‘I love the inflation’ / ‘A summer of resistance’ / Sweet irony

‘I love the inflation.’ Yep, President Trump said that yesterday …

■ … and then, historian Heather Cox Richardson says, he “slid into a fantasy rewriting of the history of his war on Iran and his decision to launch it.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “This is some serious Marie-Antoinette-level let-them-eat-inflation bullshit.”

■ Democratic political strategist and sometime Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov: “Democrats just won the midterms.”

■ Trump was threatening a fresh round of strikes on Iran, to take control of its oil industry.

■ As the White House springs leaks, someone close to the administration tells Politico: “Knives are out. … I mean, people are stabbing people. Like, it’s chaos.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

■ Columnist Shanley Hurt: “The room built for national security was reportedly used to manage the political fallout from the Epstein files, which tells us exactly what this administration considers an emergency.”

■ Trump’s recent physical set a new record: More physicians involved than in any examination of any previous president.

‘A summer of resistance.’ Columnist Dan Froomkin recommends marking your calendars for a series of events leading up to the November election …

■ … beginning with Sunday’s “Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment,” to be staged in New York by the No Kings Coalition to compete with Trump’s cage fight spectacle—and streaming free online or in watch parties across the country.

Wanted in cross-burning. Police have released photos of a person of interest in the apparent act of hate committed Tuesday in Grant Park.

■ Cardinal Blase Cupich calls the incident a reminder of “the sickness of spirit … not only in the pages of history but in our present day.”

‘I’m very disturbed by that question.’ Chicago schools chief Macquline King had several such moments yesterday as she faced an inquisition from hostile Republicans on the House Committee on Education and Workforce …

■ … led by Chicago-born Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg, who expressed gratitude that he wasn’t educated in Chicago’s schools.

■ King’s fallback answer: “We comply with all local, state and federal law.”

■ Axios: Chicago lawmakers weren’t there, but they issued a letter condemning the hearing.

■ Chicago school board member Carlos Rivas Jr., writing in the Tribune (gift link): “A school system cannot help students succeed if it first asks some of them to hide.”

■ A bill on the governor’s desk would require the state to consider access to reproductive and gender-affirming care before placing foster children in other states.

Trees downed, power out, windows shattered. Intense thunderstorms slammed the Chicago area yesterday …

■ … and two more waves—with a tornado threat, too—loomed today.

■ The AP: The Pacific Ocean’s El Nino natural warming cycle is back—threatening to turbocharge extreme weather worldwide and to break records set by 1997’s devastating cycle.

■ Emmy-winning Chicago TV news alumnus Matt Rodewald: “Sometimes storms catch people off guard. … But you know who’s almost always ready for it? The Midwest dad.”

Getting the lead out. The Austin neighborhood’s getting $22 million in federal cash to replace lead pipes contaminating drinking water …

■ … but that’s just a drop in the bucket for the up to $10 billion it could cost to replace all of Illinois’ lead lines.

‘Catch that train!’ Block Club says videos of costumed Chicagoans running to CTA terminals are going viral.

■ This one’s been viewed more than 20 million times and liked 4 million times on TikTok.

■ A City Council committee’s OK’d a plan to buy the downtown Greyhound bus terminal from the vampiric hedge fund that also owns the Tribune.

‘Everyone already knew the case was bullshit.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg marvels at newspapers’ tiptoeing around a grand juror’s use of profanity to describe the failed charges against the Broadview Six immigration crackdown protesters: “The news value of this development is zilch except for the colorful obscenity. Which isn’t printed.”

■ As you’ll recall, yesterday’s Chicago Public Square split the difference.

Sweet irony. Columnist Eric Zorn: By kicking researchers out of a conference because they were distributing copies of an anti-Trump editorial published in its own journal, the American Diabetes Association ensured that “many more will see it” …

■ … and so he encourages you to see it and share it here.

■ See also: “The Streisand Effect.”

‘I still have nightmares about City News.’ And yet alumnus Mary Wisniewski celebrates as “a miracle” a new book about Chicago’s legendary training ground for young journalists.

