Escalation Dominance
Week of May 29-June 4, 2026
Published in conjunction with The Nation magazine, TRACKING THE CRISIS is a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. This round-up is produced by humans, not by Artificial Intelligence. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.
TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions
Iran asserts escalation dominance in response to U.S. attacks on Qeshm Island, strikes Kuwaiti airport and U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. The ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which has been tested over the past week as the two sides traded minor strikes in the Strait of Hormuz, has become ever more tenuous in the last few days after Iran followed through on threats to escalate retaliatory action “by 1.5 times” in response to U.S. strikes. Oil prices rose sharply on Monday, June 1 after the United States struck Iranian military sites on Qeshm Island and an Iran-bound oil tanker over the weekend and Tehran announced that it had suspended talks with the United States over Israel’s military expansion in Lebanon, contradicting Trump’s social media claims that talks to end the war were continuing at a “rapid pace.” Overnight on Tuesday, June 2, hours after Trump reiterated his insistence that “Iran really needs a deal” and told his critics to “sit back and wait, it will all work out in the end,” Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles at multiple U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, including the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and the Ali al-Salem and Arifjan bases in Kuwait. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) denied that any of the intended targets were hit, although at least one missile struck the main terminal of the Kuwaiti International Airport, killing an Indian national and injuring 63 others. Iran and some U.S. military analysts claimed that the airport had been struck by a Patriot missile interceptor that had gone awry, contradicting claims by CENTCOM and the Kuwaiti government, which expelled two Iranian diplomats over the incident on Tuesday. The IRGC also struck the U.S.-affiliated, Panamanian-flagged vessel MSC Sariska on Tuesday, which sustained a ‘major explosion’ near Iraqi waters.
On Wednesday, the two sides exchanged more strikes, with CENTCOM claiming fresh strikes on Iran’s mountain fortress on Qeshm Island, taking out a communications tower; in retaliation, the IRGC claims it targeted a ‘command-and-control center’ aboard a U.S. destroyer that had been approaching the Strait of Hormuz, and claimed renewed attacks against the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and an unspecified ‘regional American airbase’ in the Gulf. Kuwait denied that its territory or airspace was used to attack ‘any country’ and decried the Iranian attacks on its territory; while Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi posted on X that “our Armed Forces are conducting self-defense strikes on sites the U.S. is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire” along with a video of Marco Rubio praising Kuwait for having been a “fantastic” ally to the United States. When asked Wednesday by reporters if he thought the ceasefire could still hold amidst the escalating exchange of strikes, Trump said, “We've been hitting them pretty hard, a little bit, so there is a reason for certain things… some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason, so they were reciprocating,” after which he opined: “It's a different part of the world, you know. I'd say in that part a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
Iranian officials on Wednesday called for increased ‘asymmetric’ escalation in response to U.S. strikes, as Iran expert analysts explained Tehran’s concerns that the United States would attempt, like an Israeli ceasefire, to ‘normalize’ regular low-intensity strikes on the country while publicly claiming that the ceasefire holds and talks continue. Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf, during a commemoration of the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s passing, declared that the “era of threatening Iran without bearing its consequences has clearly passed,” saying that “Imam Khomeini taught the Iranian nation not to retreat in the face of bullying and domination… any aggression will be met with a decisive, regretful, and proportionate response.” Iranian media outlet Press TV opined that Iran’s new tactical position reflected a “fundamental reset of the operational equation,” saying that “the old ‘tit for tat’... paradigm has expired.” The editorial explained that Iran’s shift to a “new doctrine of qualitative asymmetry, under which the volume, type, and target of its response will no longer be chained to the enemy's original action,” represents the necessary reassertion of a deterrence strategy based on the “operationalization of a core strategic principle: the removal of the option of military aggression from the enemy’s table. By responding with overwhelming and unpredictable force, Iran is rendering the option of war profoundly unappealing… when the enemy understands that a minor provocation could result in the simultaneous targeting of multiple allied sites, the cost-benefit analysis of aggression collapses into ruin.” University of Tehran professor Hassan Ahmadian explained further that “international law did not protect Iran against aggression twice, and so they are resorting to power to ensure that they are not attacked.” A statement from the IRGC on Wednesday asserted that the “Iranian nation and armed forces have imposed new realities on the battlefield that Washington and its allies must now accept,” including in the “realm of smart management and control of the Strait of Hormuz.” A new defense report from CENTCOM released Tuesday claimed that the U.S. blockade has turned back over 100 vessels since the start of the blockade in April; although the Persian Gulf Strait Authority – the new regulatory agency through which Iran plans to manage traffic through the Strait of Hormuz jointly with Oman – also released a statement on Tuesday saying that 300+ ships have contacted the agency and negotiated for safe passage through the Strait since late April.
