WTF Just Happened Today

1/ Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents. Republicans had sought the audio recording of Hur’s interview with Biden as part of their stalled impeachment probe. Hur’s report recommended “no criminal charges,” but described Biden as someone who is “sympat

1/ Biden and Trump agreed to a pair of presidential debates before the November election. The first debate is June 27. It’ll be hosted by CNN and will not have an audience. The second debate will be Sept. 10, and hosted by ABC News. Earlier in the day, Biden said he’d “received and accepted an invitation” from CNN to participate in a debate. “Over to you, Donald. As you s

1/ Biden announced new tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, semiconductors, steel and aluminum products, and medical products. Notably, levies on imported Chinese electric vehicles will quadruple, from 25% to 100%, while tariffs on solar cells and semiconductors will double from 25% to 50%, and certain medical equipment (including PPE, surgical gl

1/ Michael Cohen testified that Trump directed him to personally make the $130,000 hush payment to Stormy Daniels because her story would be “catastrophic” for his campaign. During testimony in Trump’s election interference trial involving falsified business records, Cohen described his role at the Trump Organization as essentially “whatever” Trump “wanted.” Cohen tes

1/ Trump refused to unconditionally accept the results of the 2024 presidential election if he doesn’t win. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump said he was prepared “to fight for the right of the country” – an echo to his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol. “If everything�

1/ Biden will cancel $6 billion in student loans for people who attended the Art Institutes, a shuttered group of private for-profit colleges accused of fraud. “This institution falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies,” Biden said in a statement. T

1/ Trump was held in contempt of court and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors in his Manhattan criminal trial. Trump was also ordered to remove seven “offending” social media posts and two posts on his campaign website. Judge Juan Merchan warned Trump he could be jailed for further violation

1/ Senior State Department officials warned that they don’t have “credible or reliable” assurances that Israel is using U.S.-provided weapons in accordance with international law. Under a National Security Memorandum that Biden issued in February, Secretary of State Antony Blinken must determine whether Israel is using U.S. weapons “in a manner consistent with all applicabl

1/ Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker returned to the stand on the seventh day of Trump’s election interference trial involving falsified business records. Pecker testified that he spoke with Trump and Michael Cohen about paying Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep her story of an affair with Trump quiet ahead of the 2016 presidential election. “We didn’t want the sto

1/ Biden signed the $95 billion national security package into law, overcoming months of opposition and infighting by Republicans in Congress. The package includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian relief in Gaza, and $8 billion for security in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. Biden said the package is “going to make the world safer. And it contin