Watching Trump’s press conference at the NATO Summit live. He just said the USS Abraham Lincoln had been attacked by missiles from “the Islamic Republic of Japan.” And minutes later called Zelensky, sitting next to him, “President Putin.”

If you’re going to be in New York City during the next month, I strongly urge you to go to Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s sublime Clinamen at the Park Avenue Armory.

GOVERNMENTS HE LIKES Russia, China, Hungary, Turkey, El Salvador, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states GOVERNMENTS HE DOESN’T LIKE Canada, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, France, and the U.K.

It comes out six weeks from today. Feel free to pre-order. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594494... www.kurtandersen.com

First the Iranian supreme leader’s mass funeral happening simultaneously with Taylor Swift’s mass wedding celebration at Madison Square Garden, now a tempest as if from an angry God sends the Trump cult from the National Mall to shelter in the African American Museum of History.

From the essay JD Vance published in @TheAtlantic.com ten July 4ths ago—a tough-minded, clear-eyed analysis of the tragic, dangerous fantasies Donald Trump was selling to the people Vance grew up with. Astonishing artifact of the demonic quisling before he turned to the dark side.

He suckered a million people into losing an average of $3800 apiece buying into just one of his crypto scams, #$TRUMP, on which he made $636 million. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/u...

From my @nytimes.com review of American Trickster, a solid new biography of Carlos Castaneda, a writer every young person c. 1970 was familiar with––and who "godfathered a facts-don’t-matter alternate-reality paradigm shift still transforming our culture." Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/b...

The chances of getting killed in New York City are 9% what they were in 1990. Back then the most dangerous neighborhoods, with just 1% or 2% of New York’s population, had as many murders every year as the entire city had had these last six months. As close to a miracle as I’ve experienced. 1/2

In lieu of SNL, a perfect 2-minute auto-satire by The Greatest Self-Parodist of All Tine. www.instagram.com/reel/DaWTccc...

Holy smokes! @gqmagazine.bsky.social just named Colbo, Tal Silberstein's & (my son-in-law) Ryan Dougherty's fashion business, one of the 50 iconic American brands! (With Amiri, Buck Mason, Calvin Klein, Gap, J.Crew, Levi’s, L.L. Bean, Nike, Ralph Lauren, The Row, Todd Snyder, Willy Chavarria, etc.)🔥

In its first sentence this @WSJ.com article says the DSA “believes in defunding the police”—and then never mentions the issue again. Highly misleading, unfair bordering on untrue. www.wsj.com/politics/ele... 1/2

Trump ordering that his sons get a piece of the U.S.-funded $1B tungsten mine project in Kazakhstan is the corruption bridge too far even for the the New York Post editorial board. "It stinks to high heaven. The Trump boys have been sloshing around in the muck since their dad came to power."

From my new novel The Breakup. Out in 7 weeks. But please feel free to preorder now. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594494...

Thanks so much, Chris! And you win the prize for catching the connections between the families (and worlds) of The Breakup and Turn of he Century.

Perfect headline pair. Trumpism in a nutshell — authoritarian, corruption, sycophancy, fantasy.

I’m reminded of the gilded, over-the-top, fortified palaces and self-monuments put up by dictators before their spectacular falls — Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Bashar Assad in Syria in 2024.

What a hellishly cruel and stupid mess SCOTUS has enabled. Most or the 1.3M legally resident people they’re letting Trump deport have lived here 15+ years. Average age 42. They’re parents to 273,000 U.S. citizen kids. 30% have mortgages. 1/3

From The Breakup, my new novel, set in 2045. It comes out August 18th, but feel free to pre-order. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594494...

It’d be disconcerting to me if the government of any rich foreign country had a political lobby donating $100 million per election cycle to House and Senate candidates, including 70% of incumbents. Even if it weren’t a horrible government receiving billions a year in military aid from us.

When it cones to the Middle East, the @nytimes.com’s Tom Friedman is a savant. With a knack for making geopolitical complexity accessible. But why must every single cultural reference be from his (and my) youth? 4 out of 4 today.

So very, very cringe.

Smart, surprising, funny piece about JD Vance by @WSJ.com ex-editor in chief Gerard Baker: “It isn’t unreasonable, given his long, meandering, ideological and political journey, to wonder about the sincerity of this latest departure in his mental odyssey.” Gift link. www.wsj.com/opinion/jd-v...

Fellow New Yorkers of the 12th district: I enthusiastically voted for @alexbpres.nyc, who’ll make a great member of Congress. Hope you will tomorrow! www.alexbores.nyc

Fascism where the trains not only don’t run on time but constantly crash and derail.

