memeorandum

2:10 PM ET, June 5, 2026

Top Items:

Avani Kalra / NOTUS:

Senate Passes Party-Line Reconciliation Bill, Sidesteps Attempts to Kill ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Fund — The bill provides $70 billion for immigration and border agencies. The House plans to take it up next week. — Copy — The Senate voted mostly along party lines …

NBC News:

Senate passes $70B bill to fund immigration enforcement, without limits on Trump ‘anti-weaponization’ fund — Republicans ultimately defeated multiple attempts by senators on both sides of the aisle to codify ending or changing the $1.8 billion pot of money.

Punchbowl News:
6/5/26☀️ AM: … The Senate is in a bad place. — Republican leaders …

Discussion: Washington Post, Fox News, Raw Story and New Republic

Will Saletan / The Bulwark: Senate Republicans Chicken Out—Again.

Connor O'Brien / Politico:
House GOP endorses Trump's Department of War renaming

Discussion: Washington Examiner, UPI and NOTUS

Filip Timotija / The Hill: House GOP moves to codify Hegseth's ‘Department of War’ name change25 minutes ago

Alex Miller / Fox News:
Four Senate Republicans again unite with Dems to block Trump's SAVE America Act

Discussion: The Hill, The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, RedState, Newsweek, IJR, Townhall and Washington Times

Meryl Kornfield / Washington Post:

Trump officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead, whistleblower says — A former Social Security executive said the plan, which was not carried out, would have used a death database to pressure immigrants to leave the country. — Summary

Discussion: Raw Story, New Republic, The Independent, The Parnas Perspective and Mediaite

Will Neal / The Daily Beast:

Whistleblower Exposes Trump Goons' Jaw-Dropping Social Security Plot — WIPED FROM EXISTENCE — The plan involved exploiting a database known as the “Death Master File.” — A Trump administration whistleblower says officials plotted to declare 2.7 million living individuals dead to push immigrants out of the country.

Brian Schwartz / Wall Street Journal:

Trump Urges ‘Less Shackled’ Pulte to Fire Intelligence-Community Employees — President said in interview Office of the Director of National Intelligence should be ‘much smaller’ and maybe even terminated — WASHINGTON—President Trump said he wants Bill Pulte, his incoming acting director …

Discussion: New York Post, CNBC, The Hill, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, New York Times, The Guardian and Foreign Policy

CNN:
Trump's intel choice had no intel experience. He didn't even have security clearance

Discussion: Truthout, Raw Story, Straight Arrow, CNBC and NewsMax.com

Oliver Darcy / Status:

Paramount's Weiss Woes … Over the last week, as Bari Weiss plunged CBS News into an unprecedented crisis by implementing her ill-advised overhaul of “60 Minutes,” other Paramount leaders have been left to deal with the fallout. Indeed, Status has learned that the Weiss-induced turmoil …

Discussion: Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Financial Times:

Inside the CBS mutiny against Bari Weiss and David Ellison — A saga that started with Donald Trump's assault on ‘60 Minutes’ has turned into a full-blown crisis — Scott Pelley walked into a meeting with CBS executives on Tuesday evening with his future at one of America's most venerated news programmes hanging in the balance.

Discussion: MS NOW, Telegraph, Washington Post, New York Times, New York Magazine, Status and Daily Mail

Dan Rather / Steady:
Tick, Tick, Boom — Paramount delivers “60 Minutes” to Donald Trump on a gold platter

Discussion: The Nation, Straight Arrow, The Hollywood Reporter and Raw Story

New York Times:

Judge Says Trump Officials Must Restart Asylum and Immigration Processing — The judge invalidated policies the Trump administration enacted last year that halted asylum grants, as well as the processing of immigration benefits for people from 39 countries.

Discussion: Associated Press, The Hill, Straight Arrow, The Independent and Newsweek

Paul Krugman:

America, the Inessential Nation — On Feb. 28, 2025 Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, for what he claimed was failure to show sufficient respect. “You're not in a good position,” Trump declared. “You don't have the cards right now.”

Discussion: Associated Press, Taipei Times, Breitbart, Foreign Policy and Washington Examiner

Robert Jimison / New York Times:
House Passes Ukraine Aid in Defiance of Republican Leaders

Discussion: The Hill, Associated Press, CNN, NOTUS, Politico, Straight Arrow, NewsMax.com, Washington Examiner, The Independent, ABC7, MS NOW and The American Conservative

Ron Ribiat / RNS:

Defense Department to drop atheists, pagans, 175 others from list of military faiths — (RNS) — The Department of Defense is substantially reducing the number of religions it officially recognizes, reportedly excluding atheists, pagans, humanists and New Age faiths, an independent military-focused news website reports.

Discussion: Fox News

Nick Mordowanec / Military.com:
DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military's Recognized Religion List

Discussion: MS NOW, Task & Purpose, MeidasTouch, American Greatness, Pharyngula, The Independent and Institute for Family Studies

Cooper Quintin / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Move Fast, Surveil Things — Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF's Threat Lab was able to confirm that the facial recognition code is present through static analysis of the application.

Discussion: Straight Arrow, Wired, Anthropic and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Radley Balko / The Watch:

How Bari Weiss's Free Press laundered MAGA talking points about refugees — Bari Weiss continues to take a hatchet to CBS News. This week she fired longtime journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley after he angrily confronted her handpicked new editor for the program.

