Good morning. It is June 4th, the date the tanks rolled in, drawing approval, at the time, from Donald Trump for the Chinese government's display of the power of strength, as he told Playboy in an interview. But that was all very long ago and surely not relevant here in the 21st century. The sky above New York City is discolored by the smoke of wildfires, but down to ground level on what's supposed to be a hot day, the air quality warnings are about ozone, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the lead story, two columns wide, has the headline, “America Is Losing Its Pull For Best Minds in Science Toll of Budget Cuts and Strict Immigration.” The headline on the jump for the story reverses the polarity to more accurate effect. “Scientists worry that Trump's America is pushing away the world's best minds”. It's not really a matter of worrying, though. It's just cause and effect. After an opening anecdote about a Nobel Prize winning researcher into the sense of touch and pain, getting his federal grant frozen by the Trump administration, then posting to Bluesky about it and getting an offer from China to come work there if he wanted, with 20 years of funding secured, the story pulls back to say “China and Europe are on hiring
sprees. An analysis by the journal Nature captured the reversal: Applications from China and Europe for graduate student or postdoctoral positions in the United States have dropped sharply or dried up since President Trump took office. The number of postdocs and graduate students in the United States applying for jobs abroad has spiked.” It continues, “A university in France that created new positions for scientists with canceled federal grants capped applications after overwhelming interest. A scientific institute in Portugal said job inquiries from junior faculty members in the United States were up tenfold
over the last two months.” The people targeted in the purge are being purged. That is how purges work.

The other four columns of the top of the page are taken up by a photograph of South Korea's presidential election winner, Lee Jae-myung, raising his hands in a line of people with clasped hands, including his wife, at a victory rally. The packaging is another weird decision by the Times about how to anchor the once-a-day front page temporally, in the endless flow of news. The election happened on the far side of the globe in between print deadlines, which would seem to make it eligible for a straight-ahead news story about the fact that it happened, but instead, without ever having published a print story saying that Lee won the election, at least not for New York home delivery, the Times jumps straight to a NEWS ANALYSIS piece, “Seoul’s Leader Has Full Plate / Given Immense Power
And Untold Problems,” with the declaration of the news tucked away in a subordinate clause in the second paragraph.

First, the story says, “If there is one characteristic that defines Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s new president, it’s that he is a survivor. He has survived criminal charges, a near-fatal stabbing attack and the martial law enacted by his fiercest enemy, former President Yoon Suk Yeol. Now he is taking on what may be his toughest test yet: leading a deeply divided nation through daunting challenges both at home and abroad.” 

The next paragraph is, “Mr. Lee, who won South Korea’s presidential election after his opponent conceded early Wednesday, takes office as one of the most powerful presidents that South Korea has elected in recent decades. Much of South Korea’s political power is concentrated in the presidency, and Mr. Lee will also wield considerable control over the National Assembly, where his Democratic Party holds a large majority of seats. But long is the list of problems
that Mr. Lee faces,” The Times writes, sure, but can't you let the guy just be the winner for a day before he becomes the embattled new president? 

Next to that, the story is “Battle Over Supply Chain Is the New Trade War / U.S. and China Facing the Painful Reality of Linked Economies.” The story is about how it turns out that unbeknownst to Donald Trump and the architects of his trade war, countries actually send things back and forth as part of the process of manufacturing the finished goods that they eventually sell to one another. The Times writes “the US-China trade conflict is quickly morphing into a fight over global supply chains as the two nations limit the sharing of critical technologies that could have lasting consequences for scores of industries. The United States last week suspended some sales to China of components and software used in jet engines and semiconductors a response to a clampdown by Beijing on the export of minerals used in large sectors of manufacturing.”

The story goes on to say, “in recent weeks, the airplane industry has emerged as both a weapon and a victim in this fight. The jet engine technology that powers airplanes and the navigation systems that control them largely come from the United States, developed by companies like General Electric. In China's quest to build a viable competitor to Boeing, for example, it has had to source engine technology from GE Aerospace. But, a jet engine also cannot be made without China. Minerals that are processed there are essential for special coatings and components that help the engine operate smoothly at high temperatures, as well as other uses.” 

