The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 7 Minutes

Protest News

• Despite repeated Trump administration assertions that the antifa movement has hijacked the ongoing protests around the country, a new federal intelligence bulletin points to white supremacists and other would-be domestic terrorists as the main problem lurking behind potentially lethal violence.

“Based upon current information, we assess the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” according to the bulletin, which was obtained by ABC News.

It says would-be domestic terrorists “including militia extremists and [groups] who advocate a belief in the superiority of the white race have sought to bring about a second civil war, often referred to as a ‘Boogaloo’ by intentionally instigating violence at First Amendment-protected activities. Racially charged events, coupled with the accompanying widespread media attention, and the rapid dissemination of violent online rhetoric by [extremists], are likely to remain contributing factors to potentially ideologically motivated violence.”

• Andre Lamar, a Gannett staff reporter-photographer was arrested Tuesday night in Delaware while covering a protest over the police killing of George Floyd near the state’s capital, Dover.

Lamar asked officers why the protesters were being detained. Lamar was tackled by police despite his repeated explanation that he was a member of the press. He was still taken into custody, with the officers confiscating his press badge and camera bag.

Delaware State Police confirmed the arrest in a statement, but said that “[a]s a result of the investigation, the media reporter was released with no charges filed.”

• White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that President Trump could take action on police reform through an executive order.

• More than a thousand Department of Justice alumni are calling on the department’s internal watchdog to investigate Attorney General William Barr’s role in the aggressive dispersal last week of protesters gathered near the White House so that President Trump could walk down the street for a photo op, saying if he “deprived Americans of their constitutional rights or that physically injured Americans lawfully exercising their rights, that would be misconduct of the utmost seriousness.”

• National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters on Tuesday that he didn’t believe systemic racism existed in the US, adding that “law and order is good for growth.”

• Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Floyd made an impassioned plea to Congress to enact sweeping changes to law enforcement in America to address police brutality and systemic racism.

• NASCAR said that it would ban the Confederate flag from its events and properties.

• US Soccer’s board of directors voted to end the league’s ban on kneeling during the national anthem.

• Prosecutors in Hennepin County, MN, said they were negotiating a plea deal with Derek Chauvin, a former officer charged in the death of George Floyd, before the deal fell through, ABC News reported.

The arrangement under discussion would have reportedly allowed Chauvin to plead guilty to local murder charges and federal civil rights violation charges, the prosecutor’s office told ABC.

Administration News

• Slightly more than one-quarter of all Americans questioned in a new Politico-Morning Consult Poll said they see President Trump as a man of faith.

The poll found that 27 percent of respondents somewhat or strongly agree that Trump is religious, compared to 55 percent who somewhat or strongly disagree. Forty percent of evangelicals also agreed that Trump was a man of faith,

• Louis DeJoy, a top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee will be named the new head of the Postal Service, putting a top ally of the president in charge of an agency where Trump has long pressed for major changes in how it handles its business.

The Postal Service’s board of governors confirmed late Wednesday that DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is currently in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, will serve as the new postmaster general.

• White House tells Bolton lawyer that the book still has classified information. But the book has already shipped to warehouses, per publisher.

• A former federal judge on Wednesday blasted the U.S. Justice Department for what he called “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power” in seeking to drop its criminal case against Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor.

“The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President,” the ex-judge, John Gleeson, wrote in a scathing legal filing opposing the proposed dismissal.

Gleeson, who was assigned by the judge in Flynn’s case to advise him on several questions, also wrote that the retired Army lieutenant general “has indeed committed perjury” in his statements to the case judge during proceedings in the case, “for which he deserves punishment.”

• President Donald Trump is expected to arrive at his Bedminster golf club Thursday evening for a busy weekend that includes a political fundraiser at the Lamington Road property and an address to the graduating class at West Point.

Trump had been scheduled to visit his Bedminster club last weekend, but the trip was canceled because of the ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

• President Trump says he will “not even consider” renaming Army bases that were named after Confederate military leaders even as reports emerge that his top military leaders are open to the idea.

“These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,” Trump tweeted.

• President Trump’s campaign is demanding CNN retract and apologize for a recent poll that showed him well behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The demand, coming in the form of a cease and desist letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker that contained numerous incorrect and misleading claims, was immediately rejected by the network. “We stand by our poll,” said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman.

• President Trump said his first rally since March 2nd will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma next Friday.

• A federal court in New York City determined that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent may no longer arrest immigrants at U.S. courthouses. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff declared the policy “illegal” in a huge blow to the Trump administration.

• The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept interest rates close to zero amid the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic, and officials expect them to remain there until at least 2022.

• The deficit in the first eight months of the 2020 fiscal year hit a record $1.9 trillion, surpassing the largest annual deficit on record, $1.4 trillion in 2009.

Treasury Department data released Wednesday found that the deficit for May hit $399 billion, the second highest monthly level after April’s record-shattering $738 billion figure.

Coronavirus/COVID-19

• Dr. Anthony Fauci reacted to news that the DC National Guard says some of its troops contracted coronavirus while responding to protests, calling the development “disturbing,” but “not surprising,” given the lack of social distancing amid protests last week.

• Starbucks expects the coronavirus pandemic to reduce sales this quarter by as much as $3.2 billion, dragging down the coffee chain’s performance as it sees a recovery stretching into next year. 

Starbucks will close up to 400 company-owned locations over the next 18 months while also speeding up the expansion of “convenience-led formats” such as curbside pickup, Drive-Thru and mobile-only pickup locations.

• Though AstraZeneca has said it is laying plans to be able to ship 2 billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, once it is created and approved, “The challenge is not so much to make the vaccine itself, it’s to fill vials,” said Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, on a conference call hosted by an industry trade group last week. “There’s not enough vials in the world.”

• The US has now seen 2,000,000 coronavirus cases.

As of June 10 at 4:40 p.m. ET, there have been 2,002,229 COVID-19 cases and 113,344 reported deaths in the US.

• A month into its reopening, Florida reported the most new cases of any 7-day period.

• In Texas, hospitalizations jumped to the highest yet and the third consecutive daily increase.

• California’s hospitalizations have risen in nine of the past 10 days.

• The Trump administration opposes a Democratic proposal to extend a $600 per week federal unemployment benefit approved in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said Tuesday.

• After Arizona lifted its stay at home restrictions in the middle of May, coronavirus cases have spiked 115 percent. On Saturday, Arizona’s health director told hospitals to activate coronavirus emergency plans

• During a hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis, state Sen. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City, OH)  asked if “the colored population” is hit harder by the coronavirus because perhaps they don’t wash their hands as well as other groups.

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post