Today in one sentence: Trump is still preparing for the cancelled-but-still-possible nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un and it meeting with a DPRK official in NYC; two more Republican lawmakers will not be seeking reelection this year; Trump announced a major escalation in his trade war with China just days after tentative solution to the dispute; Ivanka Trump was approved for 7 more patents in China days after Trump pledged to save ZTE, which was also 3 days after China approved a huge loan to a theme park involved with Trump's businesses, which has Democrats calling for an ethics investigation; Trump claimed Mueller would try to meddle in the midterms; and Giuliani admitted the "spygate" conspiracy was just a PR campaign to discredit Mueller.

1/ The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement lost track of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied immigrant children between October and December of 2017. The acting assistant secretary of the Administration of Children and Families, Steven Wagner, claimed during testimony in April that the agency was not legally responsible for the 1,475 missing children. “I understand that it has been [the Department of Health and Human Service’s] long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care,” Wagner said. The children are not lost, said Deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, their sponsors “simply did not respond or could not be reached when this voluntary call was made.” The comments come as the Trump administration have been defending the policy of separating immigrant children from their families as part of increased border enforcement efforts at the U.S.-Mexico border. (CNN / Reuters / NPR)

  • How federal authorities track undocumented minors. “My experience both in the Obama administration and under prior administrations, both Republican and Democratic,” said former head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement under Obama, Bob Carey, “was that the law was not interpreted in the same way. And children were not being separated from their parents unless there was a very strong body of evidence that indicated that they were not their parents.” (NPR)

  • ACLU: Border patrol beat, kicked and threatened migrant children with sexual abuse during Obama administration. Migrant children under the care of United States Customs and Border Protection were allegedly beaten, threatened with sexual violence and repeatedly assaulted while in custody between 2009 and 2014, according to a report from the ACLU. (Newsweek)

2/ The White House said it “continues to actively prepare” for the proposed-but-canceled summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. White House officials have been characterizing the cancellation letter Trump sent to Kim as a negotiating tactic, one that is purportedly designed to bring the North back to the table. (Associated Press)

  • A nuclear weapons expert says North Korean disarmament could take up to 15 years to complete. Former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, Siegfried S. Hecker, is warning that North Korea’s sprawling atomic complex could take 15 years to dismantle, and argues that the best the United States can hope for is a phased denuclearization that goes after the most dangerous parts of the North’s program first. (New York Times)

3/ A top North Korean official is headed to New York to discuss the possibility of reviving the canceled nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un. Kim Yong Chol is a vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee on inter-Korean relations, and is expected to meet with Mike Pompeo this week to try and dispel skepticism and develop a joint agenda that would put the June 12 nuclear summit back on the table. (Associated Press / New York Times / ABC News)

4/ Rep. Thomas Garrett of Virginia announced that he is an alcoholic and will not seek reelection in November. Unnamed former staffers recently accused Garrett and his wife of mistreating them and making them into their personal servants while they worked for Garrett’s office. Garrett insists his departure from politics was spurred solely by his addiction. Garrett will be the 48th Republican to retire or refuse to seek reelection to the House this year. (Washington Post)

5/ Rep. Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania will not seek reelection in November, because “all I do is answer questions about Donald Trump.” Costello, a Republican from Pennsylvania’s 6th congressional district, originally announced in March that he would not be running for Congress again this year. “No matter what I say or do,” Costello said recently, “I feel all I do is answer questions about Donald Trump rather than health insurance or tax policy.” Costello also cited the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to redraw the his district as a major factor in his decision not to run again. (CNN / The Hill)

6/ Trump will impose investment restrictions against China, file litigation against China at the World Trade Organization, and impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods by the end of June. The trade dispute between Trump and China had become somewhat muted in recent weeks, and Washington and Beijing announced a tentative solution to their dispute just days ago. Trump’s decision, however, contradicts that truce and is seen as an escalation in an ongoing tit-for-tat between the two largest economies in the world. (Politico / CNBC)

7/ China awarded Ivanka Trump’s company seven new trademarks just days before her father vowed to find a way to save the Chinese telecom giant ZTE, even though the company violated U.S. sanctions against countries like Iran and North Korea. The trademarks span a wide range of businesses, including books, housewares, and cushions. Ivanka Trump already held more than a dozen trademarks in China, as well as multiple pending trademark applications. Her father holds more than 100 trademarks in China. (New York Times / The Guardian)

