Elaine Godfrey: “During a conversation onstage at a Moms for Liberty event last week, Donald Trump said something that made even me—a seasoned visitor to Trump’s theme park of hyperbole—look around in confusion at the people around me in the audience.”

Said Trump: “The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it; your kid goes to school, and he comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.”

“Headlines after the event declared that Trump was questioning the acceptance of transgender children. Fact-check: True. But his full comments are worth spending a little more time with. As is typical with the former president’s rhetoric, Trump took the tiniest smidgen of information, inflated it with 10,000 cubic feet of hot air, and sent it flying off into the country to rile up his supporters. Justice, of course, did not attempt to correct him or offer any context.”

Justin Grimmer: “Statistical models that aggregate polling data and use it to estimate the probability of each candidate winning an election have become extremely popular in recent years. Proponents claim they provide an unbiased projection of what will happen in November and serve as antidotes to the ad hoc predictions of talking-head political pundits. And of course, we all want to know who is going to win.”

“But the reality is there’s far less precision and far more punditry than forecasters admit.”

Donald Trump teased on The Lex Fridman Podcast that he would be open to releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files in a second term.

Said Trump: “I mean, I’m not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately. But a lot of people did.”

Former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) told CNBC that he would not vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the presidential election.

New York Times: “Last week, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., were abuzz with talk of listening devices and espionage, possibly by a foreign government. The police were called and the offices were closed for a forensic search.”

“The reality was more Charlie Chaplin than John le Carré.”

“A plastic prank device that can be purchased on Amazon for $13.97 was the cause of the problem.”

“After ten months of almost completely ignoring Jill Stein’s impossibly long-shot presidential bill, the Democratic party is now actively trying to bury her,” The Bulwark reports.

“On Monday, the DNC labeled the Green party presidential nominee a ‘useful idiot for Russia,’ citing Stein’s upcoming event in Tampa in which she’s expected to lend her support to three members of a black leftist group federally charged for allegedly acting as malign foreign agents of Vladimir Putin’s government.”

“It is the first time that the party has name-checked Stein since she launched her White House bid in November 2023—part of an effort to disqualify her in hopes of limiting the votes third party candidates siphon away from Kamala Harris.”

A new ECU poll in North Carolina finds Donald Trump just ahead of Kamala Harris in a multi-candidate field, 48% to 47%.

Media Matters has unearthed another video in which Sen. J.D. Vance ranted that the country has become a “dangerous place to live” because of childless elites.

Said Vance: “And it’s not just they don’t have kids — of course a lot of people don’t have kids for different reasons — it’s that they’re proud of the fact they don’t have kids… They look down on people who invest their time and their future in their children.”

He concluded: “That is a dangerous place to live as a country.”

“When former President Donald Trump held a campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery last week, 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain says he viewed it as a ‘violation,'” CNN reports.

“The youngest son of the late Sen. John McCain had already been moving away from the Republican Party — just weeks ago, he changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Kamala Harris in November.”

“But he is speaking out now for the first time about Trump because of the former president’s conduct at the hallowed ground where several generations of McCain’s family, including his grandfather and great grandfather, are buried.”

The Down Ballot has a complete guide to every abortion ballot measure.

“Reproductive rights activists hope to build on an unbroken string of successes at the ballot box in the two years since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade.”

“The Democratic coalition that elected President Biden in 2020 was fractured and weakened by the time he ended his campaign for re-election. In the six weeks since, Kamala Harris has gone a long way toward repairing the damage,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“But recent Wall Street Journal polling shows the vice president has more work to do to overcome the gains former President Donald Trump has made among Black, Latino and young voters—groups that traditionally back Democrats. Any erosion in the Democratic coalition could decide the election, given that Biden’s support was barely strong enough to win in 2020. The president’s Electoral College victory rested on tiny margins of about 44,000 votes across three states.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to unveil new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech Wednesday in New Hampshire,” the Washington Post reports.

“With days until her first debate with former president Donald Trump, Harris is aiming to draw a contrast with the GOP nominee’s calls for a lower corporate tax rate, the people said. Advisers to the campaign have also discussed including plans to bolster the safety net, such as through child-care or paid leave expansions, alongside tax proposals, although it is unclear whether those or other policies will be in Wednesday’s announcement.”