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🏫 Plus: Trump ratchets up culture war, attacks on Harvard
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IT’S LINING UP to be a crucial week of diplomacy for President Trump, with Russia, Gaza and the president’s trade wars speeding toward new inflection points.
Trump this week is venting frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Congressional Republicans urge him to crack down on Russia with new sanctions.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social. “He’s playing with fire!”
Trump has so far been unable to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, despite his promise to bring a swift end to the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted the U.S. terms for a ceasefire. But Putin has steadfastly refused to play ball and continued his attacks over the weekend, seizing four Ukrainian border towns and launching a record number of drones.
“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,” Trump posted. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
Trump said Putin is sending missiles and drones into Ukrainian cities “for no reason whatsoever.”
“I’m not happy with what Putin’s doing,” Trump told reporters. “He’s killing a lot of people and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he’s “grateful” for Trump’s efforts to broker an end to the war but warned him against “emotional reactions.”
Republican senators are increasingly speaking out, pushing Trump to be more aggressive with Russia.
“I believe President Trump was sincere when he thought his friendship w[ith] Putin wld end the war,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) posted on X. “Now that being the case ITS TIME FOR SANCTIONS STRONG ENUF SO PUTIN KNOWS ‘game over’.”
A bill sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to impose new sanctions on Russia has more than 80 cosponsors. The sanctions include a 500 percent tariff on Russian oil and uranium.
Graham wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal saying the Senate stands ready to “grind” the Putin “war machine to a halt” if a ceasefire deal isn’t reached soon.
“Same ol’, same ol’ from Putin’s Russia,” Graham posted on X. “Escalate to de-escalate. Drag it out, hoping others lose interest. There’s a new sheriff in town. The old playbook won’t work this time.”
The U.S. and Russia agreed to a new prisoner exchange Tuesday amid the growing tensions between Trump and Putin.
WITKOFF URGES HAMAS TO ACCEPT CEASEFIRE DEAL
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is urging Hamas to accept the parameters of a new ceasefire deal with Israel, as global pressure grows on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end his war campaign in Gaza.
Witkoff said Israel had agreed to a temporary truce if Hamas would release dozens of hostages.
“That deal is on the table. Hamas should take it,” Witkoff told CNN.
Trump extended his trade deal deadline with the European Union (EU) after a “good call” over the weekend with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
The EU has sought to lower trade tensions with the U.S. after Trump’s outburst last week, in which he threatened new tariffs beginning June 1 and accused the EU of negotiating in bad faith.
The new 50 percent tariffs have been pushed to July 9.
“The problem with the EU is just that they have so many different countries that disagree about what’s most important to them that they can’t make up their own minds,” said Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council. “And so it’s very difficult to negotiate with them.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer recommend routine COVID-19 shots for healthy children and pregnant women, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has formally announced a bid for governor, creating an open GOP primary for his Senate seat.
Trump Media and Technology Group plans to raise $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin and build up a reserve of the cryptocurrency.
The Supreme Courtdeclined to take up a challenge to a land swap enabling mining at a sacred Indigenous site, with pushback coming from conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.
President Trump has instructed federal agencies to terminate all remaining contracts with Harvard University, the latest in his ongoing effort to punish the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.
A letter from the General Services Administration alleges Harvard continues to engage in “race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life.” It also accuses the school of “antisemitic practices,” alluding to pro-Palestinian protests.
“Harvard’s ongoing inaction in the face of repeated and severe harassment and targeting of its students has at times grounded day-to-day campus operations to a halt, deprived Jewish students of learning and research opportunities to which they are entitled, and profoundly alarmed the general public,” the letter states.
This comes after the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in research funding earmarked for Harvard. It’s also seeking to prevent the school from accepting foreign students.
Over the weekend, Trump said he’s considering giving $3 billion of Harvard’s grant money to trade schools.
Harvard is suing over the frozen funds.
Harvard President Alan Garber called Trump’s actions “perplexing.”
“The measures that they have taken to address these that don’t even hit the same people that they believe are causing the problems,” Garber said on NPR, which also sued the administration on Tuesday over funding cuts.
“Why cut off research funding?” he added. “Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because after all, the research funding is not a gift.”
MORE CULTURE WARS…
The president is threatening to revoke federal funding from California over a transgender high school track and field athlete who qualified for the state finals over the weekend.
The president instructed local authorities to block 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Southern California, from participating in the finals. Hernandez won the girls long jump and triple jump events at the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section Masters to qualify for the state championship.
“THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.”
Trump signed an executive order earlier this year stating that “it is the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports.” The order threatens to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
Trump said he’d be speaking to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) about it this week.
ELSEWHERE…
Trump pardoned a former Virginia sheriff who had been convicted of bribery, alleging that he was a victim of a “weaponized” Justice Department under the Biden administration.
Scott Jenkins was convicted in December of accepting more than $70,000 in bribes in exchange for appointing local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs in the office. He had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Plus: The New York Times reports that a different Trump pardon came one month after the man’s mother attended a fundraiser for the president.
Paul Walczak received a pardon from Trump after pleading guilty to several tax crimes and being sentenced to 18 months in prison. Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a Mar-a-Lagofundraising dinner with a $1 million cost per person. Walczak was pardoned three weeks later.
💡Perspectives:
•The Nation: Holding international students at Harvard hostage.
• City Journal: Young adults rebelling by getting religion.
• The Hill: The justices must at long last deal with ‘chronic injunctivitis’.
Read more:
•FBI announces new probes into Dobbs Supreme Court leak, White House cocaine incident.
• Tesla’s monthly sales in Europe plunge by half, signaling backlash against Musk runs deep.
• Top Paul Weiss lawyers leave firm after Trump deal.
Senate GOP prepares to tear into Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
The Senate will begin dissecting President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” upon returning to Washington next week, with the House-passed legislation facing early opposition on the key issues that have divided Congressional Republicans all year.
Over the weekend, two fiscally conservative GOP senators tore into the legislation, describing it as a dangerous fiscal boondoggle.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has said he will not vote for the bill because it raises the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, posted on X:
“Until everyone in Washington gets serious about paying down our national debt, I’m a no.”
“We need to be responsible, and the first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit,” Johnson said on CNN’s “Face the Nation.” “This actually increases it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) can only afford to lose three Republicans.
Johnson said “we have enough [senators] to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”
The Hill’s Alexander Boltonreports that Republicans worry the bill is a “debt bomb.”
“I think we’re having trouble selling our long bonds already,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who cited the rising interest rates.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) insists the bill won’t lead to more spending.
“This is the biggest spending cut, I think in the history of government on planet Earth,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Now, is it enough? Of course not … But we have a very delicate balance, and we have to start the process.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has warned the GOP must not make cuts to Medicaid, while other Senate Republicans are worried about cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest food assistance program.
Johnson also denies that the bill threatens Medicaid coverage, saying it will only impact fraud and force many people to work to receive benefits.
