A new Gallup poll finds 40% of Americans approving of President Donald Trump’s overall job performance.
Buzz Grows for Possible Padilla California Governor’s Run
“The rumor mill is hitting overdrive that Sen. Alex Padilla is contemplating a bid for California governor — and it’s not just idle talk,” Politico reports.
“A prominent political entity in Sacramento is currently in the field polling the 2026 governor’s race with Padilla’s name included as a potential candidate.”
U.S. Offers Air and Intelligence Support in Ukraine
“The US has said it is prepared to provide intelligence assets and battlefield oversight to any western security plan for postwar Ukraine and take part in a European-led air defense shield for the country,” the Financial Times reports.
“President Donald Trump told European leaders last week America would be part of ‘co-ordination’ of security guarantees for postwar Ukraine, something Kyiv has demanded to deter a future attack from Russia after any peace deal.”
DNC Rejects Resolution for Arms Embargo on Israel
“A polarizing resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel was voted down Tuesday by members of the Democratic National Committee, who opted instead to approve a more modest measure that called for a ceasefire to the conflict in Gaza,” NOTUS reports.
GOP Candidate Vows to ‘End Islam’
Valentina Gomez, a Republican running for Congress in Texas, shared a video of her burning the Koran with a flamethrower as part of her effort to “end Islam,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said Gomez: “Your daughters will be raped and your sons beheaded, unless we stop Islam once and for all. America is a Christian nation, so those terrorist Muslims can fuck off to any of the 57 Muslim nations. There is only one true God, and that is the God of Israel.”
Lisa Cook Will Sue Over Trump Firing
“Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook will sue over President Trump’s attempt to fire her from the central bank,” Axios reports.
Dan Scavino Takes Over Hiring in the White House
“Senior Trump adviser Dan Scavino is taking over as director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office — an influential role charged with staffing the administration,” Axios reports.
“Scavino is Trump’s longest-serving aide, having worked for the president since 2015, when Trump rode down an escalator in New York’s Trump Tower and announced his first White House bid.”
Does It Matter That Firing a Fed Governor Is Illegal?
Paul Krugman: “Yesterday Donald Trump said that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors… Cook has said that she will not resign.”
“So at this point the immediate onus is on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman. He has the right — I would say the obligation — to say, ‘Show me the legal basis for this action.’ If Trump’s officials can’t provide that basis, he should declare that as far as he is concerned, Cook is still a Fed governor.”
“If Powell caves, or the Supreme Court acts supine again and validates Trump’s illegal declaration, the implications will be profound and disastrous. The United States will be well on its way to becoming Turkey, where an authoritarian ruler imposed his crackpot economics on the central bank, sending inflation soaring to 80 percent.”
Playbook: “The dilemma for the Fed is immediate… Do they treat her as fired or not?”
A Warning Shot to Trump’s Critics
Ty Cobb, one of President Trump’s first-term White House attorneys, was asked by NPR what he thought about when he heard the FBI had searched John Bolton’s home last Friday.
Said Cobb: “Well, I went down and locked my door.”
Don Jr. Invests in Polymarket
Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital fund invested in Polymarket, the world’s largest predictions market, and he’ll join the firm’s advisory board, Axios reports.
The likely motivation: “Americans aren’t allowed to use Polymarket, which claims to have hosted over $6 billion in predictions so far this year, but that may soon change.”
Donald Trump’s Big Gay Government
New York Times: “There were some gay appointees during the first Trump administration, but it wasn’t like now. Mr. Trump initially arrived in Washington as a true outsider; he had to draw from the disparate parts of the old GOP he had vanquished in order to staff his government. This time around, he has his own establishment.”
“And it turns out that the MAGA establishment has a lot more openly gay men than the Republican establishment that came before it.”
Time to Stand Up and Fight
Jonathan Bernstein: “Trump’s buffoonery makes him very possible to defeat… but if enough people surrender to him, he could wind up fully destroying the republic, incompetence and all. And the history of autocracy is full of those who regretted failing to stand up and fight when they still could.”
Related for members: What Democrats Could Learn from Vladimir Putin
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I would say also that his personal attacks on me are just evidence of a guy who’s still living in fifth grade. He’s the kind of bully that throws invectives at people – because he knows that what he’s saying is actually commentary on himself.”
— Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), quoted by The Guardian, responding to President Trump’s insults about his fitness.
DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk
New York Times: “Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.”
“The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.”
How AOC Built a Fundraising Juggernaut
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is building a fundraising juggernaut that is rivaling some of the Democratic Party’s core infrastructure, prompting questions about both her future and the party’s,” CNN reports.
“Small-dollar donations – contributions of less than $200 – are the lifeblood of campaigns and a key measure of voter enthusiasm. And on ActBlue, Democrats’ largest online fundraising platform, the New York congresswoman received the third-most small-dollar donations in the first half of the year.”
“That trailed only the Democratic National Committee and the party’s Senate campaign arm, key party infrastructure. Ocasio-Cortez beat the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House campaign arm, and every other individual candidate.”
Confederate Payback
Seth Masket: “There is a standing army in the nation’s capital. The President deployed troops to Los Angeles earlier this year, and he’s now threatening to deploy some to Chicago, among other cities. People are struggling with the right way to think about this; I tend to view this as the ideological descendants of the Confederacy seeking payback against the Union.”
“It’s important to recognize how much Trump, and the modern Republican Party more generally, has adopted Confederate tropes and ideology.”
Democrats Open Wide Lead in the Generic Ballot
A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by a wide margin, 49% to 41%.
President Trump’s job approval is at just 41% to 56%.
Trump Goes Full North Korea
The Labor Department unfurled a huge banner with President Trump’s face on the front of its office building.
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