Netherlands Government, Musk Turns On Trump, NPR Under Attack, & Meta’s Nuclear Plant

June 4, 2025

Hello, readers – happy Wednesday! Today, we’ll be talking about South Korea’s elections, Trump’s plan for the Boulder attacker, aid in Gaza, the Netherlands’ government collapse, Elon Musk turning on Trump, NPR and PBS being under attack, and Meta’s nuclear plant purchase.

Here’s some good news: A new trial found that Gilead Sciences’ Trodelvy, in combination with Merck’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda, lowered the risk of an aggressive type of breast cancer worsening by 35% when used as an initial treatment. Also, cancer patients treated with a pioneering immunotherapy called Car T-cell therapy, which genetically modifies their own cells to wipe out tumors, live 40% longer.

“There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.” – Vincent van Gogh

Some Calm For Seoul

(Lee Jae-myung by Anthony Wallace via Getty Images)

South Korea’s months of political upheaval have finally come to an end. In yesterday’s snap presidential election, Koreans voted Lee Jae-myung, the head of Korea’s liberal Democratic Party, into power as a replacement for impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol. The presidential elections brought out the deep divisions between Korea’s right and left, though Lee was able to crush Kim Moon-soo, the ruling conservative People Power Party’s candidate, by a margin of 3 million ballots.

“Fundamentally, this will be kind of a return to normal politics,” said one expert on Korean politics. “Beyond stabilizing the political situation, Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party already controls the unicameral legislature in South Korea… So it might be easier to push through policies than it had been under impeached President Yoon.”

Lee has been slapped with multiple lawsuits over the past few years, including bribery suits, and has also been convicted of violating election law for making a false statement during a debate. Korean conservatives have accused him of being too sympathetic to China and North Korea, but it’s unlikely that Lee would make any concessions to those countries as doing so would anger the U.S., South Korea’s most important ally.

The White House Readies Its White Vans

The Trump administration is looking to leverage the recent attack on a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza to crack down on immigration even further. The attack on Sunday, which saw a man injure 12 demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, with molotov cocktails, has given the GOP more reason to crack down on critics of Israel’s war in Gaza – and immigrants in general – given the suspect’s pro-Palestine position and the fact that he has been in the U.S. past the length of his tourist visa.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the main suspect in Sunday’s attack, is currently in FBI custody for committing an “act of terrorism.” Soliman faces charges including 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of using an incendiary device, and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device, and he’s also facing federal hate crime charges.

“He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit,” wrote Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller on X. On Truth Social, Trump blamed the attack on Biden’s “ridiculous Open Border Policy,” adding, “This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.”

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Maybe McKinsey Would Have Done Better?

(Kids at aid site by Majdi Fathivia Getty Images)

The brilliant, MBA-backed, Sweetgreen-ordering, Equinox-membership-having, Blue Bottle-sipping, Patagonia-vested brains at Boston Consulting Group have given up on providing aid to the civilians of Gaza. Apparently, preparing a marketing plan slide deck for the latest B2B-SaaS firm doesn’t teach you anything about getting vital humanitarian aid to starving civilians desperately trying to survive the next round of Israeli “precision strikes.” Yesterday, Boston Consulting Group announced that it would be canceling its contract with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the U.S.-backed organization that is supposedly in charge of providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
A spokesperson for BCG claimed that the consulting firm had been providing its services – mainly setting up contracts with various people on the ground in Gaza – to GHF “pro bono,” but at least one source with knowledge of the contract said that the consultants were charging the foundation more than $1 million per month for their help. But maybe severing ties with GHF was just a smart business move by the consultants. Yesterday, IDF soldiers shot and killed at least 27 Palestinians and injured at least 160 more at a GHF aid distribution site.

The Party For Freedom Is Free From Having A Job

The Netherlands’ first far-right government collapsed yesterday after the biggest political party in the country withdrew from the ruling coalition. Geert Wilders, a far-right, anti-Muslim populist, announced that his Party for Freedom (PVV) would be leaving the government because other parties weren’t supporting his anti-immigrant agenda enough.
The PVV, which has advocated banning the Quran entirely and closing all Islamic schools in the Netherlands, had combined with three other right-wing parties to create an 88-seat majority in the Dutch House of Representatives. While the four parties had agreed to “the strictest asylum admission policy and the most comprehensive migration control package ever,” Wilders apparently felt that his agenda was not being implemented quickly enough and decided to withdraw from the government entirely. “I am baffled, and I assume his voters are, too,” said the head of one of the other coalition parties. “I don’t think we will get another right-wing majority.”

More Mixed Nuts

It Really Do Be Your Own Billionaires

Just days after leaving the White House with a black eye, a key to the building, and very little remaining dignity, Elon Musk has taken to Twitter/X to blow up his relationship with President Trump. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk said yesterday in a post. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
“It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt,” Musk added. “Congress is making America bankrupt.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years – it will extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, create new tax breaks for tipped wages and overtime, overhaul Medicaid and food stamps, and increase border security and military spending.

Can You Tell Me How To Get…How To Get To Sesame Street (Now That The President Canceled PBS)?

Yesterday, President Trump asked Congress to take back the $1.1 billion it has set aside for all public broadcasters for the next two years. The ask, known as a “rescission request,” has to be approved by a simple majority in both chambers within 45 days for it to become law.
The move is an attempt to cut NPR and PBS off at the knees, with Trump and his Republican allies accusing the broadcasters of liberal bias. PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger warned that Trump’s proposal would devastate public broadcasting stations, particularly in rural communities.

More Nuts In America

AI Can Even Create Clean Energy, Apparently

Meta has purchased a nuclear power plant. Kind of. Yesterday, the social-media-company-turned-AI-firm announced a deal with Constellation Energy, a nuclear power plant operator, to purchase all the “clean energy attributes” of the company’s Clinton Clean Energy Center. The “energy center” is actually a 1.1 gigawatt nuclear power plant located in central Illinois, and was scheduled to be taken offline by 2017, but has been kept alive by government subsidies up until now.
By inking this deal, Meta joins other tech firms turning to nuclear energy to keep their AI training data centers powered. In fact, Constellation has signed a similar deal with Microsoft, granting the company all of the electricity from its Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. That reactor was also on the way out until the Microsoft deal was signed, with the decommissioning process projected to take decades and cost over $1 billion.

More Loose Nuts