The Deal Is Close. The Bombs Say Different
Plus: a $70 billion ICE bill passes by two votes, a Texas jury with zero Black members sentences a 19-year-old to 35 years, and primary night reshuffles Maine and California.
I am in the throes of prepping my house for visitors, so no time to chit-chat.
Let’s get into the news.
In Today’s Read
Iran shot down a U.S. Apache. Trump hit back. Then Iran fired missiles at American bases in three countries.
The House passed $70 billion for ICE by two votes. The slush fund survived.
A Texas jury with zero Black members convicted Karmelo Anthony in three hours.
Primary Watch: Platner won Maine in a walk. California’s “rigged” count landed right where everyone expected.
Plus: Trump booed at the NBA Finals, ICE stopped counting the dead, Bari Weiss eyes CNN, NASA’s moon crew is all men, and the VP got chickens.
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An Apache, a Truth Social Post, and a Warning to Bibi
The Story.
Monday evening, June 8, an Army AH-64 Apache helicopter went down over the Strait of Hormuz while patrolling near the Omani coast. Both pilots were rescued by an unmanned Navy drone boat, uninjured.
A U.S. official told Axios an Iranian drone struck the helicopter and caused the crash. By Tuesday afternoon, Trump confirmed Iran shot it down and promised a response. At 5 p.m. ET, CENTCOM launched strikes against Iranian air-defense sites, ground-control stations, and surveillance radars near the Strait using Air Force and Navy fighter jets. The strikes concluded around 9 p.m. Hours later, Iran’s IRGC fired four ballistic missiles and several drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. Nearly all were intercepted. No American casualties reported.
Hours later, Iran's IRGC fired four ballistic missiles and several drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. Nearly all were intercepted. No American casualties reported. The IRGC claimed it attacked 21 targets and destroyed four, including an F-35 hangar in Jordan. This is the worst U.S.-Iran exchange since the April ceasefire. It came the same day Trump warned Netanyahu, per Channel 12 and Axios: "Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon." Netanyahu reportedly called off a major strike on Iran with fighter jets already on the runway after that call. Six days earlier, the House passed a war powers resolution 215-208 to force Trump to end hostilities with Iran.
Tuesday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran has "taken too long" to negotiate and will "pay the price."
The Left’s read. NPR and CNN led with escalation risk and the ceasefire collapsing. The frame: Trump started an unauthorized war 102 days ago, lost an Apache over Hormuz, retaliated, and now Iran is launching missiles at American servicemembers in three countries nobody voted to defend. The war powers vote from last week is the connective tissue: four Republicans crossed the aisle to make it happen, and the thing they warned about just did.
The Right’s read. The right splits the way it has since February. The hawk lane (Fox, NY Post) ran it as proof Iran can’t be trusted and the ceasefire was always fiction. The restraint lane is quieter: Trump telling Netanyahu to stand down reads, in that camp, as a president still trying to end this, not expand it. What’s telling is how little anyone on the right connects the helicopter downing to the war powers vote, because that vote was bipartisan and embarrassing. The four Republicans who crossed over look less like cranks by the hour.
What both sides are skipping. The left runs the escalation clock and barely pauses on the “on your own” quote, which is the single most remarkable statement a wartime president has made about the ally he went to war alongside. Trump didn’t say “I’ll defend Israel.” He said “you’ll be on your own.” That’s not reassurance. That’s a threat aimed at the ally from the commander-in-chief while Iranian missiles are in the air. The right won’t touch it because a Republican president threatening to abandon Israel mid-war splits the donor base and the evangelical lane. And neither side is connecting the “on your own” quote to the Truth Social post that landed this morning, where Trump wrote Iran has “taken too long” and will “pay the price.” That’s not the language of a man who thinks the deal is close. It’s the language of a man preparing the public for the next round of strikes.
I told you on Friday that I didn’t know what was happening with Iran, and I meant it. Four days later, I still don’t, and I’m frustrated, and I suspect a lot of you are too.
Here’s what I think I can see. Trump has a trigger-happy ally who won’t stop swinging and an adversary who’s running out the clock. Netanyahu had jets on the runway and had to be told to stand down. Iran keeps showing up to the table, ordering water, and leaving before the check. Trump’s strategy from the start has been economic pressure: squeeze them with the blockade, crater their oil revenue, and force a deal. Maybe that’s working. But if it is, it’s not working fast enough, and the Iranian strategy looks a lot like wait him out. Stall the talks, test the patience, bet that the Americans get tired before Tehran runs out of runway.