Iran also stressed the centrality of halting Israeli attacks in Lebanon to the resumption of negotiations. Foreign Minister Araghchi posted on X that “A ceasefire between Iran and the United States constitutes, without any ambiguity, a comprehensive ceasefire across all fronts, including Lebanon,” and that “its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.” After Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadallah indicated that the group would support a “full ceasefire on all Lebanese territory” as a precursor to Israeli withdrawal, Trump declared on Truth Social that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed that “all shooting will stop,” and said he had urged both sides to stop fighting “FOR ETERNITY.” Later that day, U.S. officials told Axios about a ‘heated call’ with Netanyahu over Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon that had once again derailed peace talks with Iran; on the call, Trump reportedly told Netanyahu: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
Israel indicated that it had backed off of a planned attack on a Hezbollah stronghold in suburban Beirut on Monday after pressure from Trump, amid Iranian threats to close the Bab el-Mandem Strait on the Red Sea in addition to the Strait of Hormuz if Israel continued aggression in Lebanon. Netanyahu reportedly came under fire from political opponents and allies within Israel for giving in to Trump, accusing the prime minister of turning Israel into a “vassal state” of the United States. Israel then launched at least 30 strikes across southern Lebanon, with heavy fire in the region of Nabatieh, killing at least eight people, including two children, between Monday and Tuesday as Hezbollah claimed ongoing engagement with Israeli forces at Beaufort Castle, which had been captured on Sunday and occupied by the IDF for the first time since 2000. At an emergency UN Security Council meeting convened by France on Monday, nearly all UNSC members – with the exception of the United States – unequivocally condemned Israel’s continued incursion into south Lebanon and called for the Israeli military to withdraw from Lebanese territory.
Eager to resume talks with Iran, and continuing to express optimism that a deal could be reached by the weekend, Trump attempted on Wednesday, apparently unsuccessfully, to separate Lebanon from the broader U.S.-Iran negotiation to end the war. Early on Thursday, June 4, the Trump Administration announced that a new ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon had been negotiated. According to the Lebanese presidency, the negotiations presented a “last opportunity” to enter into a comprehensive ceasefire. The deal, of which Trump would personally act as guarantor, is “contingent on a complete cessation of fire from the Hezbollah militia” and withdrawal of all Hezbollah fighters south of the Litani River; after which the Israelis would withdraw from a number of ‘pilot’ security zones in southern Lebanon including Beaufort Castle, which would be taken over by the Lebanese military. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz lauded the ceasefire as a “great achievement on the ground and on the diplomatic level,” but at the same time said that the Israeli military will continue its ground operations in southern Lebanon and would not withdraw from any positions, including Beaufort Castle, “without the return of the population.” Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected the deal as a non-starter, saying that “we did not make any commitment to any party to stop resisting as long as there is occupation,” and that “as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed and people were being killed, northern Israel will not be safe.”
