Friday, June 5 — the living dead

0:00 A whistleblower says the White House planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead to make immigrants leave the country. The plan wasn't carried out, but it shows you how far this administration is willing to go.

0:13 The biggest story today comes from a former Social Security Administration executive named Jeremiah Schofield.

0:20 He says the White House, working with DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — wanted to add 2.7 million living people to the Social Security Death Master File.

0:31 That's the database that stops benefits when someone dies. Adding a living person to it would cut off their Social Security, Medicare, everything.

0:41 And according to Schofield's sworn disclosure, a DOGE official said the point was to make immigrants so miserable they'd either self-deport or walk into a Social Security office where they could be arrested.

0:53 The plan targeted both undocumented immigrants and, potentially, U.S. citizens caught up in the dragnet.

1:00 It wasn't carried out, but the fact that it was proposed at all tells you something about the operating theory of this government. Then there's the financial war on immigrants.

1:11 Today, four federal agencies — the Treasury's FinCEN, the FDIC, the OCC, and the NCUA — issued a joint advisory telling banks to flag employers of unauthorized workers. They listed eighteen red flags.

1:26 So now your bank is supposed to surveil payroll patterns and report clients who might be employing people without papers. The burden falls hardest on small businesses in agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

1:40 Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Operation Ghost Story indicted six people — two plant managers and four document vendors — while 48 immigrant workers were detained by ICE.

1:53 Those workers face deportation without criminal charges. The company itself faces no penalty. Across the country, state governments are pushing back.

2:04 New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced $12 million more for the Detention Deportation Defense Initiative, bringing the total to over $20 million.

2:13 The money provides lawyers for immigrants in deportation proceedings — people who, unlike criminal defendants, have no guaranteed right to a government-paid lawyer.

2:23 It's a direct state-level countermeasure to the federal enforcement surge. Also today: the Senate passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill on a 52-47 vote. It funds ICE and Border Patrol for three years.

2:39 Crucially, it leaves the so-called anti-weaponization fund — that's the $1.8 billion slush fund created from the Trump v. IRS settlement — completely unrestricted.

2:51 So the administration can still use that money to fight off investigations or reward allies. And speaking of the anti-weaponization fund — its cancellation was reported as a defeat, but that's not quite right.

3:05 The DOJ can still pay January 6 rioters through existing channels, like the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Judgment Fund. That's a permanent Treasury appropriation, no new legislation needed.

3:18 With the Civil Rights Division gutted — about 70% of its attorneys have left — there's very little internal resistance to approving those payouts.

3:27 On the oversight front, Pam Bondi, the former attorney general, sat for a deposition with the House Oversight Committee on May 29. The transcript came out yesterday.

3:39 Harmeet Dhillon, a DOJ lawyer, kept invoking executive privilege to block questions about Bondi's communications with President Trump — even though Bondi was a private citizen at the time.

3:51 House Democrats called it an abuse of process. And at DHS, the Inspector General says the agency has been revoking database access, in one case impeding a criminal investigation with national security implications.

4:06 Out west, the White House is deploying three Cabinet secretaries to force the restart of a corroded offshore oil pipeline in Santa Barbara.

4:14 They've invoked an Iran war emergency to override California's safety objections. It's a Project 2025-style preemption play: use national security powers to wipe out state environmental law.

4:28 The pipeline is corroded; a spill could be catastrophic. And the oil it would produce — about 50,000 barrels a day — would have no real effect on global prices. Then there's the Colorado River.

4:42 The Trump administration is tapping money from the Inflation Reduction Act — a law it spent years trying to kill — to fund emergency drought relief. Record-low flows threaten water and power for 40 million people.

4:57 So they'll take the Democrats' money, but they won't admit the climate crisis that makes it necessary.

5:03 And a quick roundup: The White House is relying on Pakistan, of all countries, to mediate with Iran — the same country it cut $300 million in aid from in 2018 for harboring militants.

5:16 There's a proposed California wealth tax on billionaires that's splitting labor unions — the Building Trades oppose it, SEIU backs it.

5:25 Social Security faces a 23% benefit cut by 2033, but Congress won't raise the payroll tax cap; instead it cut SNAP for 2.5 million people last year.

5:38 And the Freedom 250 anniversary event has turned into a Trump rally after five acts dropped out. None of this is random. We track the whole arc of Project 2025 — we've read and logged 147 of its actions so far.

5:54 Today's moves fit a playbook that was written years ago. We're watching, piece by piece. Next week: the House will take up the $70 billion immigration bill, and the California legislature may move on that wealth tax.

6:09 Also keep an eye on the Sable Offshore pipeline — California will likely sue. I'm Gus Calloway. Stay steady. We'll be here tomorrow.