That’s a game of chicken, and the president started it. I say that as someone who supported the initial strikes. But 102 days in, we’ve got an Apache at the bottom of the Strait, Iranian missiles aimed at American bases in three countries, and a Truth Social post this morning where Trump wrote “they’ve taken too long to negotiate” and “now they will have to pay the price.” That’s a different tone from “final throes” and “two or three days,” which is what he told reporters yesterday. Both things can’t be true. Either the deal is close or Iran’s about to get hit again. My gut says more bombs are coming.
The “you’ll be on your own very soon” line to Netanyahu is the other piece. That’s a president telling his ally, mid-war, that the alliance has a shelf life. Which is cool, it should, we have different interests. But the left won’t touch it because threatening to abandon Israel sounds like a compliment to half their base. The right won’t because it sounds like a betrayal to all of theirs. But read it plainly: Trump is frustrated with Netanyahu too. He’s got a war he can’t close, an ally who keeps escalating, and an enemy who keeps stalling.
The war powers vote six days ago, 215-208, with four Republicans crossing: Barrett, Davidson, Fitzpatrick, Massie. None of those were surprises. Fitzpatrick and Massie have been increasingly vocal critics of the war for weeks.
I can’t tell you what happens next. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more strikes before we see a deal. Watch whether Trump’s economic pressure actually bends Iran or just buys time. Watch whether Netanyahu listens to “on your own” or tests it. And watch whether the press covers this as a negotiation that’s struggling or a war they’re rooting against, because I promise you some of them can’t tell the difference.
$70 Billion by Two Votes, and a Slush Fund Nobody Could Kill
The Story.
The House on Tuesday voted 214-212 to pass the Secure America Act, a $70 billion reconciliation package that funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement ($38B), Border Patrol ($26B), and a $5 billion discretionary pool controlled by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin through the end of Trump’s term in January 2029. The bill now goes to Trump’s desk. Every Democrat voted no. One Republican-caucusing independent, California’s Kevin Kiley, also voted against. The Senate had passed it 52-47 on June 5 after an 18-hour marathon during which Democrats and some Republicans tried and failed to attach guardrails to the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, the pot created when DOJ settled Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. That fund, which Democrats call a slush fund for January 6 defendants and Trump allies, survived intact. Schumer: “Republicans refused to permanently outlaw Trump’s $2 billion slush fund, leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump’s personal fixer.” About a dozen conservative Republicans, including Chip Roy and Tim Burchett, initially held up the House vote demanding language from H.R. 2. Speaker Johnson promised them a vote on it before July 4th. They relented.
The Left’s read. NPR and CBS framed it as the end of a 115-day standoff, a party-line vote funding Trump’s deportation machine with no legislative block on the anti-weaponization fund. MSNBC led with: “House passes immigration reconciliation bill — without blocking Trump’s compensation fund.” The emphasis is on the fund that wasn’t killed by statute, not the $70 billion that was.
The Right’s read. Fox ran it clean: “Trump locks in ICE funding through end of presidency.” The Daily Caller emphasized that reconciliation bypassed Democrats, ICE is funded, the process works. The conservative holdout drama got covered as inside baseball that resolved itself. The right isn’t touching the fund because Trump’s own answer on Meet the Press, where he wouldn’t rule out paying J6 defendants, contradicted Blanche’s “dead, period” line from five days earlier.
What both sides are skipping. The $5 billion discretionary pool controlled by Mullin is getting one sentence in every story and deserves a paragraph. That’s $5 billion at the sole discretion of one cabinet secretary with no line-item accountability in the bill. The fund gets all the attention because of the J6 hook, but the discretionary pot is bigger money with less oversight. The other gap: 214-212. One Republican voted no, meaning a single additional defection kills it. The biggest immigration bill of the Trump presidency passed by the thinnest margin possible, and both sides talk about it like it was a landslide. And nobody is putting this vote next to the 76-day DHS shutdown that preceded it, where over 1,100 TSA agents quit while ICE and Border Patrol were already funded from last year’s reconciliation.
Before we talk about the bill, let’s talk about how we got here, because Democrats are hoping you forgot.
