Weekly News Roundup - 6/6/25
Remembering D-Day / A win for due process: Kilmar Garcia is returned to the U.S. / Musk turns on Trump
This is the 23rd Weekly News Roundup of 2025. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here.
These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.
But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”
Quotes of the Week
Live by executive power, die by executive power. One day, surely one of the two parties will notice that this keeps happening; eventually, maybe, one of them will try to seek an actually permanent solution to the problems they decry. - Gabe Fleisher
Historical experience warns us that strongmen do not get things done. At best they may indulge the fantasies of some of the population. But at what cost? Strongmen tend to be fixated on a few simple ideas that they offer as solutions to complex problems. The concentration of power in a small number of hands and the absence of wider deliberation and scrutiny enable them to make major decisions on the hoof, without proper forethought, planning, research or consultation. Within the government’s ranks, a strongman promotes loyalty at the expense of wisdom, flattery at the expense of objective advice, and self-interest at the expense of the public interest. All of this usually makes for chaos, political breakdown, economic impoverishment and social divisions. - Jonathan Sumption
Big Stories This Week
The Trump administration yielded to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, returning a man back to the U.S. who was mistakenly deported, so that he can receive due process and his day in court. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was charged Friday with human trafficking by the Justice Department, but regardless of how that trial turns out, his return to U.S. soil is a victory for the preservation of a fundamental right in a constitutional democracy: due process. Trump had earlier claimed he couldn't do anything to bring Garcia back to the U.S.
The Trump-Musk "Broligarchy" broke up, as the American President and the world's richest individual traded digital insults that devolved rapidly. It began early in the week with Musk criticizing the spending bill making its way through Congress, because of how much it will add to the national debt and the risk it will pose to America's creditworthiness and fiscal health. It escalated Thursday with Musk calling for Trump to be impeached, and Trump saying he would cancel government subsidies for Musk's companies. Musk retaliated by saying he would no longer allow the U.S. government to use the Dragon spacecraft that is currently the only way for astronauts to get into orbit. Casey Newton pointed out that this partnership had already brought a lot to both men: "Trump got an unprecedented $290 million in donations from Musk, along with constant promotion of his candidacy on X (and constant criticism of opponent Kamala Harris.) And once he was elected, Musk served as a kind of heat shield for Trump in Washington, absorbing huge amounts of criticism that might otherwise have been leveled solely at the president as he and DOGE decimated federal agencies. Meanwhile, when Musk joined the Trump administration, 11 federal agencies had “more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Mr. Musk’s six companies,” according to the Times. The Musk-led assault on the federal bureaucracy dramatically weakened those agencies, throwing the future of many of those investigations into doubt ... A report by Senate Democrats found that Musk’s cost-cutting measures protected him from up to $2.37 billion in legal liability from US agencies." But by Thursday of this week, former White House chief of staff Steve Bannon said he was advising Trump to deport Musk out of the U.S.
Trump imposed a travel ban on 19 countries. During his first term, Trump announced a ban on an entire faith group early in his presidency, which drew massive protests at airports. This time, Democratic leaders like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said they saw the announcement as "a means to try to distract us from their efforts to kick 15 million people off of healthcare ... They are about to engineer this most massive wealth transfer from the poor, the middle class, to the rich in the history of the country. That’s the story.”
Week in Review
Friday, May 30
ICE agents carrying automatic weapons and wearing masks and tactical gear raid a San Diego restaurant during dinner time, prompting an impromptu protest from local citizens who surround the agents in protest. The strike force deploys flash bangs that startle many in the crowd, but the local citizens remain in the street and force the agents to leave. This incident comes after reports of a meeting at the White House a week earlier where top Trump adviser Stephen Miller demanded that ICE arrest 3,000 people a day.
President Trump attacks the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that has vetted most of Trump's judicial nominees going back to his first term, out of frustration that many of his actions have been blocked or paused by the judicial branch.
The Department of Energy cancels nearly $4 billion in clean energy grants.
Sunday, June 1
Ukraine launches a surprise drone attack on Russian military bases, and says it destroyed 40 bombers, a third of Russia's strategic bomber fleet. Russia disputes the number but Ukraine releases video of their drones destroying numerous Russian war planes.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Republican supporter of Trump, returns from a trip to Ukraine and warns that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is stalling peace talks with the U.S. to buy time for a renewed attack on Ukraine. “We saw credible evidence of a summer or early fall invasion, a new offensive by Putin. ... He’s preparing for more war," Graham says. "“Putin is playing President Trump ... He’s taking him for a sucker," adds Sen. Richard Blumenthal, standing next to Graham. The two lawmakers traveled together and are pushing for Trump to support a sanctions bill on Russia that is backed by 41 Republicans and 41 Democrats in the Senate.