A little below that, back on the right-hand side of the page, there's a NEWS ANALYSIS piece from Peter Baker, “Denouncing Antisemitism,
Trump Also Fans Its Flames.” It starts by talking about how right after attacking Harvard for allegedly being anti-Semitic, he reposted an image of himself that included an alt-right Pepe mascot. 

“The appearance of the figure,” the story says, “was the latest example of Mr. Trump's extensive history of amplifying white supremacist figures and symbols, even as he now presents himself as a champion for Jewish students oppressed by what he says is a wave of hatred on American college campuses.” 

The safe bet with the Pepe meme would be that, as when he shared a post the other day, built around the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was killed in 2020 and replaced with a robot, he was probably just looking at his phone without his glasses on, because he's too vain to use them, and reposting any flattering pictures of himself that he saw, and he didn't even absorb what the accompanying images or language were saying. 

But then, the necessary precondition for mistakes like that to happen is that the president of the United States is pickling his brain in a toxic brine of far-right conspiracy theories and provocations because that is what his political movement consists of. And so, taking the Pepe meme as the indicator that it is, Baker writes, “as a younger man, Mr. Trump kept a book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in a cabinet by his bed, according to his first wife. During his first term as president, he expressed admiration for some aspects of the Nazi fuhrer's leadership, according to his chief White House aide at the time. In the past few years, he has dined at his Florida estate with a Holocaust denier, while his New Jersey golf club has hosted events at which a Nazi sympathizer spoke.” 

That's just one paragraph, and the president's Nazi affiliations are substantial enough to require a second. “Since reclaiming the White House,” Baker continues, “Mr. Trump has brought into his orbit and his administration people with records of advancing anti-Semitic tropes, including a spokeswoman at the Pentagon. His vice president, secretary of state, and top financial backer, have offered support to a far right German political party that has played down atrocities committed by the Nazis. And just last week, Mr. Trump picked a former right wing podcaster who has defended a prominent white supremacist to head the office of special counsel.” The vice president's neo-nazi connections go far beyond his support of the Alternative for Deutschland party. Basically, his intellectual and social media milieu are built around Nazi beliefs, but that would be a whole other story. 

The roundup of the president's anti-Semitic connections and people's responses to them is missing any input from the Anti-Defamation League, beyond one generic reference to the fact that the Anti-Defamation League considers Pepe the Frog to be linked to alt-right anti-Semites. 

But if the ADL had any specific thoughts about the role of anti-Semitism in the Trump administration, the Times didn't get them, not even on the fact that, as the Times writes, Trump's newly promoted Defense Department press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, has echoed anti-Semitic extremists who have asserted that Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched in Georgia in 1915 on what historians have called false charges of raping and murdering a 13 year old girl really was guilty. That would be the specific act of defamation that the Anti-Defamation League was originally founded in response to. 

Below that story on page one, the headline is “Firing of Smithsonian Official Met With Doubt, and Silence.” Again, it's a tight space, but “firing” is just not the word. You have to go well past the jump and pass the attribution to two leading house Democrats of the idea that Trump's declaration that he was firing the head of the National Portrait Gallery was illegal, before you get to the part of the story that says, “although the Smithsonian was created and is overseen by Congress and its board includes president approved appointees, courts have held that it is not an agency of the government. The Smithsonian's website describes the institution as a unique trust that is governed by a 17 member board of regents that appoints a secretary to serve as the institution's chief executive. The board includes three members appointed by the House and three by the Senate, with the remaining nine nominated by the board and appointed for a six year term by a joint resolution signed by the president. The vice president and chief justice of the United States, are on the board by virtue of their positions.” 

The reason the House Democrats are saying that it's illegal for Donald Trump to fire the head of the National Portrait Gallery is that Donald Trump has no authority to do so under existing law. To be fair to the Times, its unwillingness to put that point front and center reflects the behavior of the Smithsonian's own board so far. The story says that the Smithsonian board had an emergency meeting on Monday, but as of Tuesday evening, the Times writes, “the Smithsonian, which is not an executive branch agency, was silent on whether it would dispute a presidential announcement that is distinctly at odds with how the institution has long regarded its independence in hiring and firing powers.” 

Friends, you're already in a fight with the president. The only question is whether you're going to lose or win. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Socca-Ho. You, the listeners, keep us going through your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Keep those coming if you can. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.