House votes to curb Trump’s Iran war powers as more Republicans cross the aisle amid backlash to Trump’s handling of the war. In a second bipartisan rebuke to Trump’s war on Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate for the first time in passing a War Powers Resolution that, if the Senate concurs, will order Trump to “remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In Wednesday’s vote – which had been abruptly cancelled two weeks ago when Speaker Johnson sent the House into an early Memorial Day recess to avoid a back-to-back humiliation of the Trump Administration – four Republicans broke with the party and the president to push the Democrat-backed measure over the line, with a final vote of 215-208 as cheers and applause broke out in the House chamber. Prominent among the Republican detractors was Rep. Thomas Massie, the only Republican co-sponsor of the War Powers resolution, an opponent of the war from the start who recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed candidate; he posted to social media just after the vote saying: "The People’s House is sending a message: End this war.” Trump on Wednesday dismissed the War Powers vote as ‘meaningless,’ slamming the Republicans who crossed the line as “grandstanders.” But Trump’s erratic behaviour, shifting stances, bizarre claims and perceived general incompetence in handling the war effort, including his failure to foresee Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz despite numerous intelligence warnings or admit to the numerous military and strategic blows the United States has suffered at the hands of Iran, have led even normally hawkish lawmakers and military and intelligence leaders to decry the war as an intractable quagmire that has painted the Trump Administration and the entire U.S. hegemonic project into a corner in less than three months of conflict. The Hindustan Times reports that the CIA has stopped sharing intelligence on Tehran with the Trump Administration, perhaps signaling internal chaos, an acceptance of strategic defeat and/or a preference to simply end the war even without a deal or political declaration of victory.
The New York Times notes that the four dissenting Republicans come from different factions within the GOP: two, including Massie and Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, are staunch conservatives with libertarian leanings that tend to oppose foreign intervention, while the other two (Reps. Tom Barrett and Brian Fitzpatrick) are more “mainstream Republicans from competitive districts where backing for the war could be a political liability.” Fitzpatrick had voted with the rest of the GOP to reject previous War Powers resolutions, but after the 60-day window for executive action expired on May 1, he publicly announced his intention to flip his vote out of resolve to assert proper Congressional power over the ongoing conflict; after Wednesday’s vote, he noted: “We must keep the world safe, and we must also follow the law.” Similarly, Barrett said in a statement that “it is time for Congress to decide the scope of the mission and the appropriate limits on the use of force in Iran.” Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, who had previously voted with Republicans to oppose previous War Powers resolutions, also flipped his vote Wednesday for a similar reason; “people should understand,” said Golden after the vote, “that this is, for me, a matter of separation of powers and the law… If the president wants the authority to continue the operations, then I think he's got to come to Congress and make the case.”
Despite the Senate passing a similar measure via a procedural vote two weeks ago, the House measure – which, as a ‘concurrent resolution’, needs only to pass the House and Senate and is not subject to a presidential veto – may still face some legal and procedural headwinds before it is able to bring an effective end to the war. First, as a resolution, it is unclear whether the measure will have binding power to force action to end the war. Then, there is the possibility that Senate Republican leaders may be able to block the measure from ever coming to a vote; the Washington Post notes that it is unclear if the resolution is ‘privileged,’ meaning it is guaranteed a vote in the Senate. If the Senate parliamentarian “rules that it is not,” according to the Post, Majority Leader Thune can simply decline to bring it to a vote. If it does pass the Senate, then the stage is set for a potential legal showdown on the Act itself and the extent of Congressional powers. According to The Lever, “under the text of the 1973 War Powers Act, only a concurrent resolution is required to end a war,” although some, including White House officials, assert that the law was designed with a legislative veto that could be considered unconstitutional under an obscure 1983 precedent. The Lever notes, however, that this particular authority has never been tested at the Supreme Court; if passed by the GOP-controlled Senate – which is a distinct possibility, given how the procedural vote went down two weeks ago – lawmakers “could have standing to go to court to request the judiciary enforce the measure under section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution.” Tufts law professor Michael Glennon, who worked on the War Powers Act as a congressional aide in the 1970s, noted that “the constitutional structure the Framers designed placed the power to make war in the institution most directly accountable to the people, and most deliberate in its decisions… the Court has the authority and the obligation to restore that design. It is time to do so.”
