Alex Brandon / AP

-Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey)

Today in 5 Lines

  • President Trump again defended his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy ahead of a meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill Tuesday evening to discuss immigration.

  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that his Republican colleagues support legislation to end the practice of separating families at the border, adding that a bill “would need to be a narrow agreement to fix the problem we all agree needs to be fixed.”

  • Joe Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations who led the planning for Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has resigned.

  • UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council.

  • Voters in the nation’s capital are heading to the polls for the D.C. primary election, where the mayor, attorney general, and several lawmakers are up for reelection. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

Today on The Atlantic

  • A Troll Succeeds: Reports about children being separated from their parents at the border have prompted online outrage and even protests. That’s exactly what Stephen Miller wants. (McKay Coppins)

  • How Did the GOP Get Here?: The party that is supposed to stand for family values is defending a government agency separating children from their parents, writes Bethany Mandel.

  • The Happiness Gap: A new mental-health study found that as rich Americans have gotten happier since the 1990s, low-income Americans saw decreases in positive feelings and life satisfaction. (Olga Khazan)

  • Inside a Mass Trial: Under the Trump administration’s new policy to prosecute illegal immigrants, large-scale criminal hearings have become the norm. (Russell Berman)

Snapshot

First lady Melania Trump sits on a couch surrounded by reporters as she participates in a meeting with President Trump, Spain's King Felipe VI, and Queen Letizia in the Oval Office. Susan Walsh / AP

What We’re Reading

What Are the Facts?: The president and top administration officials say that U.S. laws require them to separate immigrant families illegally crossing the border. Here’s what’s actually going on. (Salvador Rizzo, The Washington Post)

The Space Force Is a Bad Idea: Christian Britschgi argues that the Trump administration should let private companies take the lead in space development, instead of wasting government money. (Reason)

Killing the Metro: A network of activists, sponsored by the Koch brothers, is leading a nationwide fight against public transit. And so far, they’re having tremendous success. (Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times)

Permanent Separation: John Sandweg, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told NBC News that sometimes, families separated at the border are unable to be reunited. “You could be creating thousands of immigrant orphans in the U.S.,” he said. (Julia Ainsley)

Visualized

‘Border Purgatory’: Watch as U.S. border-patrol agents repeatedly turn away a family of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Jeremy Raff, The Atlantic)

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