After the Minneapolis shootings in January, Senate Democrats vowed to block DHS funding until they got guardrails on ICE: warrants for arrests, body cameras, agents identifying themselves. They shut down DHS to pressure ICE and Border Patrol, but ICE and Border Patrol were already funded through last year’s reconciliation. The agencies Democrats were targeting kept operating. The people who actually lost their paychecks were TSA agents, FEMA workers, support staff, none of whom had anything to do with immigration enforcement. Over 1,100 TSA agents quit. Airport security lines backed up for weeks. The shutdown lasted 76 days. And when it ended? Democrats got zero guardrails. Not one. The deal to reopen DHS didn’t include a single reform they demanded. They left federal workers without a paycheck for almost four months and accomplished nothing.
Now the $70 billion reconciliation passes 214-212, ICE is funded through 2029, and Democrats want to campaign on... the anti-weaponization fund. The fund that’s procedurally dead, judicially frozen, and that the acting AG told Congress is “not moving forward, period.” Is it fair to have concerns about a fund that could theoretically compensate people who assaulted cops on January 6? Sure. As I said last edition, Trump told Welker he wouldn’t be inclined to do that but would have to look at the cases. That’s not a blank check. It remains to be seen whether this fund ever comes back to life. The $5 billion in discretionary cash that Markwayne Mullin can spend however he wants also remains to be seen.
But here’s what doesn’t remain to be seen: Democrats shut down DHS to fight ICE, the fight failed, the workers who had nothing to do with ICE paid the price, and now ICE is funded for three years anyway. That’s not a midterm talking point. That’s a record they’re going to have to answer for, and shouting about a dead fund won’t make the TSA agents who quit forget who left them without a check.
214-212. Two votes. Chip Roy had to be talked off the ledge with a promise of a future vote that has no enforcement mechanism. This bill barely happened. And Democrats still couldn’t stop it, because they spent their leverage four months ago on a shutdown that got them nothing.
The Salt Atlas: A Field Guide to Every Salt in Your Kitchen
Exclusive for paying subscribers.
If Lesson 1 was the why-and-how of salt, this is the reference book. Eight salts, what each one actually does, what they cost, what they’re worth, and the conversion math so know how to salt every recipe you find online.
Zero Black Jurors. Three Hours. Thirty-Five Years.
The Story.
On Tuesday, a Collin County jury found 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a Frisco ISD track meet on April 2, 2025. The jury deliberated roughly three hours. Anthony is Black. Metcalf was white. They didn’t know each other. The fight started over a tent: Anthony refused to leave a shelter belonging to Metcalf’s team on a rainy day, witnesses described a heated exchange, Metcalf pushed Anthony, and Anthony pulled a knife and stabbed him in the chest. The defense argued self-defense. Prosecutors called it a “sneak attack” with a prohibited weapon. Anthony did not testify. His mother took the stand during sentencing and asked for mercy. During jury selection on June 3, prosecutors used their peremptory strikes to dismiss all three qualified Black women from the jury pool. The defense filed a Batson challenge, arguing the strikes were race-based and noting that a white female juror who was also an educator was not struck. Prosecutors said they removed the Black jurors because they were educators and the stabbing happened at a school event. The judge denied the challenge. The final jury had zero Black members.
The Left’s read. CNN and NBC covered it as a racially charged verdict, emphasizing the all-white jury, the Batson challenge, and the community response. Social media compared it to Jim Crow. WaPo ran a long feature on Frisco’s existing racial divisions and how the trial cracked them wider. The frame: the legal system failed a Black teenager before the trial even began, and the verdict was baked into the jury.
The Right’s read. Townhall ran “Sometimes Justice Does Prevail,” celebrating the verdict and mocking Court TV panelists who were upset. The Daily Wire framed the defense’s collapse as exposing “the big lie of the civil rights era.” Fox covered the jury selection but didn’t question it. The right’s frame: a killer was convicted, the system worked, and the race narrative was manufactured by activists and media.
What both sides are skipping. The left leads with "zero Black jurors" and buries the prosecution's actual explanation: the struck jurors were K-12 educators and the stabbing happened at a school event, while the white educator who stayed teaches adults at a trade school. That distinction disappears from every left-of-center write-up. The left also skips the trial evidence: Anthony brought a knife, was asked to leave more than ten times, didn't testify, and his self-defense claim didn't convince 12 people in three hours. The right runs a victory lap without engaging the Batson record at all. Townhall mocked Court TV panelists for being upset rather than examining the jury question on its merits. The Daily Wire used the verdict to run "Anti-White Violence" and "the big lie of the civil rights era," which does the same thing the left does in reverse: makes race the frame instead of the facts.