I’m sorry, no. This is not the guy who did the reflecting pool. No. Come on. We’re just putting a hat on a hat here. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...

Terrific final graf in a chapter about DOGE in @Tyrangiel.bsky.social’s important book AI For Good.

Good bunch of current top stories. That is, bad for Trump et al and go Ukraine, go Knicks.

Remembering my first boss and pal ever since. share.google/VPXvpbtTJMwo...

Very good piece. The enormity of Trump’s Iranian blunder is amazing. We and our allies are weaker. Iran and its are stronger. America is now more of a paper tiger than it was after we lost the Vietnam War. More than it’s ever been before. Gift link. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Just spent an hour scrolling videos of ecstatic New York City, my eyes filled with tears, a dopey smile on my face. And thought of this from my book Evil Geniuses, about America's racial transformation the last half century. The celebration of the Knicks was a celebration of America at 250.

How very very flattering. open.substack.com/pub/historyn...

Great conversation I had with (the late) David Hockney back in 2009. www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/stu... waaa.wnyc.org/studio/studi...

Gold-standard polling expert Charlie Cook says this new Fox New poll of super-Republican Ohio that has Democrat @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social ahead of the GOP incumbent by 8% (and the governor’s race tied) is clearly a canary in the coal mine for Republicans nationally. substack.com/@charliecook...

Thoughts prompted by coming across old Argentine pesos and Danish kroner. • I wish the US were more Danish. But Trump wants to invade, calls Danes "ungrateful losers." • He says Argentina has "my favorite president," and is turning the US into mega-Argentina –– dysfunctional, corrupt, more nequal.

Shot by my Knicks super-fan daughter Lucy on the way home to Brooklyn from a Manhattan watch party last night.

Today's the day: The pub date of my new (first) novel! Killing Baby Hitler. Two scientists from 2141 go back in time to 1889 Austria to do in history's greatest monster, and, well, hijinx ensue. @kurtandersen.bsky.social sez "fabulous in every sense." Order it here!: orbooks.com/catalog/kill...

At Death of A Salesman last night, I inevitably saw the believe-your-own-salesman-BS tragedy as a grim allegory for America at 250. Outside, dark, rain, a mile from MSG, checked the score. Knicks 17 points down, 7 minutes to go. Gloom on gloom. Just woke up, OMFG. American comeback allegory?

In the first 100 days of this dumb, disastrous war he has promised a peace deal was imminent 37 times. www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/p...

Good optics.

Watching these NBA Finals—the first time I’ve ever watched them, let alone three in a row—I’ve been marveling at how often attempted shots ate 3-pointers, a thing that didn’t exist in the NBA when I was a kid. And discovered this interesting stat.

When Trump’s father was just a few years older than Trump is now, he was diagnosed by two MDs as having dementia—his own reporting “in recent years" he’d had symptoms of “obvious memory decline” and significant impairment,” another that he “did not know his birth date [or] age.”

Amazing speech by Kate Hepburn as the widow of a superrich businessman and presidential contender who was secretly the leader of a cabal of rich fascists plotting to take over the United States. Keeper of the Flame (1942), directed by George Cukor. youtu.be/_abRxAL3hnw?...

“Hegseth said the military’s chaplain corps had been ‘infected by…secular humanism.’ The newly consolidated ‘religious affiliation codes’ will allow…[military] personnel to identify as agnostic’” but “humanism and atheism are among those that were removed from the list.”

Latest Trump-approval poll tracker from @theeconomistnews.bsky.social. It’s not going to go back up.

In other words: OK, he won’t steal this $1.8 billion from taxpayers to distribute to criminals in his cult, but his children and he still get a pass for whatever they’ve stolen in the past or may steal in the future through tax fraud.

I like this ad a lot—smart, fun, funny, fearless, and very Nebraskan—by Dan Osborn, the terrific candidate for U.S. Senate. Who lives in my hometown and who `I’m happily supporting. And who really could win. osbornforsenate.com

I really like this ad—smart, fun, funny, fearless, and very Nebraskan—by Dan Osborn, a great candidate for the U.S. Senate. Who lives in my hometown and I’m happily supporting. And who really could win. osbornforsenate.com youtu.be/iymcGKYJlfE?...

Cornered, l crazier by the day as he turns 80 and descends toward a lame-duck downfall, the leader gathers a tight circle of his most loyal sycophants with him in the Führerbunker.