Letters from an American - June 1, 2025

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

June 1, 2025. Even as government agents from the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, ramp up their arrests and confrontations, the lug nuts on the wheels of the White House bus continue to loosen. On Wednesday, officers from the Federal Protective Service, which is part of DHS, handcuffed an aide in the Manhattan office of Representative Jerry Nadler, a Democrat of New York. Someone sitting in the office captured the confrontation on video. Federal agents are trying to meet the quotas the administration has set for arrests by

detaining individuals outside immigration courtrooms after they show up for their scheduled hearings. According to Christopher Magg of the New York Times, peaceful protesters gathered on Wednesday outside the Manhattan federal building that holds an immigration court, and immigration advocates gathered outside the courtroom. As officers detained immigrants outside the courtroom, advocates reminded the immigrants they had a right to remain silent. Officers threatened to arrest the advocates for loitering, and a member of Nadler's staff

invited some of the advocates to Nadler's office, a floor above the court, to defuse the situation. The video shows a federal agent demanding access to a private area of Nadler's office, saying, You're harboring rioters in the office. When an aide tried to stop them, agents handcuffed the aide. When another aide asked for a search warrant, an agent said they didn't need one and pushed past her. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that its officers entered Nadler's

office because they were concerned about the safety of his staff members and that the agents detained the aides so they could complete their safety check. Nadler, who is the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, identified the invasion of his office as an attempt to intimidate a member of Congress. The Trump administration is really using totalitarian or even authoritarian practices, he said. We have to fight them. We don't want to be a fascist country.

Late Friday afternoon, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, raided a popular San Diego restaurant, Buona Forch's manager, 20 to 25 ICE officers surrounded the building and then came inside, pushed him against a wall and handcuffed him and the staff, many of whom are students. The agents looked at a computer and at employees and apparently not finding what they were searching for, arrested two employees because they didn't have physical ID. When an angry crowd tried to stop them from taking the two workers, the officers threw two flashbang grenades to push the crowd back. After the Department of Homeland Security published a list of sheriffs it claimed were

non-compliant in working with DHS, the National Sheriffs Association issued a statement yesterday saying the publication of the list has not only violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement, but it also has the potential to strain the relationship between sheriffs and the White House administration and could create a vacuum of trust that may take years to overcome. The organization, many of whose members are Trump loyalists, tried to distance DHS from the President, saying that, DHS has done a terrible disservice to President Trump and the sheriffs of this country, and demanded DHS apologize to the sheriffs

and the American people. While apparently using its immigration policies to tighten its grip on the country, the administration itself appears to be in disarray. The acknowledgement in the New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk frequently used drugs during the 2024 campaign was only one weak spot in the administration. Musk had fought with other administration officials, leading to rumors about the black eye he was

sporting in Friday's press conference. Recently he had spoken out against the Republicans omnibus bill and after reports that his Department of Government efficiency had actually cost the government money, President Donald J. Trump reportedly asked his aides, was it all bullsh-t? After the press conference in which Trump thanked him for his service, the White House withdrew the nomination of Musk's ally Jared Isaacman to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

On Thursday, Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto of NOTAS, the digital publication that covers U.S. politics, noted that the report of the Make America Healthy Again commission, released a week earlier, is full of errors, including misrepresentation of experiments and non-existent studies. Margaret Manto of Notice wrote that the report appeared to confirm exactly what Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expected it would. That the primary drivers of chronic disease in children are ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, technology and medications, including vaccines. It calls for a coordinated national lifestyle medicine

initiative to improve health with movement, diet, light exposure, and sleep timing. It also calls for the government to apply artificial intelligence to federal health and nutrition data sets to detect harmful exposures and childhood chronic disease trends. After news broke of the errors in the report, White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt called the problems formatting issues.

But AI experts told Lauren Weber and Caitlin Gilbert of the Washington Post that it appears that the report's authors relied heavily on AI. George C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Weber and Gilbert, this is not an evidence-based report and for all practical purposes it should be junked at this point. It cannot be used for any policy making. It cannot even be used for any serious discussion because you can't believe what's in it. Trump also appears to be having trouble with the demands of governance. Yesterday, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, Gordon Lubold, Dan DeLuce, and Elise Perlmutter-Gumbiner of NBC News reported that the Director of National Intelligence, or DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, is trying to figure

out how to change Trump's intelligence briefings to hold his attention. She's apparently considering creating a video of the president's daily brief, or PDB, that's made to look like a broadcast on the Fox News channel. The problem with Trump is that he doesn't read, one person with direct knowledge of the discussions told the reporters. He's on broadcast all the time. Since he took office on January 20th, 2025, Trump has taken just 14 PDBs, or fewer than one a week on average.

In the same period, President Barack Obama took 63, and President Joe Biden took 90. In a statement, DNI Press Secretary Olivia Coleman called the NBC story, laughable, absurd, and flat-out false. But there is no doubt people from within the administration are talking to reporters, and the administration is fixated on leaks. Today, Adam Goldman of the New York Times reported that Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI,

Director Kash Patel, is forcing employees to take polygraph tests to find leakers. Goldman's story was informed by insiders, though, who told him that Patel has fired so many people that he and his deputy, former political commentator Dan Bongino, have, as Goldman wrote, obliterated decades of experience in national security and criminal matters at the FBI. Goldman also reported that the top female agents at the FBI were told to take different jobs in the agency or retire.

There is also no doubt that Trump continues to demonstrate that he is more committed to fantasy than reality. Last night, he reposted a long-standing conspiracy theory that former President Joe Biden was executed in 2020, and that Biden clones, doubles, and robotic-engineered, soulless, mindless entities are what you see. Democrats don't know the difference. The post was followed by MAGA and MAHA hashtags. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, dead in Massachusetts.

Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thanks for watching!