Everyone picked a side the second the verdict dropped, and the side they picked tells you nothing about the case.
The Daily Wire ran “Anti-White Violence.” The left ran “Jim Crow jury.” And the actual trial record got buried under both.
Start with the jury. Prosecutors struck three Black women because they were educators and the stabbing happened at a school event. The defense pointed out a white educator who stayed. The prosecution’s answer: that woman teaches adults at a trade school, not children. There is a real difference between teaching at a trade school and teaching K-12. Anyone who’s spent time in both environments knows they’re not the same. It’s a valid distinction. But you’ll notice the outlets pushing the racial framing skip that detail entirely and just say “no Black jurors.” The nuance doesn’t fit the headline.
Now the trial itself, because this is where the race-first framing falls apart. Karmelo Anthony brought a knife to a track meet. He was asked to leave Memorial’s tent more than ten times. Witnesses said he was cursing and taunting. One quoted Metcalf telling him, “I’m not gonna fight you at a track meet, dude.” Metcalf pushed him. Anthony pulled a knife from his backpack and stabbed him in the chest. At the scene, he told the officer: “I’m not alleged. I did it. He put his hands on me. I told him not to.” The wound was two inches and gaping. The medical examiner said it was not survivable.
A defense witness, a 17-year-old who claimed Anthony was surrounded before the stabbing, recanted under cross-examination when prosecutors showed surveillance video proving he wasn’t even looking at the tent when it happened. Eddie Parra, who knew both Anthony and the Metcalf brothers, was asked by the prosecution who was wrong that day. His answer: “Karmelo.”
The media covered this as a race case from day one. But between boys, especially teenage boys, a little pushing happens. It’s not unusual and it doesn’t justify a knife to the chest. Why was a 19-year-old carrying a knife to a track meet in the first place? The coverage that leads with “zero Black jurors” and buries the ten requests to leave, the taunting, the knife, and the confession at the scene is not reporting a race story. It’s building one.
The jury deliberated three hours. The Batson challenge will be appealed, and the standard is weak enough that it’s worth watching. But the people loudest about the jury composition are the ones least interested in what the jury actually heard.
🗳️Primary Watch
Maine: Platner Won With 78%. It Tells You Less Than You Think.
Graham Platner won Maine’s Democratic Senate primary Tuesday night with 77.7% of the vote (Mills got 16.7%, Costello 5.6%) and immediately turned the podium into a prosecution of Susan Collins.
He called her “just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” said she “lied to us” by promising to protect Roe and then voting to confirm Kavanaugh, accused her of supporting “endless wars since I was a teenager,” and said she “is getting rich while we are getting screwed” from private equity donations. He closed on redemption: “If you believe that people can change, then you must also believe that we can change our politics.” Collins responded from Washington: “The allegations against Graham Platner are extremely troubling and serious, and he owes the people of Maine a detailed answer.”
The left framed it as a decisive, defiant launch. The Kavanaugh and Roe lines got heavy rotation. The right keyed on Collins’s response and the abuse allegations that haven’t gone away, reading the “redemption” line with a raised eyebrow. One Nation put $3 million behind Collins before the ballots were counted.
California: The “Rigged” Count Did Exactly What Counts Always Do
A week after the June 2 primary, the count landed where every operative expected. In the governor’s race, Democrat Xavier Becerra overtook Republican Steve Hilton for first place, leading 28% to 25% with 88% of the expected vote counted. The election-night story was “Republican leads in deep-blue California.” The June 10 story is “the mail ballots got counted.”
In the LA mayor’s race, Karen Bass holds first at 34%. Nithya Raman overtook Spencer Pratt for the second runoff spot, 29% to Pratt’s 26% with 93% counted. Pratt, the former reality TV star who led on election night, is now out. Trump spent the week calling the count “rigged.” Hilton himself said he hasn’t seen anything illegal, calling the counting system “a national and international laughingstone” but stopping short of fraud.
Both Maine governor primaries are heading to ranked-choice tabulation.
No candidate in either the Democratic or Republican gubernatorial primary broke 50% on first-choice ballots Tuesday night. On the Democratic side, Dr. Nirav Shah leads narrowly with Hannah Pingree close behind and Troy Jackson in the mix. On the Republican side, Bobby Charles, a former Bush administration official, leads the first round. Ranked-choice tabulation will determine both nominees.
