Carroll Doherty: “Compared with past presidents, Trump’s job approval ratings have, for the most part, moved within a narrow range. The reason is simple: He has always had a low ceiling, constrained by the single-digit approval he gets from Democrats and independents who lean Democratic. But he also has a high floor, thanks to the steady, 80 percent-plus support he invariably receives from the GOP base.”

“That’s what makes the firestorm surrounding the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files such a potentially pivotal moment for the president. Coming on the heels of the U.S. bombing of Iran (not to mention passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, faulted by some conservatives for its deficit-busting spending), the Epstein affair is about to reveal something important about the resilience of Trump’s bond with the GOP base. The suspicion Epstein is generating among Republicans is raising questions about whether Trump’s floor may finally crack — and, one way or another, become the ‘it’ moment his opponents have eagerly awaited for so long.”

“President Trump is redirecting his fury over the Jeffrey Epstein files into one of MAGA’s oldest obsessions: punishing Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the officials involved in the 2016 Russia investigation,” Axios reports,

“In Trump’s view, any documents linking him to Epstein are a ‘hoax’ cooked up by the same forces behind the Russia probe. To him, it’s all one story — a years-long ‘witch hunt’ that plagued his presidency from Day 1.”

“The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday,” CNN reports.

“Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency.”

“Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency.”

NBC Sports: “Twice on Sunday, President Donald Trump took to his social-media account on his social-media platform to insist that two professional sports teams restore Native American-based names they’d previously abandoned.”

“Both the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians became the targets for an all-caps tirade… He eventually threatened the Commanders with the possibility that the Commander-in-Chief won’t help them get a D.C. stadium deal done if they don’t re-embrace the nickname that is widely regarded as a racial slur.”

“And while the Guardians stood up and responded to Trump, the Commanders are hiding under the bed. With the NFL right next to them.”

“The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination,” the AP reports.

“The release involves an estimated 200,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.”