On the heels of the successful War Powers Resolution on Iran, Rep. Rashida Tlaib also introduced a War Powers Resolution on Wednesday over U.S. support for Israel’s military campaign and occupation of southern Lebanon, which left Democrats divided between their hawkish and progressive factions. Centrists in the Democratic leadership were reportedly “not happy” with Tlaib’s resolution, which called on Trump to “end all U.S. participation in Israeli military operations in Lebanon, including removing U.S. forces and ending any intelligence sharing with Israel.” In a statement to Axios, Tlaib asserted: "Poll after poll shows that the American people do not support our government sending a blank check and unlimited military assistance to the Israeli government as it massacres thousands of innocent civilians and demolishes entire cities and communities." The measure’s co-sponsor, Rep. Delia Ramirez, added: “Every day that we do not act to stop the assault on Lebanon, we enable another genocide. The War Powers Resolution is targeted to end Netanyahu and Trump’s war crimes. Members of Congress must stop making excuses and act.” The measure, if posed to a vote as is, will likely garner more ‘no’ votes from Democrats; some, if not already staunch pro-Israel supporters, have anonymously indicated they may reject it for procedural reasons. Still, Tlaib, who “framed the resolution as cutting off U.S. support for Israel’s operations” only and does not affect “U.S. assistance or training for Lebanese armed forces,” is pushing forward with the resolution and has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is encouraging their members – nearly half of all Democratic lawmakers – to vote yes.
Firing of 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley reveals extent of CBS News’ allegiance to Trump agenda as Bari Weiss conducts ‘major shakeup’ of the flagship news program. On Tuesday, June 2, 37-year CBS News veteran correspondent Scott Pelley was fired from the network’s flagship program 60 Minutes after clashing with Paramount-appointed CBS News head Bari Weiss and newly hired executive producer Nick Bilton. Pelley’s firing was but the latest in a string of major shakeups at the network’s flagship newsmagazine program at a time when Trump’s attacks on media critics and his shepherding of oligarchic media mega-mergers has cast doubt on the future of press freedom and the independent role of journalism as the ‘fourth estate’. Since Weiss assumed the role of Editor-In-Chief at CBS News, numerous controversies have erupted at the network as many staffers as well as media critics see her reforms as bending the news network’s agenda to be more favorably in line with the Trump Administration’s objectives, including an incident in December where Weiss drew widespread criticism for pulling a 60 Minutes segment on human rights abuses at the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, where several hundred Venezuelan migrants were sent as part of Trump’s mass deportation program. The reporter at the center of the CECOT segment, Sharyn Alfonsi, issued a powerful statement after being honored with the Ridenhour prize for courage last month at Washington’s National Press Club, expressing deep concerns over “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at the network as well as uncertainty over the future of her job in her first public comments since the CECOT censorship incident. Anderson Cooper’s exit from 60 Minutes in mid-May, which he publicly stated was in order to spend more time from his family but was understood by many in the industry to involve deeper disagreements with Weiss, included a not-so-subtle warning regarding his own concerns with Weiss’ direction, as he explained that “independence has always been critical” to the show’s success; in his final monologue, he hoped that “‘60 Minutes’ remains ‘60 Minutes,’” noting that “there’s very few things that have been around for as long as ‘60 Minutes’ has and maintained the quality that it has.”
Cooper’s public dig at Weiss – which reportedly infuriated her behind the scenes, and led to rumors of her moving to a less influential role at the network – was perhaps a harbinger of the ‘massive changes’ to come at 60 Minutes, which became apparent this week as Weiss announced a “new approach” to the flagship show that would help it “thrive in the 21st century.” On May 28, she ousted executive producer Tanya Simon, who had been in the role for a year after 25 years as a producer at the storied program, replacing her with tech journalist Nick Bilton, who had no prior experience in television news. On the same day, Weiss declined to renew Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract, ousting her as well as correspondent Cecilia Vega and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. Alfonsi’s exit memo, shared with other media outlets, contained a blistering criticism of Weiss and other network executives’ conduct, especially after the controversy with her CECOT story: “This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom. Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes. Today, CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it. The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not.” On May 29, Santiago Campos, a student who was recently awarded a CBS News scholarship, called out the network directly in his acceptance speech, saying: “I want to also acknowledge how the recent direction of the outlet stains the legacy of Mike Wallace, the namesake of this scholarship… As corporate elites take hold over the very pipes through which our information flows, journalism that serves the people becomes increasingly harder to come by, yet ever more crucial. And what the people want is the truth. So if at any time you hesitate to utter the word ‘genocide’, or remain silent in the face of blatant lies, remember to ask yourself: ‘Who is this for?’ I hope you choose us.”
