06/09/25

Good morning! It’s Monday, June 9th.

National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day

How weird is rhubarb? It’s like celery, but also can go in pies? And sometimes be juice?

Wild.

And now, the news.

Musk-Trump Feud

-via CNN

Quick heads up – there are two episodes out today. In addition to this episode, there is also a special episode in the feed about what’s happening in Los Angeles.

But this episode is just a normal news episode. As a reminder, I had a shorter-than-normal week last week. And lucky for me, nothing happened! No news broke!

Jkjk

Let’s start with… two terrible people are fighting!

As you may recall, when last we left our frenemies, Elon Musk’s time in the White House was over, and Trump wished him well with an Oval Office press conference where Trump gave him a golden key thing after someone, who Elon claims was his son, gave Elon a black eye.

And then I was like that’s that. And now I will go enjoy a brief news break.

But because those two dudes suck… they made me regret my news break!

It all really started on Tuesday when, as I mentioned last week, Elon called Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (still embarrassingly the bill’s name) an abomination. By Thursday and Friday, they were decidedly not friends anymore and the fight had turned into Mean Girls burn book level of tweets. They went back and forth, online and in the press, about the bill.

Then it went off the rails.

Elon said without him, Trump would have lost the election.

He posted a poll asking if it was time “to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”

Trump said he asked Elon to leave the administration and that when he took away his EV mandate, “he just went crazy.” (Just like any terrible ex)

Then Trump said he would save a lot in government spending by cutting Elon’s government contracts.

In two tweets that have since been deleted, Elon then said Trump is in the Epstein files and that’s why they haven’t come out yet.

Hilariously, Kanye West tweeted “brooooooos please nooooooo 🫂 we love you both so much”

In another tweet that’s since been deleted, Elon also said Trump should be impeached.

It got messy.

It all happened on my birthday too. Pretty cool!

On Friday, Tesla stock tanked for the second day in a row and Trump said he wasn’t even thinking about his ex anymore (a classic lie).

It appears the tweets were deleted either late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Trump’s been very busy attempting civil war in Los Angeles, so it’s not like they’ve made up or anything. Which I mention because it’s not clear why Elon deleted the tweets.

But that’s where things stand.

I say… let them fight. Let them spill all the tea.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia

-via NY Times

There’s also a huge updated on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadorian man who was taken, on a paperwork error, which the administration knew about, literally called a paperwork error, but allowed for him to be taken to the El Salvadorian torture prison.

On Friday, he was brought back to the United States!

Now, upon landing, he was detained and is now facing charges relating to transporting undocumented migrants, as well as firearms and narcotics. So he was in federal court last week, he has been detained, and will be back in court on the 13th.

Here’s what’s happening there. In 2022, he was pulled over while driving nine people from Houston to Maryland. The passengers didn’t have identification. There is body cam footage of the interaction where Abrego Garcia told the trooper that he and everyone in the vehicle were coming back from two weeks in St. Louis where they were doing construction work. The troopers noted that the passengers didn’t have construction tools or luggage with them.

Abrego Garcia was only given a warning for driving with an expired license.

In March of this year, he was pulled over while driving with his 5-year-old in his car. At that point, immigration agents accused him of being in MS-13, stemming from a 2019 arrest where he was standing with three other day laborers outside of Home Depot.

Police approached, thinking they were loitering. Two of the men, not Abrego Garcia, threw plastic bottles with pot in them, under a parked car, and so all four of them were arrested.

That was the moment that Abrego Garcia fought his deportation by requesting a humanitarian exception because of the gang harassment he experienced in El Salvador.

See how it’s complicated? You know what this man needs? Due process. His right to a fair trial! No one ever said,  bring him back because we guarantee that man is innocent! It was always, bring him back because the constitution demands it.

Him being back here is the right thing to do. Obviously the administration is going to try and find a way to say no no we were right, he’s terrible and dangerous. And we need to be really careful and still be a close eye on this. This story is not over yet. But this is a positive step forward.

2025 Travel Ban

-via BBC

Taking a play out of his first term’s playbook, last week Trump announced a travel ban on twelve countries, with additional restrictions on seven other countries.

The twelve countries are: Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. People from those countries will not be able to enter the United States at all without qualifying for an exception.

The countries with additional restrictions include Cuba and Venezuela. Folks from those countries will not be able to enter the United States with certain visas.

He is using the terror attack in Boulder, Colorado and the reason behind this travel ban, which goes into effect today and has no end date.

The man accused of the attack is from Egypt.

Egypt is not on the list. Probably because Trump calls the Egyptian president his “favorite dictator.”

The attack in Boulder was also an antisemitic attack. Notice that he also hasn’t done anything to, you know… work on that.

So yeah – that’s the list.

AP Ban Back

-via Politico

On Friday a federal appeals court panel reinstated some pretty key parts of Trump’s ban on the Associated Press – including the Oval Office, Air Force One, and Mar a Lago.

Of the three judges on the panel, two of them were appointed by Trump. You’ll be shocked to hear how many ruled in his favor. They did so because, in their view, “these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion. The White House therefore retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted.”

However, the third judge, an Obama appointee, dissented, saying that the Supreme Court has never held that journalists can be excluded from a forum based on their opinion.

As a reminder, all of this is over the fact that Trump wants the Gulf of Mexico to be called Gulf of America.

Mortifying.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Don’t forget, there’s a whole second episode to check out! And that one… made my stomach hurt.

I’m proud of rhubarb. Proof that you can be anything you set your mind to.

And because the thing you have very clearly set your mind to being is awesome – I’m proud of you.