“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is laughing off ‘Woke 1,'” Axios reports. “But she’s carrying baggage from the 2020 era of cultural progressivism that some Democrats say is an obstacle to a future presidential run.” “Why it matters: AOC’s pivot to the cultural center — which she began to roll out last week in a high-profile ABC […]

“President Donald Trump spent last week handing out coveted endorsements ahead of Florida’s Tuesday primaries. But amid the parade of thumbs-ups on Truth Social, one House Republican incumbent was conspicuously absent: Rep. Cory Mills,” Puck reports. “Trump endorsed Mills earlier in the cycle, but his recent omission offers the clearest evidence yet of the campaign […]

“President Donald Trump said Sunday he directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to ‘substantially reduce’ joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his ‘very good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,'” the Washington Post reports. Said Trump: “These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States […]

“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by […]

Republicans hold a 53-to-47 Senate majority—and the vice president breaks ties in their favor. That means Democrats must flip at least four seats, not three, to take control of the upper chamber. The battleground has narrowed to seven states. Join now to continue reading. Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more. […]

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) “used her new YouTube talk show to debut spicy tattoos on both arms — as she went sleeveless in public for the first time in months,” the New York Post reports. “Mace broke out her inked-up gun show while promoting ‘Get Maced,’ a program where she will apparently address news of […]

“U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper on Sunday acknowledged mental health challenges aboard the USS Lincoln after reports that a sailor jumped overboard amid the aircraft carrier’s long Middle East deployment,” CNBC reports. Said Cooper: “Here’s an important fact: Of the U.S. Navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers, the Lincoln currently has among the lowest […]

“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) indicated that he does not currently support Medicare for all legislation after co-sponsoring similar bills from 2013-2021,” NBC News reports.

“Californian billionaires have poured nearly $40 million in fresh money into the campaign against a proposed wealth tax that will be on the state’s ballot this November,” the Financial Times reports. New York Post: Billionaire civil war brews between ex-Google bosses as Eric Schmidt rages at mega-rich wealth tax coalition. Fox News: The only map […]

“The Supreme Court’s emergency docket has flared up in the thick of the justices’ summer recess,” NewsNation reports. “President Trump is urging the justices to revive his mail ballot restrictions and allow White House ballroom construction to resume. It again puts the high court in the hot seat after its string of key rulings on […]

“Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed attorney general, refused to say on Sunday that he would always act independently of White House control but claimed during an interview that President Trump has ‘never’ demanded he prosecute specific people,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Blanche, displaying a greater ease in fielding a variety of pointed questions […]

“President Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner met Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday to press them to carry out their commitment to disarm, according to two sources familiar with the meeting,” Axios reports. “This was Kushner’s first meeting with Hamas leaders since the signing of the agreement to end the war in Gaza last October.” ”The […]

“Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s executive order last week targeting the childhood vaccine schedule, calling the action ‘a stupid thing to do,'” ABC News reports. Said Cassidy: “Let’s just take it from the perspective of the parent why this is a — why this is just a stupid thing to do. […]

“Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday that he hasn’t heard back from Sen. Mitch McConnell following formal requests for updates on his health last month amid a weekslong hospitalization that prompted widespread speculation and concern,” CBS News reports.

“President Trump’s vision for a White House ballroom stretches back more than a decade. His argument that it is ‘vital to our national security,’ which culminated Friday in an appeal to the Supreme Court, is far more recent,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “When Trump announced last year that he was demolishing part of the […]

“One bill proposes increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13. Another would cut their lifetime terms to 18 years. Others would create an enforceable ethics code and place standards on how the court rules from its relatively opaque ‘shadow docket,’” the Washington Post reports. ”The latest wave of proposals to overhaul […]

Ron Brownstein: “Democrats this year are seriously contesting more races for governor and senator across the industrial Midwest and Farm Belt than at any point since the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency.” “The party still faces substantial skepticism from many heartland voters, especially on cultural issues, but frustration over the high cost of living […]

David Smith: “He was always one step ahead. Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency as a wildly unlikely outsider in 2016 and staged an astonishing comeback to win it again in 2024. Even his foes grudgingly called him a political savant with an intuition for exploiting grievances that left so-called experts floundering.” “But now they […]

Financial Times: “Most U.S. voters say they have become worse off under Donald Trump, according to an FT poll revealing mounting discontent with the president’s handling of the economy and cost of living.” “With less than three months until November’s midterm elections, the nationwide poll conducted by Focaldata found that over 53 percent of registered […]

“In mid-May, U.S. negotiators trying to reach a deal with Iran to end the war ran into a problem: They couldn’t tell if the people across the table actually spoke for the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Axios reports. “So Trump administration officials did something unconventional — they went around Iran’s negotiators and reached […]

“Even as U.S. policy has walled off Washington, D.C. from friends across the pond, Americans’ travel overseas is reaching new heights,” Axios reports. “Much like the resilient consumer, the American tourist keeps riding the post-Covid travel wave, even as debt delays life milestones and global perceptions of the U.S. slip.”

Aaron Blake: “One of the Trump administration’s biggest problems in extracting itself from the Iran war is the list of very absolutist goals that President Donald Trump and his team laid out.” “The goals have included complete Iranian surrender, regime change, Iran never getting a nuclear weapon and ending Tehran’s support for its Middle East […]

“A movement of young, progressive outsiders has stormed Democratic politics this year, sparking a wave of contentious primary contests across the country and fueling a fraught debate over whether these new, left-wing candidates are remaking the party in their image,” the New York Times reports. “But as primary season winds to a close, the results […]

Nate Cohn: “When the midterm election campaign began, Michigan seemed like a state that Democrats could take for granted in their pursuit of the Senate. Yes, it’s a presidential battleground state, but that makes it the kind of state that Democrats would ordinarily win easily in what seems like a strongly Democratic midterm cycle.” “It’s […]

Politico: “Now, as Sacramento prepares for Becerra’s all but inevitable ascension, the elected officials, lobbyists, and corporate and labor leaders who shape policy in one of the nation’s most consequential capitals are grappling with a contradiction: Despite Becerra’s decades in public service, no one seems to be quite sure what he’ll do with the biggest […]

“Frustration with Washington is growing in the Persian Gulf region, where U.S. allies are increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump is unable to manage the diplomacy necessary to secure peace with Iran, Arab and Western officials say,” the Washington Post reports. “Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly issued threats against Iran, only to withdraw them, […]

New York Times: “No one expects China to curb its expansionist activities in the region anytime soon. And there are growing doubts among Asian nations over what the United States would be willing to do to deter China, given the enormous distraction and resource drain of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.” “The United States is […]

“The U.S. admiral overseeing the war with Iran visited the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday as the aircraft carrier prepares to return home following an extended wartime deployment,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The visit by Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper capped a 10-day trip that also included visits to Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi […]

“The Trump administration doesn’t want Apple to buy memory chips from China, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview. Apple may do so anyway,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Insatiable demand for computer memory among companies building artificial-intelligence data centers has led to a shortage of the critical component and skyrocketing prices for what […]

“Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema testified that she repeatedly had sex with her then-married security guard while she was in office representing Arizona,” Fox News reports. “Matthew Ammel’s ex-wife, Heather Ammel, is suing the Democrat-turned-independent, who left office at the beginning of last year, for allegedly breaking up her 14-year marriage.”