8/ More than 60 House Democrats are calling for an ethics probe into the “extremely short time frame” between Trump’s pledge to save ZTE and a $500 million loan made by the Chinese government to an Indonesian theme park that includes Trump Organization properties. Trump vowed to save ZTE just three days after China approved the massive loan to the theme park, which will include a Trump-branded hotel and golf course, as well as residences and shops. Democrats sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics calling for an investigation into the timing of Trump’s statements. “We believe that these events raise several potential constitutional and ethical violations,” the letter reads. Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island tweeted out the full text of the letter on Sunday. (Newsweek)

9/ Trump claimed that Robert Mueller’s team will meddle in the 2018 midterm elections in favor of Democrats. “The 13 Angry Democrats (plus people who worked 8 years for Obama) working on the rigged Russia Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted, “will be MEDDLING with the mid-term elections, especially now that Republicans (stay tough!) are taking the lead in Polls. There was no Collusion, except by the Democrats!” (CNN / Washington Post)

10/ Giuliani admitted that Trump’s “Spygate” conspiracy theory is part of a public relations campaign aimed at discrediting the Mueller investigation in the eyes of the public. Dana Bash pressed Giuliani to acknowledge that he and Trump were using a “very specific, very political strategy to undermine [the Mueller] investigation” and using political tactics to shape public opinion. “It is for public opinion,” Giuliani admitted, “because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach.” He continued: “Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, are going to be informed a lot by their constituents. And so our jury is — as it should be — is the American people.” (New York Magazine / The Guardian / CNN)

poll/ Roughly 4 out of 5 gun owners and non-gun owners in the U.S. support the following gun control measures: universal background checks, stronger accountability for missing guns, a safety test for concealed carry permits, improved mental health reporting, preventing people with temporary domestic violence restraining orders from obtaining guns, and a civil process that allows families to petition the court to remove a firearm from someone deemed to be at serious risk of harming themselves or others. (Reuters)

poll/ Twenty-two percent of Republicans think Trump provides somewhat or very little moral leadership. Fifty-nine percent of Americans believe that, and 60% of Independents and 91% of Democrats feel the same way. (CNN)

Notables.

  1. Former President George H.W. Bush was taken to a hospital in Maine on Sunday after he experienced low blood pressure and fatigue. Bush will likely remain in the hospital for observation over the next few days. “The former president is awake and alert, and not in any discomfort,” a family spokesperson wrote on Twitter. (Reuters)

  2. Rudy Giuliani was booed at Yankee Stadium when the announcer wished him a happy 74th birthday over the loudspeaker. (NY Daily News)

  3. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Arkansas’ restrictive abortion law. The law requires providers of medication-based abortions, which use pills to induce abortions in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, to have contracts with doctors who have admitting privileges at a hospital in the state. (New York Times)

  4. The Supreme Court ruled that in general, police must get a warrant in order to search someone’s driveway. The Court ruled that Officer David Rhodes violated the law when he entered the property of a Virginia motorcyclist without a warrant or an invitation. (New York Times / Collins v. Virginia)

  5. The Trump administration refused to acknowledge the conclusions of the scientific community when it comes to dealing with climate change. An internal White House memo revealed the only three options the administration is considering when it comes to dealing with federal climate science reports. They are: (1) consider “debating” the established climate science; (2) cast doubt on scientists’ conclusions; and (3) simply ignore those conclusions. (The Guardian)

  6. A new Harvard study estimates at least 4,645 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria. The official U.S. government death toll still only lists 64 people. (Washington Post)

  7. Roseanne Barr tweeted that former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was a cross between Planet of the Apes and the Muslim Brotherhood. Barr later apologized on Twitter, but ABC still cancelled the show “Roseanne” hours after the racist tweet and her subsequent apology. (Snopes / NPR / New York Times / ABC News)

  8. A GOP Congresswoman from Tennessee said pornography was a “big part” of the reason for the recent spike in school shootings. Rep. Diane Black: “It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she said. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.” (HuffPost)

Last year today: Day 130: Backchannel.