Trump Is Keeping $350 Million From His Own Party

Trump threw a tablet across the Oval Office in a rage, ICE is building a 528-bed facility to detain children, and the Weather Service is entering hurricane season short 300 forecasters

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump is sitting on a $350 million war chest and hasn’t spent directly on a Republican race since March. He hurled a tablet across the Oval Office when a call with Justin Trudeau wouldn’t connect. ICE is building a 528-bed facility next to a Louisiana airport to speed up deportations of families and children. And the National Weather Service is heading into hurricane season down nearly 300 meteorologists and hydrologists.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Trump Is Hoarding $350 Million, and the GOP Is Panicking

What’s the difference between a dragon and Trump’s super PAC? A dragon will eventually let go of the gold if you slay it.

Trump has more than $350 million in the bank, and Republicans are starting to feel like the check is never coming. Politico reported Monday that MAGA Inc., his pro-Trump super PAC, hasn’t spent directly on a race since March, when it dropped a princely $17,900 to back a Georgia House candidate.

Since then, the super PAC has given $560,000 to a Kentucky group that used it to fund a primary challenge against Representative Thomas Massie. That is money spent attacking a Republican.

Meanwhile, Trump has openly mocked concerns about affordability and downplayed his own party’s efforts to address it.

One GOP lobbyist and donor said that leaving all that cash unspent is like keeping your most powerful missiles on the ships during a fight. Matthew Bartlett, Republican strategist and former Trump appointee to the State Department in the first administration, said he doesn’t believe the money will ever see the light of day.

In other words, the missiles are staying on the ship, the dragon is staying in the cave, and Republicans are staying broke.

Trump Threw a Tablet Across the Oval Office in a Rage

Every family has that one relative who cannot connect to a video call and treats it as a personal betrayal. That relative now controls the nuclear codes.

Trump hurled a tablet across the Oval Office when technical difficulties kept him from joining a group call led by then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a Wall Street Journal exposé published Sunday. The device sailed over the Resolute Desk and onto the floor.

The incident allegedly happened during French President Emmanuel Macron’s February 2025 visit, roughly two weeks into Trump’s second term. The Journal cited an official who was present in the room.

The same report revealed that in January 2025, nearly 30 European leaders held a secret emergency meeting in Brussels to discuss a future free from depending on the U.S. One leader compared it to group therapy.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, dubbed the “Trump whisperer,” salvaged the alliance through what European press called “flattery diplomacy,” even mimicking Trump’s habit of texting in all-caps. Other leaders called him “an actor who never broke character.”

Finland’s president and Norway’s prime minister reportedly “workshopped” text messages to Trump, debating which words to capitalize. Norway’s Jonas Gahr Store preferred that Finland’s Alexander Stubb do the texting, worried that mentioning Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize, would irritate a president still sore about not winning it.

In a way, this might be Trump’s most relatable moment — reading the news right now makes you want to throw a tablet. But unlike the man behind the Resolute Desk, we aim ours at accountability. Become a paid subscriber so we never have to stop.

ICE Is Building a 528-Bed Facility for Kids

The Trump administration plans to open a 528-bed holding site for migrant families in Alexandria, Louisiana, roughly 175 miles from New Orleans, positioning itself to speed up deportations of families and unaccompanied children. It sits beside an airport that saw more than 4,400 immigration enforcement flights in 2025.

The stated logic is efficiency. Last year, Guatemalan children were awoken at night and taken to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on an airport tarmac for hours before a judge blocked their deportation. The new facility removes that logistical headache.

By law, unaccompanied children are supposed to go to state-licensed shelters overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. That agency isn’t involved here. Instead, the facility will be run by the nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor.

LaSalle also runs the “Louisiana Lockup” inside the state’s maximum-security prison at Angola. Two detainees have died since April at a LaSalle-run ICE facility in the state, and Winn Correctional Center was found in June to have violated standards on medical care, food service and use-of-force.

ICE has instructed contractors that families cannot be called prisoners, detainees, or inmates. No bars or cages during transport. Families may “wear their own clothes.” Officials describe it as a “humanitarian effort” for families who are “self-deporting.” ICE planning documents say those families “are in the legal custody of ICE and can only be released at the direction of ICE.”

So, they can leave whenever they want, but only if ICE lets them. What’s another word for that?

Weather Service Enters Hurricane Season Short 300 Forecasters

The good news is the National Weather Service is hiring. The bad news is it’s hiring because the Trump administration spent last year shoving about 600 experienced meteorologists out the door.

The agency lost roughly 15% of its staff to job cuts and buyouts, most of them veteran workers who accepted early retirement, plus about 100 probationary employees who were simply fired. As of the end of May, NOAA had nearly 300 fewer meteorologists and hydrologists than in January 2025.

Hurricane season started June 1. Forecast offices in at least six locations entered last year’s season with critical staff shortages, several stopped operating full-time, and nearly a dozen suspended or limited weather balloon launches.

Those balloons collect “upper air” data, which meteorologists call fundamental to forecasting models when weather changes rapidly. Several U.S. stations no longer launch them twice daily, which the agency attributes to “temporary resource and equipment constraints.”

The agency is now onboarding predominantly entry-level scientists, more than 300 as of late June. The hiring push follows the deadly Texas floods last July, which raised questions about whether the region could have been better prepared with fully staffed forecast offices.

Why bother warning people about hurricanes if you've already cut FEMA? Nobody's coming either way.

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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