On Monday, June 1st, Scott Pelley was called into a meeting with Bilton, in which Pelley attacked the network’s decision to fire the show’s executive producer, executive editor, and two fellow correspondents as part of a broader overhaul of the show. He reportedly accused Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes” in a tense exchange with Bilton, saying that she was “brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.” Bilton ended the meeting after 15 minutes, after which executives made the decision to fire the veteran journalist. Pelley did not go quietly, and issued a scathing criticism of Weiss and network executives in a statement released after his firing, in which he described the “heartbreaking” submission to the Trump agenda by CBS and Paramount, and decried how “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management” has “wreaked havoc” on the show and his personal sense of journalistic integrity: “New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done.” He praised those who are “still in the fight” to save the network, but said “the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.” After Pelley’s ouster, questions about the fate of longtime 60 Minutes correspondents Lesley Stahl and Bill Whittaker have been circulating, as well as several unanswered speculations about the future of 60 Minutes and how Weiss and CBS/Paramount/Skydance’s new owner, David Ellison, can recover from the controversy.
Tracking the Money: Insider traders, war profiteers, Trump family ‘win’ big with well-timed bets on oil futures, prediction markets. Since the start of the Iran war, media observers and financial analysts have been tracking the curious phenomenon of large trades or spikes in trading volume taking place, mostly in oil futures or prediction markets, just before Trump makes a major war announcement. The outsized windfall profits resulting from these trades has raised suspicions of insider trading by actors close to the Trump Administration who may have had advance knowledge of Trump’s announcements or actions. Last month, the BBC’s investigative team and several other outlets pointed out a pattern of such trades that had, to that date, netted a total of $1 billion in windfall profits made since the beginning of the war. Under scrutiny in particular was a group of ‘anonymous’ Polymarket accounts that placed bets on a strike on Iran just hours or minutes before Trump announced the commencement of active hostilities against Iran. A large wave of oil trades, totaling nearly $800 million, took place in March in just 15 minutes right before Trump’s announcement that he would be halting strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, causing a precipitous drop in oil prices. AP documented at least 50+ new Polymarket accounts created just hours before the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was announced on April 8, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in individual returns; Reuters also reported on oil market investors who placed a total of around $950 million in futures trades less than one hour before the ceasefire was announced. Around the same time that the BBC made its revelations in late April, a U.S. servicemember was arrested on suspicion of having used classified information in January to place several wagers on the prediction market platform Polymarket related to the ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Two Israelis were charged with bribery and insider trading in February after Polymarket bets on strikes involving Iran and Israel netting over $150,000 were traced to them. Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced it had opened a probe into a series of mysterious oil trades which netted over $2.6 billion in profits for nine anonymous Polymarket accounts with a statistically improbable 98% ‘win’ rate on Iran war bets in March and April.