■ Poynter’s Kristen Hare flags the importance of helping local newsrooms preserve their online and broadcast archives.

Really: Just $1. Just once. That’s all the contribution it takes to put your name up in lights on The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians page.

■ Soundtrack for production of today’s edition: This song on repeat. And this version.

‘A crock of ■■■■’ / White House ‘freakout’ / You are here

‘A crock of ■■■■.’ Newly released transcripts of grand jury sessions in the aborted prosecution of the Broadview Six defendants make clear just how skeptical jurors were about the charges against protesters outside the Chicago-area’s ICE concentration camp back in September.

■ CNN: “The prosecutor then excused the grand juror—an approach so problematic, the U.S. attorney’s office cut short the session without asking the grand jury to vote again.”

■ Read those transcripts here.

■ Broadview Six defendant Brian Straw and his lawyer, Chris Parente, will join your Chicago Public Square columnist June 25 for a conversation about their tribulations. Admission will be free.

■ The Onion: “Mom Casually Mentions Her Bunco Group Threw Molotov Cocktails At ICE Last Week.”

With Senate control on the line … Scandalized Graham Platner looked like the winner of the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Susan Collins this fall.

■ He delivered a stemwinder of a victory speech.

■ Ex-Republican political strategist Rick Wilson—whose role used to be to ruin Democratic candidates—explains “why MAGA’s hit job on Platner failed.”

‘A master stroke of paranoia.’ President Trump’s assertion—echoed by House Speaker Johnson—that the lack of evidence of election theft is proof of election theft sent expat Tribune columnist Kevin Williams, now a resident of Portugal, back to his high school reading of 1984.

■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Apparently, their motto is: If you can’t beat them, say they’re cheating.”

■ The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic: “Diabolical. The fact that there is no evidence is the evidence. See, voter fraud isn’t about what you can prove up here, it’s about what you feel in here, and what you can pull out of here.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “These piss-soaked diaper-babies are screaming their heads off about how everything is rigged.”

White House ‘freakout.’ In the first published excerpt of a forthcoming tell-all book by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, The New York Times details the administration’s internal furor over the Epstein file revelations about Trump.

■ Now, CNN’s Brian Stelter says, Trump’s team has launched a “massive” hunt to find the leakers.

Burning cross in Chicago. The Fire Department doused an iconic hate symbol yesterday in Grant Park.

■ A Chicago church is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to arrest of a suspect.

House hotseat. Chicago Public Schools chief Macquline King had a date this morning on Capitol Hill to address hostile questions from Republican representatives up in arms about the district’s care for Black and transgender students.

■ See it here.

Shorter trains, longer tax waits. The CTA’s cutting the length of some weekend trains.

■ Putting the squeeze on schools, libraries and other government agencies that depend on tax revenue, Cook County property tax bills will go out two months late.

You are here. PolitiFact was driven to post this: “Trump dozed off in Oval Office. Did he wake himself up with a fart?”

■ The Onion: “Trump Still Sleeping In MSG Seat.”

■ Columnist Neil Steinberg tours Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center: “The place made me think of earnest interior designers laying bright fabric swatches on the back of a sofa in a house that’s on fire.”

‘I’ve been banned by Truth Social.’ Conservative former Chicago newspaper columnist Dennis Byrne writes that Trump’s site refuses to let him create an account—maybe “because I have disagreed with the president on occasion. I also don’t like him very much.”

■ Worry not: Your Square proprietor shared Byrne’s column on Truth.

And you thought Letterman and Colbert trashed it. Turns out not: The set of Stephen Colbert’s defunct Late Show has a new home—at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.

■ Two writers for Colbert’s show have launched a podcast.

■ Last Week Tonight show host John Oliver has reportedly fulfilled his dream of landing a role in a daytime soap opera.

Chill. With temps headed into the 90s today and tomorrow, Chicago’s opened a dozen cooling centers.

■ The AP: Even as Trump trumpets coal over clean energy, solar power’s become the leading source of new power for the U.S.

Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.