Happy Wednesday! Due to the high unemployment rate and social stigma attached to being jobless, companies in China are letting people pay to pretend to work. And for a little extra, customers can even pretend to be the boss of the fake office or even stage a workers’ revolt against managers. If the TMD team ever needs to blow off some steam, we know where we’re going.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Israeli military officials said Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces soldiers fired warning shots at a group of Gazans who, according to the IDF, strayed from a designated route to access aid provided by Israel and the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The Red Cross and the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health claimed that 27 people were killed; an IDF spokesman said those claims are exaggerated. “We fired warning shots toward a group of people who posed a threat to our forces, far from where they were supposed to be. Warning shots were fired, not to hit anyone,” Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters. “According to the claims, people were hit, so we are investigating, but it will take time.” These were not the first such claims of Israeli soldiers firing on civilians trying to receive aid; Palestinian authorities have now accused the IDF of killing more than 60 people in the past three days—accusations that Israeli officials have denied. On Monday, the GHF confirmed that Boston Consulting Group, which helped establish the entity, had terminated its contract with the group.
- Ukrainian officials said the country’s military struck the Crimean Bridge, which connects Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, with underwater explosives on Tuesday. The Security Service of Ukraine claimed that no civilians were killed or injured in the attack, but that “the underwater support pillars were severely damaged.” The attack is the third on the bridge since the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out, and comes only two days after a massive surprise Ukrainian drone strike against Russia that, according to Ukrainian officials, destroyed a third of Russia’s bomber fleet.
- President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. will not agree to a nuclear deal with Iran that allows for enrichment, seemingly in response to reports that Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, offered an interim deal to Iran that would allow low-level uranium enrichment. Previously, the White House had not explicitly denied the reports. Iranian officials have maintained that they will not accept a deal that prevents the country from enriching uranium, and Reuters reported Monday that they are preparing to reject the Trump administration’s proposal.
- Opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung won a snap presidential election in South Korea on Tuesday, succeeding the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who infamously declared martial law in December in an attempted power-grab, sparking protests and eventually leading to his arrest. Lee is more left-leaning than Yoon, taking a softer approach to China and North Korea, while also promising to improve South Korea’s economy. Despite his victory, Lee is embroiled in several legal issues regarding alleged corruption, and he will still face a trial over allegations of election law violations. One of the first challenges of Lee’s presidency will be negotiating a trade deal between South Korea and the United States, something he has emphasized is a priority.
- The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after the populist Geert Wilders withdrew his far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) from the Netherlands’ four-party governing coalition. The coalition, which was in place for less than a year, dissolved over disputes about migration, with Wilders pushing for measures that would have curbed immigration into the country. Coalition partners accused Wilders of orchestrating the collapse for his own political ends; Wilders himself said Tuesday he intended to become prime minister and “ensure that the PVV becomes bigger than ever in the next elections.” The dissolution will trigger early elections, although it is unlikely they will take place before October.
- Trump sent a rescissions package to Congress on Tuesday, requesting lawmakers claw back $9.4 billion in spending and codify some of the spending cuts highlighted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The package asks lawmakers to cut back on spending already approved, mostly targeting funds going toward foreign aid—including cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and AIDS relief—and publicly funded media like NPR and PBS. The package would only need to be approved by a simple majority in both chambers, though Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought has openly discussed using impoundment to formalize the cuts without Congress.
- Elon Musk ramped up his attacks on the Republican reconciliation bill on Tuesday, just days after exiting Washington. Musk called the bill a “disgusting abomination” in a post on X, criticizing the effect it would have on the deficit. Some GOP senators expressed their support for Musk’s sentiment, while House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Musk was “terribly wrong.” President Trump has increased his pressure this week on possible Senate GOP opponents of the legislative package, emphasizing that he wants to sign the bill by the Fourth of July.
‘There’s a Card Game Going On This Summer’
Russia and Ukraine met for another round of talks in Istanbul on Monday, reportedly making no progress toward a peace deal in yet another setback for President Donald Trump’s efforts to resolve the war diplomatically by forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
But on the battlefield, both Ukraine and Russia have traded severe counterpunches over the past week. Russia, as it tries to outlast Western support for Ukraine, unleashed massive airstrikes on Ukrainian cities. And Ukraine, trying to prove to its allies that it is still capable of effectively countering Russian attacks, conducted one of the most audacious covert strikes of the war, disabling large portions of Russia’s bomber fleet. Congress is preparing to pass legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia as diplomatic efforts stall and the war rages on, but how the Trump administration will respond to Putin’s continued aggression remains to be seen.
For much of his second term, Trump has generally blamed the war between Russia and Ukraine on Zelensky and former President Joe Biden, rarely criticizing Putin and Russia’s role in the conflict. In February, after the White House opened talks with Russia without Ukrainian involvement, a contentious Oval Office meeting with Zelensky led to Trump briefly cancelling U.S. aid to Ukraine. A series of separate meetings with both countries produced little, with Putin rejecting a 30-day U.S. ceasefire proposal that Ukraine had agreed to.
But last week, following ongoing Russian airstrikes in Ukraine, Trump began to express frustration with the man actually responsible for the war, writing on Truth Social that Putin had gone “absolutely CRAZY!” He also appeared to give Russia a deadline of sorts. “I’ll let you know in about two weeks,” he said when asked by reporters if he thought Putin was serious about ending the war. “We’re gonna find out whether or not [Putin is] tapping us along or not.”
Events in Istanbul this week seemed to show that the “tapping along” continues, with talks lasting only around 90 minutes and producing almost no progress toward a ceasefire, let alone a peace treaty.
Ukraine publicized its conditions for peace last week, but Russia refused to ...
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Today’s Must-Read
Washington’s left-wing milieu, even within bureaucracies where the majority of their upper echelons probably vote Democratic (the State Department), doesn’t make for a Borg collective. Far from it. For those of us who have worked in the most opaque part of the “deep state”— Langley—and have had a fair amount of contact with FBI agents, this conspiracy seems wildly exaggerated, if not surreal, and deeply unfair to most officials who have conducted themselves professionally. “Deep state” believers hyperventilate on mundane facts: Government workers tend to vote Democratic; some bureaucracies prove resistant to presidents who advance policies senior bureaucrats don’t like. To which anyone who has had serious government experience should reply, “So what?”
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