In the last two weeks, new reports from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, the New York Times and the Office of Government Ethics have revealed the pattern of profiteering from Trump’s seemingly ‘unpredictable’ public moves to be much more widespread, with a ‘tsunami’ of trading in oil futures and prediction market ‘bets’ taking place around major developments, some going all the way back to the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, and many of which have ‘suspicious’ characteristics of insider trading. The Office of Government Ethics report, released May 14, documented over 3,700 individual trades from Trump’s personal brokerage account in the first three months of 2026. According to Fortune, the report, outlining somewhere between $220 million and $750 million in trades in the first quarter of 2026 – the “first public look in modern presidential history at an active public-markets portfolio in a sitting president’s name” – shows several large trading patterns that appear timed to hedge on major war developments and/or policy announcements made by Trump. The ethics report also revealed several trades made by Trump’s portfolio in Nvidia, Apple, and other large tech companies, several of which are directly influenced by Trump Administration policies. Eric Trump, whose own investments in Polymarket and Kalshi have drawn scrutiny, dismissed conflict of interest concerns over the Trump portfolio, insisting that the account is managed by a third party and the Trump family has ‘no control’ over investment decisions. In recent weeks, outlets such as the Guardian have observed that chasing the trend of insider trades has become its own phenomenon on Polymarket, with investors on Discord channels and other discussion threads dedicated to detecting and following these trades with their own bets contributing to the ‘tsunami’ of war profiteering.
The revelations also come at a time when the federal government is fighting state and Congressional attempts to regulate or ban prediction markets; a bipartisan proposal from the House Armed Services Committee in the draft Defense bill going before Congress this summer aims to ban U.S. servicemembers from placing bets on prediction markets related to global events. Trump himself has recently ‘secured’ immunity from investigation into his own profiteering through the settlement of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for publicly disclosing his tax information during the 2024 election season. The controversial settlement also included the creation of a $1.8 billion compensation fund for January 6th rioters whom Trump insists were victims of ‘political weaponization’, which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced this week has been scrapped amid bipartisan backlash and legal challenges. The Trump family has been heavily involved in the prediction market business since just before the start of Trump’s second term, with Donald Trump Jr. named as a strategic advisor to Kalshi in January 2025 and to Polymarket in August 2025. Last week, Trump used his Truth Social platform to boost prediction markets, arguing that the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) must have exclusive authority over regulating (or not regulating) prediction markets, calling out several state governors who have attempted to curb prediction market betting at the state level as “scum.” The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket have held seats on the CFTC’s “CEO Innovation Council” since December of last year. In contrast, a new Moody’s report released this week estimated that the Iran war has cost U.S. households nearly $100 billion over the last three months (about $750 per household) in the form of heightened gas, food, and energy prices.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Resistance at ICE detention centers grows as more detainee uprisings, continuing protests at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall and beyond push Trump’s immigration agenda back into the spotlight. Last week’s contentious protest at Newark’s Delaney Hall ICE detention center has sparked a wave of revolts throughout ICE’s nationwide network of immigrant detention facilities, putting the long-brewing issue of human rights abuses in ICE custody back into the public consciousness amid growing media and local government scrutiny. Escalating protests at Delaney Hall this week, in support of the ongoing hunger and labor strike launched by about 300 detainees at the facility, sparked chaos this week as 61 protestors were arrested amid clashes with police and federal agents on Sunday, prompting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka to impose a curfew and Governor Mikie Sherrill to enforce a ‘protest zone’ around the contentious area, blaming ‘outside agitators’ for the chaos that led to arrests. The New Jersey facility has also been slammed with lawsuits, including a lawsuit filed by the state to force private operator GEO Group to grant access for government inspections. On Tuesday morning, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a press conference calling for the facility’s closure and threatening further legal action against GEO Group. A local advocacy group, Cosecha New Jersey, reported that “an increased number of people have been released from detention since the strike began, including all pregnant people incarcerated there, ‘thanks to the urgency and pressure from families and the public.’” About a thousand people, however, remain locked inside.
