prices elevated, soldiers dead, and no deal signed, the gap between Rubio's testimony and reality was pretty hard to miss.
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And that’s a wrap on today…absolutely disgusting.
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.