CNN 5 Things

Hey, from CNN, I'm Ifeoma Dike with the five things you need to know for Thursday, June 4th.

'We start with new details on former Attorney General Pam Bondi's closed-door interview with lawmakers last month. In a transcript of her interview released today, Bondi said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was responsible for overseeing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The DOJ has released about three million files compelled by Congress, but Bondi was pushed to explain the holdup releasing another three million files. She argued the documents are all released to her knowledge and argued that the remaining files are either duplicates or privileged materials. She also deferred to FBI Director Kash Patel on whether the Bureau had turned over all relevant documents to the Justice Department. This comes as Trump is expected to formally nominate Blanche to be Attorney General, replacing Bondi as AG after Trump fired her.

'More news coming up, including Trump's controversial fund at the center of a vote-a-rama.

'Senate Republicans rejected multiple efforts to formally kill President Donald Trump's push for a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were victimized by the government. They shot down efforts led by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and retiring North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis. During a marathon voting session for the immigration funding package today, the lawmakers introduced amendments to kill the anti-weaponization fund, putting the immigration enforcement bill in jeopardy. GOP Senator Bill Cassidy also seemed interested in introducing an amendment to shut down the fund, which critics say could serve as a slush fund for Trump allies and could grant payouts to rioters who attacked police officers during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill.

And they were stuck on the first amendment for a considerable amount of time because there were a number of Republicans who wanted to vote with Democrats in order to send this bill back to committee to strip out any additional language for the president's weaponization fund. And you had Senator Bill Cassidy eventually voting with his Republican colleagues, but he was working furiously with leadership in order to try to get some kind of commitment or guardrails around that fund. Now, as we've noted, the Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has made clear that they are not continuing to fight for this fund, but the president has just left the door open enough that some Republicans on Capitol Hill are extremely uneasy about what the future of that weaponization might be.

'Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah rejected the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government in Washington D.C. Today, and is casting more doubt on peace efforts in the Middle East. Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters traded strikes just hours after the deal was struck. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem.

Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qasem, saying that the ceasefire would amount to surrender, defeat, and achieving the enemy's goals. He is vowing that as long as Israel remains in southern Lebanon, quote, "the resistance will continue." And he even called on the Lebanese government to halt these direct negotiations with Israel, calling them an insult. And this is critical because this ceasefire agreement depends not only on Hezballah ceasing its fire against Israel but also on Hezbollah actually removing its forces from southern Lebanon to allow for a situation where basically Israeli troops would begin to withdraw from certain areas and the Lebanese government the Lebanis military would instead move into those areas that would be free of any Hezballah forces or Israeli forces and begin to kind of reassert its sovereignty over southern Lebanon.

Federal officials say Americans who tested positive for Ebola at an observation facility in Kenya could be treated in the U.S. CNN's Jennifer Hansler has more.

Now, this seems to be a shift from what we heard from US officials last week, including Rubio who said that the US quote, "cannot and will not allow cases of Ebola to enter the US." The director of the NIH told CNN that the goal is to avoid quote, inadvertent entry of the deadly virus and pointed to airport screenings across the U.S. Rubio also explained on Wednesday that the facility in Kenya, which has faced significant backlash, is meant to monitor Americans who may have been exposed but did not test positive. A U.S. Official said that there are specialized hospitals in the US to treat Ebola, but also very strong ones in Europe, such as the hospital in Germany that is treating an American doctor who tested positive.

Coming up, Trump's major investment in coal.

As a result of the $700 million investment that I'm announcing today, we will protect 14 coal plants and 42 coal mines. It's a tremendous number. And build two new coal plants and one massive new export terminal because we're exporting coal.

That's President Trump seeking to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry.

Today, we're officially invoking the Defense Production Act to save 13 coal plants in West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

'The Defense Production Act is a 1950 law that grants presidents wide authority over national security-related industries. A White House official said the announcements will support or create more than 14,000 jobs in coal construction rail and maritime industries. The announcement is the latest step by Trump to try to reverse the years-long decline in the U.S. coal industry.

That does it for us. We're back tomorrow morning.