Punchbowl News: “South Carolina law mandates that GOP Gov. Henry McMaster name a replacement senator who can serve out the rest of Graham’s current term this year.” “But Graham was also up for reelection in November. Republicans will have to hold a primary at some point later this summer to replace Graham on the ballot. […]

“Lindsey Graham, a longtime Republican senator from South Carolina, died suddenly on Saturday night,” the Washington Post reports. ”Graham, a leading GOP foreign policy voice, was running for reelection this year. He had been a staunch ally of President Donald Trump on most matters but had broken with the president on some issues.” ”Graham’s death […]

“The U.S. military on Saturday said it had launched strikes on Iran after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a ship attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz,” the Washington Post reports. ”The announcement came as Tehran declared the vital waterway closed once again and claimed that it had fired a warning shot on a […]

“President Donald Trump on Saturday mocked the Democratic Party for letting ‘loud and unattractive’ socialists take control — before saying he hopes the Dems can ‘fight back’ before it’s too late,” Mediaite reports. Said Trump: “The Radical Left Lunatics, often referred to as Dumocrats, have lost control of their Party. They are being led by […]

Reason: “At its heart, the otherwise complicated and multi-stage Teapot Dome affair of the 1920s, which until Watergate was considered the greatest federal government scandal of all time, was about secret bribes to an administration official that lubricated lucrative regulatory outcomes.” “In 1921, Interior Secretary Albert Fall clandestinely accepted $404,000 ($7.6 million in today’s money) […]

“Vice President JD Vance said he has no doubt accused murderer Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk — but he still wonders if more people were ‘directly involved’ in the slaying,” Mediaite reports. Said Vance: “I’m always going to wonder. I’m always going to wonder what was said and how many contacts Robinson had beforehand. By […]

“One of the biggest wild cards in Georgia politics won’t be on the November ballot. It means there likely won’t be statewide runoff races in Georgia this year,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. “The Libertarian Party of Georgia said it can’t submit the roughly 72,000 signatures required by the Tuesday deadline to qualify statewide candidates […]

“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle celebrated the landmark bipartisan housing bill becoming law overnight Saturday despite President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign it,” ABC News reports. “The 21st Century Road to Housing Act aims to address the country’s housing shortage by increasing the supply of homes and overall homeownership. The legislation loosens regulations […]

We’re planning a summer mailbag episode of Trial Balloon, so send us your questions. They can be about the latest political developments, the 2026 midterms, the Democratic Party’s future, what’s happening behind the scenes at Political Wire — or anything else you think Chris and I should tackle. We’ll answer as many as we can […]

“The White House directed Kash Patel, the FBI director, to oversee a leak investigation into reporting by The New York Times about security issues with the new Air Force One, leading to a flurry of subpoenas to several Times reporters Friday night,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Patel scuttled a planned trip to Chicago […]

“Donald Trump has cleared the way for the opening of a $4.5bn bridge between Canada and Michigan 13 years after the project’s inception, claiming he had secured a better deal from the other side,” the Financial Times reports. “The Gordie Howe International Bridge is now expected to open on July 27 after the U.S. president […]

“A federal judge has reluctantly granted a request by the Justice Department to formally dismiss a criminal case accusing five members of the Proud Boys, the far-right group, of seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the New York Times reports. “In an order filed on Friday night, […]

“The cost of America’s military operations against Iran is steadily growing, with continued escalations over the Strait of Hormuz this week as President Trump threatens to blow up negotiations and return to all-out war,” NewsNation reports. “The immediate cost of military actions in the Middle East will run the government tens of billions of dollars, […]

Wall Street Journal: “The unprecedented mid-decade redrawing of maps by both parties has shaken voters across the country, but it is having an amplified impact in many Southern states where Black voters are set to lose power. Those states, including Alabama as well as Tennessee and Louisiana, have new freedom to draw maps without having […]

“Marine Le Pen extended her lead in a voter preference poll ahead of next April’s French presidential election after appeal judges cleared her to enter the race for a fourth time by shortening a previous ban on her standing,” Bloomberg reports. “The far-right National Rally candidate would get between 34% and 35.5% of the vote […]

“Hunter Biden, the son of former President Biden, was awarded $1.7 million in damages on Friday as part of a defamation lawsuit against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne,” The Hill reports. ”Byrne, a known denier of Biden’s victory over President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, accused the younger Biden of taking part in an […]

“The Trump administration is demanding that Iran publicly acknowledge that the Strait of Hormuz is open and pledge to stop firing on commercial ships,” Axios reports. “The message has been conveyed directly and through regional mediators, three U.S. officials said in a briefing with reporters Friday.” CBS News: White House official says it wants Iran […]

“The world’s modern populists are discovering a common trait that seems to serve them more than the voters they claim to champion,” CNN reports. “When scandal strikes, it’s just fresh evidence of their self-fulfilling prophecy that a shady cabal of ‘deep state’ elites bent on suppressing democracy is out to get them.” “On both sides […]

“U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee warned Tehran on Saturday not to ‘test’ the U.S. military after repeated threats from President Trump in recent days to carry out further strikes on Iranian infrastructure if the regime does not back down to U.S. demands,” NewsNation reports. Said Huckabee: “The president’s trying to give them one more […]

“Investigators have found evidence that Corey Lewandowski may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts during his time as a senior aide at the Department of Homeland Security,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and White House officials have been briefed on the inquiry, as investigators weigh a potential criminal […]

Politico: “The vice president has closely linked himself to the fragile peace talks. The political gamble’s risk came into sharper focus this week as the ceasefire unraveled and the U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iran, driving up oil prices and sparking new headaches for Republicans worried about the midterms.” “Vance more than any other politician […]

Futurism: “Donald Trump is now the first president to have an airport named after him while still in office. And what better way to commemorate this high honor than with lazy AI slop?” “Until a few days ago, the Palm Beach International Airport in South Florida was still called the Palm Beach International Airport. Now […]

“The elaborate funeral rites for Iran’s slain supreme leader that drew huge crowds of mourners offered a show of strength by the country’s surviving leadership as key senior officials boldly emerged into public view for the first time since the war. And in its posture toward the United States, Tehran also now seems emboldened,” the […]

Axios: “Johnson presided over the ninth failed rule vote of his less-than-three-year-long speakership last week, this one tanked by 13 of his members.” ”Frustration in the conference with a small band of conservatives who keep using procedural rule votes — once a rubber stamp for the majority — as leverage to force action on unrelated […]

“For four years, Russia has bet on outlasting Ukraine in a war of attrition. Now, as Kyiv’s drones inflict growing damage on both Russia’s army and oil industry, Moscow is finding out that time isn’t necessarily on its side,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion force is making ever-smaller gains at […]

“Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei announced on Saturday that revenge for his father’s assassination ‘will most certainly be carried out,’” Axios reports.

“American political leaders on the left and right are rebelling against the market-first consensus that dominated Washington for four decades,” Axios reports. “The result is one of the biggest shifts in U.S. economic policy since the Reagan revolution, overturning decades of orthodoxy on trade, manufacturing, housing, health care and corporate power.” ”The shared skepticism of […]

“The Israeli settlers had guns and Representative Ro Khanna was scared,” the New York Times reports. “On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Khanna, the congressman from Silicon Valley who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, was visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a tiny Palestinian Bedouin village in the southern West Bank that was abandoned after escalating […]

“Crews began draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Friday as the Trump administration launched another round of repairs,” Fox News reports. NOTUS: Drain the pool (again).

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