Hunger strikes initiated by detainees have spread beyond Delaney Hall to at least four states as the ongoing strike at the Adelanto facility located in California expanded to more parts of the facility and new actions commencing at ICE facilities in Michigan and at Moshannon Processing Center in Pennsylvania, the largest ICE detention centers in the Midwest and Northeast, respectively. Stateline notes that nearly all of the ICE facilities where protests and strikes are taking place are operated by GEO Group, which has drawn more scrutiny following the announcement that David Venturella, a former GEO Group executive, has been tapped to lead ICE. Civil rights organizations have called for an independent audit at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, where a detainee hunger strike began in late April; conditions described there have drawn international condemnation from human rights groups. At the Moshannon facility in Pennsylvania, a movement is growing to close the largest ICE facility on the East Coast after unannounced inspection visits from Reps. Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee, the first Congressional visit to the facility, revealed reports of pregnant women not receiving adequate medical care, reports of sexual abuse and other retaliatory action against women in particular, family separation, and contaminated food and water. Advocates at the facility have been calling attention to the case of Izzy Aly, an Egyptian national at the facility who was suffering from kidney failure and has been unable to access adequate and potentially life-saving medical care. This week, reports surfaced that detainee Edin Daniel Chinchilla-Roque, who organized a hunger strike at Moshannon last month, was “placed in solitary confinement” and later transferred as a punishment for ‘inciting’ the protest at the facility, although he maintains that he did not initiate the protest but merely participated and encouraged others to do so.
Communities such as San Jose in California’s Bay Area continue to rally against planned ICE detention center construction at warehouses across the country purchased by the agency to hold detained migrants. In Spokane, Washington, three anti-ICE protestors were convicted of ‘conspiracy to impede officers’ in a contentious trial that prompted the resignation of Richard Barker, then the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, over the decision of a federal grand jury to issue indictments of the protestors, saying he did not believe the charges were warranted because no officers or protesters had been injured. The verdict prompted outrage from Spokane civic leaders, including Mayor Lisa Brown, who called it “politically motivated” and designed to discourage political dissent.” DHS Chief Markwayne Mullin dodged questions at a Senate hearing this week and punted on the question of whether DHS and ICE would abide by court rulings related to its conduct in immigration enforcement and detention, as he accused some federal judges of “politicizing” their decisions from the bench.
Grassroots and legislative pushback against AI grows as fight against data centers expands into opposition to AI accelerationism in general, especially with regard to its influence on young people. A new Heatmap poll released this week showed that a decisive majority of Americans would ‘strongly oppose’ a data center being built in their neighborhood, with just 21% in favor; a stunning 49-point swing from the same question that was asked by pollsters just nine months ago. Heatmap Pro data for the first quarter of 2026 shows that at least 20 data center projects were cancelled due to public backlash, double the number of projects that were cancelled in the previous three months. The new polling also shows that skepticism of data centers is widespread across all age groups, political parties, and regions of the country. 78% of Americans who said they voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election told Heatmap that they would oppose a local data center project; but so did 63% of Americans who reported voting for Donald Trump. In all the areas of the country polled by the firm, none of them saw less than 69% data center opposition; and among young people, a whopping eighty percent of people aged 18 to 34 said they would oppose a data center being built near where they live. A roundup of AI-related polls compiled by Algorithmic Bridge shows a rapid reversal in AI sentiment among Americans over just the last four months, with Gallup reporting that 7 out of 10 American voters would oppose a data center in their neighborhood; and in Virginia, where the largest concentration of AI data centers is located, sentiment has decisively turned against the existing facilities in their area. A new poll conducted by Public First reveals that Americans lead the globe in terms of opposition to AI development, and the Institute for Family Studies released a poll this week showing that Americans favor the White House establishing safety procedures for AI by a margin of 20 to 1.