South Carolina’s GOP governor primary heads to a runoff.
Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson will face off in two weeks after neither cleared the threshold Tuesday. Rep. Nancy Mace is out. Another test of Trump’s endorsement power in a state he carried by 25 points.
Trump got booed at the NBA Finals. Then the Knicks lost. Trump became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game Sunday, watching Game 3 from James Dolan’s suite at Madison Square Garden with granddaughter Kai and cabinet members Zeldin, Duffy, and Burgum. When he appeared on the jumbotron, the sellout crowd booed him loudly enough that multiple outlets used the word “thunderous.” The Spurs won 115-111. The president was at a basketball game the same evening his Apache helicopter went down over the Strait of Hormuz. Nobody put the two timelines on the same page.
DOJ opened a civil rights investigation into Arizona State University over DEI. The Justice Department announced it is investigating ASU’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, joining a growing list of federal probes into university DEI offices under a Trump administration that has made the issue a second-term priority. More than 300 colleges have already dismantled DEI offices, per the Department of Education. Fox 10 Phoenix
ICE will stop reporting when people die after leaving its custody. In an internal memo dated June 4, acting ICE Director David Venturella told staff the agency is ending its requirement to report deaths within 30 days of someone being released from custody. The policy being reversed was adopted in 2021 after ICE was found to have a pattern of releasing seriously ill detainees to avoid counting their deaths as in-custody fatalities. Eighteen detainees have died in ICE custody in the first five months of 2026.
NASA announced the Artemis III crew. It’s all men. The four astronauts heading to orbit: commander Randy Bresnik, pilot Luca Parmitano (Italian), and mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio. The crew is racially diverse but entirely male, coming right after Artemis II brought the first woman into lunar territory. The mission itself got quietly downgraded in February from a crewed moon landing to an Earth-orbit test flight, roughly the Apollo 9 equivalent. Launch is slated for 2027. NASA
Bari Weiss is reportedly set to oversee CNN’s editorial operations. After a year running CBS News as editor-in-chief, Weiss is earmarked to take editorial control of CNN if the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger goes through. Scott Pelley, fired by CBS on June 2, told the New York Times that “CBS News is on fire” and Weiss should be removed. Paramount CEO David Ellison has full confidence in her. The woman the legacy press treated as a pariah when she left the Times in 2020 may soon run two of its biggest competitors.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is full again. It reflects. Move on. Trump had the Reflecting Pool drained in April and repainted "American flag blue" for America's 250th anniversary, a six-week project that also fixed years of leaking and a persistent algae problem. Water started flowing back in this week. It reflects. The left spent weeks insisting it wouldn't. It does. Trump brought the pool workers into the Oval Office. The coverage is treating an objective infrastructure improvement like a culture war, and the pettiness is hard to watch. NBC Washington
European World Cup fans are going viral for discovering America is not walkable. German, British, and French fans arriving for the 2026 FIFA World Cup are posting TikToks of themselves navigating New Jersey streets to reach MetLife Stadium, discovering that the venue is in East Rutherford and not Manhattan, and reacting to $18 stadium beers. A German creator, Freddy, documenting his entire trip, from the parking lot hike to the portion sizes, went viral on X . Freddy loves America.
JD Vance installed a chicken coop at the Naval Observatory. A Victorian-style custom coop, designed by Carolina Coops at no cost to taxpayers, with a round turret and faux slate roof to match the historic VP residence. A dozen baby chicks. Guests at a camp-themed party this weekend got the first look, along with a 4-H demo from local students. Vance once joked his kids “actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning.” This is the lightest story in today’s edition and it’s staying.
That’s The Read.
If The Read is doing the cross-check work for you, send it to a friend who’s still chasing the framing instead of the facts.
I really appreciate this new format of pointing out what both sides are missing and then giving your take. It's been a really helpful reminder that the media is trash--and we should take it all with a grain of salt :)
After watching a couple clips frm the President’s B-day party ‘on the lawn’ my humble take is- I love it! It’s like he threw a big party to hang out with his armed forces and they in turn brought the band and put on a great show with the music they made! And that’s not even getting started on the fight part which I know nothing about- but anyway I just thought- how cool esp when I saw POTUS standing at attention when the jets went overhead information during our national anthem. I kinda wish I had been there 🇱🇷💯💞🕊️