A man yelling "Free Palestine" throws an incendiary device into a group of people demonstrating in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 people. At least one woman is seriously burned.
Monday, June 2
Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, spewing lava, rock and ash down the side of its mountain and sending tourists running, though no one is injured.
Tuesday, June 3
Elon Musk, a week after leaving government, calls Trump's self-proclaimed "big beautiful bill" a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill" and a "disgusting abomination" that will "massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt." A handful of Republican Senators echo Musk's criticisms, signaling resistance to the spending in the legislation passed by the House two weeks prior.
Palestinian officials say that 27 people who were part of a crowd trying to access food at an aid site were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on them. The Israeli government says it fired "near a few individual suspects."
The wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the man arrested for firebombing Israeli demonstrators on Sunday, are taken into custody by immigration officials and threatened with deportation.
A federal judge blocks enforcement of a Florida law that bans "social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for their use by 14- and 15-year-olds" while a court dispute plays out over the law.
The FBI files charges against a Chinese national who is in China and his girlfriend, a Chinese national working as a researcher at the University of Michigan, accusing them of trying to smuggle a toxic fungus into the U.S. that "can attack wheat, barley, maize and rice and sicken livestock and people."
Wednesday, June 4
President Trump issues a ban on travel to the U.S. from 19 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The list includes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth skips a meeting at NATO headquarters of 50 nations organized to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia's invasion. It's the first time the Pentagon's leader has missed the meeting since the group was set up by President Biden's Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin.
A human rights attorney in El Salvador who has criticized President Nayib Bukele, Ruth Leonora López, is sentenced to six months in prison. The government claims that the attorney enriched herself illegally, but as Lopez is taken out of the courtroom, she shouts, "I am a political prisoner, the accusations are for my legal work, for my reporting this administration’s corruption. There are not institutions that guarantee Salvadorans rights. I am innocent.”
Thursday, June 5
An 18-year old high schooler in Massachusetts is released from custody after being detained by ICE agents looking for his father, who is undocumented. The student, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, says that he was confined in a room with 30 other men, many who did not speak English. "Most people down there are all workers. They all got caught going to work. These people have families, man. They have kids to go home to. There's genuine criminals out there that people aren't giving attention to. They're getting good people that don't deserve to be here," da Silva says. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass, accompanies da Silva during his release. "We support securing our border," Moulton says. "We support following the law. But this administration is breaking the law. This administration is not keeping us safe by putting 18-year old honors students in prison."
Elon Musk takes a major swipe at Trump, saying that he is in the Epstein files, a document believed by conspiracy theorists to contain information about many elites and their supposed involvement in the former financier's sex trafficking ring. That sets off a back and forth on the internet between the two men, an epic meltdown by both who had just a week earlier appeared next to each other in the White House.
The Supreme Court unanimously sides with a Catholic charity in a religious liberty case.
Friday, June 6
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is returned to the U.S., as the Justice Department charges him with human trafficking.
On the 81st anniversary of the D-Day Invasion by Allied Forces to retake France and Europe from Nazi occupation, volunteers rub the gravestones of those who died on the beaches of France with sand from those beaches to commemorate them and to refresh the vividness of their names on the tombstone.
The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that members of the Department of Government Efficiency, founded by Musk but no longer with his involvement, can have access to sensitive Social Security data about American citizens.
Interesting Reads
The Trump Pardons Are Out of Control by Lee Kovarsky for The New York Times
Tick bites are no joke. Here’s how to prevent them and protect yourself, by Wirecutter for The New York Times
Inside the split between MAGA and the Federalist Society, by Hailey Fuchs and Daniel Barnes for Politico
Why Cultural Decline in the U.S. Is a Threat to Democracy, by Jonathan Sumption for The New York Times
The Next Phase of New York City’s ‘Trash Revolution’ Is Here, by Emma G. Fitzsimmons for The New York Times
There Is No Piecing Back Our Badly Shattered Constitutional Order, by Andy Craig for The Unpopulist
‘Worship warfare’ event in Seattle was planned to be violent, by Rick Pidcock for Baptist News Global
Sean Feucht Accused of Mismanaging Millions in Ministry Revenue, by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis for Christianity Today
The Man Whose Weather Forecast Saved the World, by Nazaneen Ghaffar for The New York Times