Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
Trump threw a tantrum and stormed out of an interview after a reporter noted there is “no evidence” of rigged elections. Every single one of the 599 refugees the U.S. admitted last month was a white South African. Trump told reporters he wants his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to cut the office. And JD Vance credits the assassination of Charlie Kirk for inspiring him and his wife to have a fourth child. Ew.
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Now, let’s dive in.
Trump Storms Out of Interview When Pressed on Election Evidence
When asked for evidence, Trump produced exactly one thing: the door.
Trump, 79, furiously walked out of an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker over the weekend after she confronted him on his election conspiracies. When Trump slammed California’s elections as “rigged,” Welker asked the obvious question: “Do you have evidence?”
Trump’s answer was “All I have to do is look.” Welker replied, “That’s not evidence.”
That is when the interview ended. “You’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked,” Trump raged before calling it quits. Welker had traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the sit-down. She tried to salvage it. Trump told her she “ought to straighten out” her press.
She still pressed him on Iran and gas prices. On his campaign promise of no new wars, Trump said, “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”
The walkout capped a turbulent stretch for the president, who has continued pushing election conspiracy theories despite courts, election officials, and his own Justice Department repeatedly finding no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020, 2022, or 2024.
Apparently, the strongest military in the world still can’t find a single rigged ballot.
U.S. Accepted White Refugees Only for the Sixth Straight Month
The United States once accepted refugees from all over the world. Now it accepts them from one neighborhood.
Every single one of the 599 refugees the U.S. admitted last month was a white South African, according to data the State Department’s Bureau of Population released Friday. So was every other refugee admitted this year.
Since October 1, 2025, the U.S. has accepted 6,668 refugees. Of those, 6,665 were white South Africans. The other three were from Afghanistan, admitted last November. That is the entire list.
The Trump administration cut the annual refugee cap to 7,500. Under Biden, in keeping with tradition, the limit was 125,000. A September presidential memo specified the refugees “shall primarily be among Afrikaners from South Africa.”
The administration treats Afrikaners as victims of white “genocide,” a far-right conspiracy theory promoted by Elon Musk. In May, the U.S. increased its planned Afrikaner admissions by 10,000, to 17,500. The estimated cost of resettling those additional 10,000 was put at $100 million.
South Africa’s foreign ministry called the program “entirely politically motivated.” The White House has cut off aid to South Africa over the same specious discrimination claim.
Most outlets would have led with the walkout and moved on. We’re the ones asking why a government that just resettled 6,665 white South Africans based on a debunked conspiracy theory doesn’t think it owes anyone an explanation. Subscribe to support journalism that stays on the question.
Trump’s Acting Director of National Intelligence Is Cutting the Office
Trump’s new acting director of national intelligence ran a mortgage agency. The office he now oversees runs 18 spy agencies. Close enough.
Trump said Friday he wants his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to cut the office. Pulte ran the Federal Housing Finance Agency and has no apparent national security expertise. His office oversees 18 intelligence agencies.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal he has asked Pulte to “start the process” of firing employees. The targets are intelligence officials who served under Biden and Obama.
The president said he would not formally nominate Pulte for the permanent post. The idea, he explained, is for Pulte to “shake it up before people come” so the eventual director doesn’t have to do the firing himself.
The appointment has met bipartisan resistance in the Senate. It has now snarled the renewal of a critical national security surveillance program, with Democrats saying they do not trust Pulte to help administer it.
The office had already been gutted. Under Tulsi Gabbard, the budget was cut by more than $700 million a year and the workforce slashed by roughly 40%. For the full-time position, Trump said he was considering five candidates, all “very respected people.”
He declined to name any of them.
Vance Says Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Led Him to Have a Fourth Child
Most people light a candle. Vice President JD Vance announced a pregnancy.
In an excerpt published by The Wall Street Journal, Vance credits the assassination of Charlie Kirk as the reason he and Second Lady Usha Vance decided to have a fourth child. He calls Kirk his “best friend” in politics.
Vance writes that for years he had asked Usha to have another baby and for years she had said she was done. After they buried Kirk, he writes, “something changed for Usha,” and she became pregnant with a boy.
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during a Turning Point USA event in September at Utah Valley University. The Vances appeared to be the first to see the newly widowed Erika Kirk publicly after the shooting.
Vance, a Catholic, frames it plainly: “One life was stolen from us, but another was given.” He adds, “I don’t know why God does things like this. But I am grateful to Him.”
This is the strangest sentence anyone has ever written about a murder.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Is Being Sued Over the UFC Fight Planned for the White House South Lawn. A federal lawsuit filed Saturday by the Public Integrity Project seeks to block a UFC fight card scheduled for June 14 on the White House South Lawn, for Trump’s 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th anniversary. The suit alleges violations of National Park Service rules that prohibit sporting events on federal parklands, says Congress never consented to a towering arch planned for the space, and notes no environmental review was conducted before construction began. Crews are already erecting an octagon-shaped cage, with Trump promising a 5,000-seat arena and UFC planning to distribute up to 85,000 free tickets.
Vermont becomes first US state to ban paraquat herbicide over Parkinson’s fears. Vermont just became the first US state to ban paraquat, a weedkiller so toxic that 74 other countries banned it years ago, including the countries that manufacture it and sell it to us. The herbicide, which has been linked to Parkinson’s disease through decades of research, is currently sprayed on roughly 35% of large commercial farms in America, and there are over 8,000 lawsuits pending from sick farmers. The EPA has been reviewing it since 2022 and still hasn’t reached a conclusion. Vermont got tired of waiting.
A Diabetes Drug Given to 600,000 Veterans Quietly Reduced Their Addiction. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine analyzed more than 600,000 U.S. veterans with type 2 diabetes and found that GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound reduced the risk of developing substance use disorders across alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine, and opioids. Published March 4, 2026, in The BMJ, the study found patients on GLP-1 drugs were 14 percent less likely to develop any new substance use disorder, with opioid risk down 25 percent; among those who already had a disorder, overdoses dropped 40 percent and drug-related deaths fell by half.
The First-Ever Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood YouTube Channel Has Launched. Beginning today, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is available on YouTube for the first time, through an official channel offering full episodes, livestreams, clips, and compilations in one place. Fred Rogers Productions partnered with Little Dot Studios to launch it on June 4, debuting with five full-length episodes, including the first one that premiered nationally in 1968, and adding one new episode each week, keeping 10 available at all times. The series aired from 1968 to 2001, producing 895 episodes, 200 songs, and 14 characters. In a media landscape engineered to make you anxious, someone just made it easier to slow down.
