The Daily Brief — June 1, 2026
Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund” blocked, court halts his Kennedy Center plan, Platner campaign rocked by disclosures of sexual texts
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Setbacks for Trump on “Anti-Weaponization Fund”
The Justice Department’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is on hold after rulings from two federal courts. According to the Trump administration, the fund was created to pay people who say they were unfairly targeted by past administrations — a claim Trump has long made about himself and his allies. It grew out of a “settlement” of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns during his first term.
After the fund was announced, groups and individuals sued to block its creation. They argued the fund is unlawful and unconstitutional because Congress never authorized the spending. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily barred the government from setting up the fund and set a June 12 hearing on whether to keep it blocked.
In Florida, US District Judge Kathleen Williams, who oversaw Trump’s IRS suit, reopened the case and gave Trump’s lawyers until June 12 to respond to a complaint from 35 former federal judges. They call the “settlement” a “fraud on the Court,” arguing it was never a real dispute: Trump sued the IRS, an agency he oversees as president, and then dropped the case. The Justice Department announced a “settlement” with Trump while Williams was still weighing whether the suit was genuine. The deal also shielded Trump, his family, and his businesses from IRS claims over past tax returns.
Judge Halts Kennedy Center Closure
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from closing the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for repairs and ordered Trump’s name removed from the building and its website.
Trump fired the previous board of the Kennedy Center last year and filled it with allies, including Second Lady Usha Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and adviser Dan Scavino. The new board elected Trump as chair and renamed the venue the “Trump Kennedy Center.”
In response, Rep. Joyce Beatty — an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board — sued to challenge both the renaming and the closure.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” wrote US District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, DC. He ruled that the board’s March 16 vote to close the center for about two years was “ill-informed.”
Trump criticized the ruling and said the government would pull out of the renovation and return control of the institution to Congress. The center’s leadership has said it will appeal the ruling.
US and Iran Trade Strikes as Ceasefire Frays; Israel Threatens Beirut
Iran has suspended talks with the United States, citing Israel’s continued strikes in Lebanon. The two countries have been holding Pakistani-mediated negotiations to turn a fragile ceasefire in the conflict into a permanent end to the war.
The US military said today it had bombed radar and drone-control sites in Iran over the weekend, after Iran shot down an American MQ-1 Predator drone. US Central Command said the strikes hit Iranian air defenses and two attack drones, and that no US troops were hurt.
Iran, meanwhile, said it had launched a retaliatory strike, and Kuwait said its air defenses had opened fire early today to intercept incoming drones and missiles aimed at US forces there.
Newsbreak
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Graham Platner’s Sexually Explicit Texts
About a week before Maine’s June 9 Democratic Senate primary, frontrunner Graham Platner is facing reports that he sent sexually explicit texts to several women early in his marriage.
Platner, an oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran, is the presumptive Democratic nominee.
According to both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, discovered the texts on his phone in the spring of 2025. That August — shortly after Platner launched his campaign — she shared them with the campaign’s then–political director, Genevieve McDonald, during internal vetting to determine whether they posed a risk. The texts were sent before Platner launched his campaign. The couple accused McDonald, a former state lawmaker, of leaking the information to the press. McDonald has resigned from the campaign.
Platner has not denied the existence of the texts. The Platner campaign has rejected the “sensationalization of several private facts relayed by a former confidante to journalists.” Accounts also differ on the scope: McDonald claims Platner texted as many as a dozen women, while a campaign official put the number at up to six. The messages stopped before the campaign launched, the official said.
This is not Platner’s first controversy. He has apologized for a tattoo widely identified as a Nazi symbol, which he says he covered after recognizing its meaning, and for past Reddit posts that critics say downplayed sexual assault.
Protests Outside New Jersey ICE Detention Center Continue
Several protesters were arrested overnight for defying a curfew outside Delaney Hall, a privately run ICE detention center in Newark, NJ.The roughly 1,000-bed facility has drawn more than a week of protests in support of detainees, who advocates say have been on a hunger strike since late May over conditions inside.
Democratic members of Congress who toured the facility last week described poor conditions. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said detainees are given small portions of food that “very often” contain maggots, and that medical care is insufficient, with the only medication offered being Tylenol. One woman, he said, had a lump in her breast but was still waiting on a mammogram more than a month into her detention.
The Department of Homeland Security denies there is a hunger strike or that conditions are poor, calling the protests a political stunt.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said protesters who came “armed with helmets, shields, or gas masks” and refused orders to leave by the 9 p.m. curfew were arrested. She did not say how many were taken into custody or whether they will face charges.
ICE Agent Wanted in Minnesota Arrested in Texas
An ICE agent charged in Minnesota with shooting a Venezuelan immigrant and lying about it has been arrested in Texas. The agent, Christian Castro, 52, was taken into custody last week by Texas Rangers after Minnesota investigators tracked him there. He is now awaiting an extradition hearing.
Castro faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the January 14 shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis. Prosecutors say video evidence contradicted Castro’s claim that he fired in self-defense.
DHS Backtracks on Green Card Applications
The Department of Homeland Security now says that most green card applicants will not be required to leave the US while their applications are pending.
On May 22, US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a directive suggesting that most temporary visa holders and others living in the US would generally have to return to their home countries to complete their green card applications, except in “extraordinary circumstances.”
Late last week, DHS said that guidance was not a blanket change and that immigration officers would continue to decide on a case-by-case basis whether an applicant must apply from abroad.
Trump to Headline 250th Fair After Artists Pull Out
President Trump will headline the opening ceremony of the Great American State Fair, a 250th-anniversary celebration on the National Mall in Washington, after several artists withdrew from its concert lineup.
Freedom 250, the Trump-backed group organizing the event, said over the weekend that Trump will kick off the celebration on June 24, the day before the fair begins its run from June 25 to July 10. Artists including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, Young MC, and the Commodores have pulled out, with several saying they were misled about the event’s political ties. Freedom 250 is billed as nonpartisan but was launched by Trump, but the artists who withdrew said they’d been misled and that the event was, in fact, political.
In a social media post, Trump separately suggested canceling the concert series altogether, saying he would rather hold a “Make America Great Again” rally than feature “overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear.”
I have seen what I needed to see. 😒
A settlement where the plaintiff is also the defendant's boss, with no actual dispute resolved in court... two federal judges found that arrangement to be worth a second look. The June 12 hearing will be telling. Hard to see how this one gets resolved, it likely won't happen quietly.