While AI firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI are pouring millions of dollars into this year’s election season through SuperPAC vehicles such as Leading the Future and Public First Action, political consultants and observers are warning that the AI backlash is the new dark horse stalking the midterm elections, as a supermajority of both Republican and Democratic voters strongly support more AI regulation, not less. AI-fueled backlash may contribute to political surprises, especially in red states, in the coming election; and Amos Hochstein, former U.S. energy advisor under the Biden Administration, said at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit on Wednesday that Americans opposing AI will “become the biggest political crisis” the country may face over the next six to twelve months. Bipartisan concern is also growing in regards to AI chatbots’ influence on the mental health of children and young people, as up to 1 in 5 teens now turn to chatbots for mental health advice, the interactions of which are ‘terrifying’ trained human developmental psychologists. Disturbing evidence is also mounting that chatbot ‘sycophancy’ is having serious distorting effects on young users’ sense of reality. This week, the state of Florida sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT is not safe, especially for minors; it is the first state to file a lawsuit against an AI firm over such concerns. The Institute for Family Studies poll released this week also shows that by a landslide, 88% of Americans want AI systems to be evaluated for national security, and 87% want AI systems to be evaluated for their effect on family and child well-being. And while the Trump Administration and most Republicans are focusing on the United States’ AI competitiveness race with China, an overwhelming majority (80%) of rank-and-file voters of both political parties, according to a Fox News poll, favor urgent public protection over AI innovation.
U.S. ambitions for World Cup hosting deflating fast as cancellations abound, visa issues, protests and affordability issues revise expectations; threats of labor strikes force back plans for ICE presence at matches. Cities across the United States that were promised big tourism windfalls from the upcoming World Cup are having their expectations deflated less than two weeks before the start of the world’s biggest sports tournament, as travel and hotel bookings collapse in the wake of rising oil and fuel prices, ticket prices skyrocket, game-related transit surge pricing hits ludicrous levels, and political, economic and labor problems emerge in host countries the United States and Mexico. Host cities now fear that predictions on attendance and spending for the 2026 tournament will not materialize as many foreign fans are skipping travel to the United States for the tournament amid affordability problems and fears stemming from the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown and treatment of foreigners in the current geopolitical environment. Visa problems are also hampering plans for thousands of English football ‘hooligans’, as over 2,300 fans with Football Banning Orders (FBOs) in the UK for various infractions, including disorderly conduct, minor drug charges and ticket scalping, have been ordered to surrender their passports to police by June 9 in order to prevent them from traveling to any of the World Cup’s host countries. The Trump Administration’s hardline stance on travel bans and restrictions for 75 countries, many of which are football-loving nations whose national teams are fan favorites for the tournament, such as Brazil, Morocco, Colombia, Egypt, Senegal, and Uruguay, means that fans from these countries are unable to attend the tournament at all. The Trump Administration is also reportedly weaponizing the visa process to slow or halt access to the country even for official competitors, including Switzerland’s main striker, Breel Embolo, who was blocked from boarding a flight with his teammates to the United States, and the entire men’s national team from South Africa – a country that has attracted much negative focus from the United States due to ‘white genocide’ claims – where 20 of the team’s 26-member squad are still awaiting U.S. visa approvals less than two weeks before the competition.
The tournament has also provided opportunities for mass action to call attention to national problems as well as tournament-specific issues. In Mexico City, protests rocked last-minute construction and preparation plans as mass demonstrations from the nation’s largest teachers union and other public sector workers seek to use Mexico’s moment in the global spotlight to force concessions on pension reform ahead of the tournament’s opening match on June 11. An Amnesty International report in March outlining human rights risks for visitors during the tournament singled out the United States as a particular area of concern, highlighting a “recognizable pattern of authoritarian practices” in the country that pose a “human rights emergency” particularly affecting foreign nationals. In a bright spot surrounding the tournament, however, officials confirmed this week that ICE will no longer be deployed as security for World Cup games in Los Angeles following major actions by stadium workers, including the threat of a labor strike during the tournament by the stadium workers’ union, UNITE HERE local 11. A broad labor-based movement against ICE at World Cup matches is also being organized nationwide, with activist coalitions such as the No ICE in the Cup Campaign hoping to replicate Los Angeles’ victory in other host cities to ensure a safe environment for fans and tourists; the AFL-CIO’s ‘Keep ICE Out of World Cup Host Cities’ campaign pressuring FIFA to protect workers by keeping immigration enforcement agents away from venues and host cities during the tournament; and the grassroots ‘Our Copa’ campaign pushing a pledge to stop ICE raids during the World Cup, lift travel bans on Haiti, Iran, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, and let fans celebrate safely.
