Gov. Newsom Fights The Trump Regime, Job One Remains Stopping The Reconciliation Bill, Rallying For The Bethesda Declaration

I will be in Jupiter, Florida tonight with David Jolly. Looking forward to seeing folks!

Morning all. There is a lot going on today. A few toplines:

1 - I will be in Jupiter, Florida tonight with the Palm Beach Democrats and David Jolly. Join us if you can. Learn more and register here. Hope to have a recording of our event tonight here in the coming days. To learn more about David and his important race for Governor of Florida watch our recent interview.

2 - For more on the national Trump-Miller immigration escalation of recent weeks watch my new interview with former South Florida Congressman Joe Garcia. It’s essential viewing. Be sure to see my report from yesterday about the influential founder of Latinas for Trump calling the regime’s immigration escalation “unacceptable and inhumane.” Opposition to the escalation is growing.

3 - We cannot take our eye off the big job now - stopping the rancid reconciliation bill. As I wrote yesterday I think the recent dramatic escalation we’ve seen in immigration enforcement (modern day bread and circuses) was a strategy in part to distract/change the subject from what has been a very bad few weeks for Trump. This new, manufactured crisis will now be aggressively used by the White House to get reluctant Senators to fall in line quickly so they can get this bill passed this summer. Elon’s attacks on the bill and the whole Elon fight last week was very bad for the bill and for Trump. They had to do something dramatic to change the dynamic on the Hill, and they have. We cannot let up and everyone in this community needs to be calling their Senators today and demand they vote down and work against the terrible reconciliation bill.

My latest video and post explains why this bill and Trump’s broader economic agenda is so bad for America and the American people.

4 - Those participating in public protests this week including the June 14th No Kings events should seek out de-escalation training on line and share it with friends and colleagues. If folks know of good options please share them in the chat so I can post for the broader community.

A reminder - only join public protests in your community if you know and trust the organizers. There are bad actors from across the political spectrum who want to push us towards violence and confrontation, and we must do everything we can to prevent our peaceful protests from getting hijacked in ways that benefit Trump.

5 - Prominent NIH staff and the broader bio-medical community launched a significant campaign this morning to fight the Trump-Kennedy gutting and politicization of medical research. Its called “The Bethesda Declaration: A Call for NIH and HHS Leadership to Deliver on Promises of Academic Freedom and Scientific Excellence. “ You can learn more and sign up to support this critical effort here. In addition to current NIH/HHS staff, these prominent scientists have are backing this new campaign:

Roger Kornberg, PhD, Nobel laureate 2006 for elucidating the mechanism of DNA transcription

Carolyn Bertozzi, PhD, Nobel laureate 2022 for developing chemical tools for studying living organisms

Martin Chalfie, PhD, Nobel laureate 2008 for the development of green fluorescent protein

Joachim Frank, PhD, Nobel laureate 2017 for the development of single particle cryo-electron microscopy

Moungi Bawendi, PhD, Nobel laureate 2023 for the development of quantum dots

Victor Ambros, PhD, Nobel laureate 2024 for the discovery of microRNA

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, Nobel laureate 2023 for discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective vaccines

Ardem Patapoutian, PhD, Nobel laureate 2021 for the discovery of receptors for touch

Aziz Sancar, PhD, Nobel laureate 2015 for elucidation of DNA repair mechanisms

Gregg Semenza, MD, PhD, Nobel laureate 2019 for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability

Jack Szostak, PhD, Nobel laureate 2009 for discoveries about the function of telomeres and the telomerase enzyme

Carol Greider, PhD, Nobel laureate 2009 for discoveries about the function of telomeres and the telomerase enzyme

Andrew Fire, PhD, Nobel laureate 2006 for the discovery of RNA interference

Robert Horvitz, PhD, Nobel laureate 2002 for the discovery of programmed cell death

David Baker, PhD, Nobel laureate 2024 for protein structure prediction and design

W.E. Moerner, PhD, Nobel laureate 2014 for the development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy

Rod MacKinnon, MD, Nobel laureate 2003 for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes

Randy Schekman, PhD, Nobel laureate 2013 for discoveries regarding a major transport system in cells

William Kaelin, MD, PhD, Nobel laureate 2019 for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability

Jeremy M. Berg, PhD, Former Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH

Freeman Hrabowski III, PhD, President Emeritus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Joshua Gordon, MD, PhD, Former Director, National Institute of Mental Health

Newsom Challenges Trump To End His Banana Republic Power Grab - This morning we find ourselves once again in that place where Trump is asserting authorities that are not clearly given to him by our Constitution, law or convention.

Here is a new statement from the Democratic Governors:

“President Trump’s move to deploy California’s National Guard is an alarming abuse of power. Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard and the federal government activating them in their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous.

“Further, threatening to send the U.S. Marines into American neighborhoods undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust, and shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.

“It’s important we respect the executive authority of our country’s governors to manage their National Guards — and we stand with Governor Newsom who has made it clear that violence is unacceptable and that local authorities should be able to do their jobs without the chaos of this federal interference and intimidation.”

Here are statements from other leading California elected officials calling on Trump, Miller and Hegseth to yield back control of the CA National Guard and stop the escalation.

The State Of California sent this letter to Hegseth last night:

Brian Tyler Cohen sat down with Governor Newsom last night. Here’s the video:

In addition to the need to change the subject from Musk’s emasculation of Trump last week and their other stumbles, I think Trump-Miller want to bring the military in because it has become clear in recent weeks that DHS/ICE cannot on their own remove the 10m-15m people Miller wants removed from the country; these 10m-15m are not leaving voluntarily or “self-deporting;” and that current law is not on their side (hence the return of Abrego Garcia).

So part of what is driving this latest escalation is an early attempt to have the Pentagon - illegally, unlawfully - take over domestic immigration enforcement, and to use the threat of military force to accelerate “self-deportation” and extra-judicial compliance. The “we are coming to get you and you might as well leave, now” sentiment is critical to the grand Miller plan, and despite its size and capacities DHS/ICE simply is not equipped or trained to go into urban immigrant communities and successfully remove people. That was the lesson from Paramount on Saturday, and the lesson they’ve been receiving from growing defiance of these the Administration’s wild escalation we’ve all across the country, including from prominent backers of Trump. Miller’s fanatical desire to get rid of all these hardworking immigrants, legal and undocumented, is running into a dead end. So he escalated, and here we are.

As we go forward in this debate it is essential to dis-aggregate the support Trump has for his cracking down on the border (future migrants) from how people feel about this manic desire to mass deport people already here. I will be looking to see where the data comes in this week but we should not assume the country is going to rally around Trump. His base will, but outside of MAGA there has always been majority support for far more humane treatment of immigrants already here. Here is something G. Elliott Morris put together a few weeks ago from a article called, “Trump’s immigration agenda is not popular” (my guess is that these things will get more negative for Trump now):

The latest Civiqs daily track continues to show Trump near the lowest levels of his second term:

Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.

Job One for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play.

Here’s a possible script for contacting your offices. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.

But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.

Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king.

New activities today can also include contacting our Reps and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard in California, and to Stand Up For Science by signing on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire me and all of us to do more and fight harder.

There are three additional efforts we’re working on now:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……

To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, watch her new TV ad, or head over to her campaign website We have now raised over $125,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all! We need to keep working it everyone!

2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $125,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!

We also have ongoing campaigns to raise money for the new DNC, support the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.

3 - Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon