The bill is finally coming due. The Pentagon wants another $80 billion, mostly to cover the tab for the war in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is already whispering in senators’ ears on Capitol Hill, trying to grease the wheels before the formal request drops. This is on top of Trump’s absurd $1.5 trillion military budget request—a massive 50% spike. Meanwhile, Trump is heading to a Mack Truck plant in Pennsylvania. It’s a swing district. He wants to talk about the economy, hoping voters forget about the sky-high gas prices his war caused before the midterms. Good luck. Only a third of the country thinks he’s doing a decent job on the economy anyway.
Back in Washington, the National Guard is literally guarding a puddle. They are patrolling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool because the administration’s $14 million renovation turned into an algae-choked disaster. The nation’s 250th anniversary is looming. Trump, never one to take the blame, claims “vandals” with box cutters and fertilizer ruined the liner. Now they are pumping in ozone nanobubbles to kill the slime. It is a metaphor too on-the-nose for even the worst screenwriters.
The Supreme Court had a busy Tuesday, handing big wins to corporate America while playing favorites with foreign policy. First, they killed a lawsuit against Cisco. Falun Gong members claimed the tech giant’s hardware helped Beijing hunt and torture them. The justices shrugged, ruling American courts aren’t the place for foreign human rights fights. It’s a neat escape for US tech firms, who basically built China’s surveillance state anyway.
But the court sang a different tune for Cuba. In a 6-3 ruling, they cleared the way for ExxonMobil to sue Cuban state-owned companies over property seized by Fidel Castro back in the fifties. It’s a handy tool for the White House to squeeze Havana a little harder under the current oil embargo. Double standards? Welcome to Washington.
Wall Street is throwing a tantrum. Tech stocks are leading a brutal sell-off. Nasdaq futures plunged 2.6%, driven by panic over massive AI spending and looming interest rate hikes. Chipmakers got absolutely hammered. Micron and Intel dropped over 7%. Even Elon Musk’s SpaceX took another hit. The easy money is drying up, and the market is sweating.
Over in Islamabad, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is trying to hammer out a permanent end to the war. But the details are already messy. Vice President JD Vance bragged that Switzerland talks secured IAEA inspections of bombed nuclear sites and forced Iran to spend unfrozen cash on American soy and corn. Tehran called BS. Their foreign ministry spokesperson mocked the idea that the war’s grand finale was just a scheme to enrich American farmers. They’ll buy their grain from Brazil or India, thanks. Experts agree: US farmers won’t see a dime of that money anytime soon.
Finally, the feds locked up two more suspects in Washington and Missouri. They allegedly planned a murder conspiracy targeting Trump’s bizarre White House UFC cage-fighting event earlier this month. The plot was busted just days before the June 14 show. No pleas have been entered yet, but the details are as wild as the rest of this circus.