Discussion: The Daily Wire

M. Gessen / New York Times:

The White House's Latest Provocation Is ‘Grotesque and Terrifying and Juvenile’ — “They walk among us.” The glowing green letters emerge ominously against a dark backdrop. Above them hover the words “aliens” and “declassified,” suggesting the release — long awaited in some corners of the internet …

Andrew Duehren / New York Times:

Trump Keeps Immunity from I.R.S. Audits, Even as $1.8 Billion Fund Falls Away — Even as they rebelled against a $1.8 billion fund for President Trump's allies, Republicans looked the other way as his administration granted him potentially lucrative tax protections.

Discussion: National Politics, Fox News, MS NOW, Bloomberg and UPI

Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill:

Platner ex-girlfriend accuses New York Times of ‘set up’ — An ex-girlfriend of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is expressing her frustration with The New York Times over the way it portrayed her and others' experience dating the Democrat. — Lyndsey Fifield, whom the Times quoted …

Jake Spring / Washington Post:

Park Service orders removal of ‘woke’ quotes at Boston's Bunker Hill monument — A visitor complaint prompted a review of quotes that are anti-war, pro-immigrant or highlight American hypocrisy on slavery ahead of the monument's 251st anniversary celebration. — Summary

Discussion: The Independent, WBUR, Reason and NewsMax.com

Tonya Alanez / The Boston Globe: Quotes about slavery, immigrants, and war memorials slated for removal from Bunker Hill historic site

Jeff Cox / CNBC:

U.S. payrolls rose by 172,000 in May, much more than expected; unemployment at 4.3% … Job growth unexpectedly surged in May as the U.S. labor market continued a solid year of expansion, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. — Nonfarm payrolls jumped a seasonally adjusted 172,000 …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, HotAir, NBC News, Deseret News, Associated Press, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, UPI, RedState, MS NOW, NewsMax.com and The Daily Caller

Nick Bednar / Lawfare:

Inside the Implementation of Schedule Policy/Career — President Trump signed an executive order making over 8,000 federal employees removable at will. — nicholasbednar.bsky.social — Meet The Authors — Immediately following his second inauguration, President Trump signed …

Molly Jong-Fast / New York Times:

It's No Wonder Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers — Commencement address season hasn't been going well — for the commencement speakers. — I'm sure you've seen the videos on social media. The big shots who have been brought in to inspire a next generation of graduates have used …

Discussion: Althouse

Carl Hulse / New York Times:

Casting Her 10,000th Vote in a Row, Collins Sets a Senate Record … Senator Susan Collins of Maine has not missed a vote since taking office in 1997, a feat that colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognized as impressive.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times — Shortly after Susan Collins entered …

Discussion: The Daily Wire, Bangor Daily News, Lewiston Sun Journal and The Hill

Torrence Banks / NOTUS:

Trump Is Eyeing Control of Smithsonian's Budget — The administration is creating a conflict with how Congress intended its money be spent. — Copy — A directive from the Office of Management and Budget could force the Smithsonian Institution to change its spending plans …

Bobby Allyn / NPR:

I wrote about George Santos. Then he made a violent threat and lied about it — I was winding down my work day here in Los Angeles when my phone rang at 5:37 p.m. from a blocked number. It was former Congressman George Santos. He was boiling with rage.

Discussion: The Hill, LGBTQ Nation, Mediaite, The Wrap and Raw Story

Joe Lovinger / Bloomberg:

Talarico Orders a Texas BBQ Feast After Paxton's ‘Vegan’ Taunt — James Talarico picked at the brisket with his bare hands and polished off a rack of pork ribs. Sausage links and “Texas Twinkies” — stuffed jalapeño peppers wrapped in bacon — crowded the butcher paper on his overflowing tray of smoked meats.

Associated Press:

Kennedy Center moves to erase Trump references after judge said they were illegally added — The Kennedy Center is beginning the process of removing references to President Donald Trump a week after a federal judge ruled that his name had been illegally added to the performing arts center.

Politico:

Trump's next GOP loyalty test: Ending the changing of the clocks … His personal touch, coupled with engagement from the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, helped land the provision in the House transportation bill, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to share private legislative strategy.

Discussion: Raw Story

Bloomberg:

Hormuz Traffic Remains Near Zero as Peace Talks Stall — Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was limited to just a few ships over the past 24 hours as peace talks between the US and Iran show little sign of advancing. — No commercial transits were observed on Friday morning …

Discussion: RedState, Columbian, NewsMax.com and Modern Diplomacy

Shawn McCreesh / New York Times:

Vanilla Ice Is In, Bret Michaels Is Out: Trump's Battle for Celebrity Validation — President Trump has pursued fame his entire adult life. Now in his second term in the White House, he is finding how little power he has to force cultural figures to fall in line.

Olivia Ralph / The Daily Beast:

White House Explodes Over Viral Video of Sleepy Trump, 79 — EYES WIDE SHUT — Trump's aides flew into attack mode amid renewed scrutiny of the president's health. — A viral video of Donald Trump sitting with his eyes closed sent the White House's social media operation into full meltdown mode.