NBC News: “Jacob Reses, the chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance, will leave the administration at the end of the summer.”
Inside Trump’s Crypto Playbook
Risking little of their own money, President Trump and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they’ve wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.
Trump Isn’t Giving Up on His Slush Fund
Sarah Fitzpatrick: “Behind the scenes, Justice Department and other Trump-administration officials have quietly assured allies that plans for some form of payout remain on track.”
“I spoke with eight people familiar with the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund—including current and former Justice Department officials, current and former members of Congress, a defense attorney, and political operatives close to the administration. All said that Justice Department officials and people close to the White House have indicated that the payout idea has not actually been scrapped.”
“Rather, they say, officials are exploring whether elements of the fund can be reactivated while also examining alternative arrangements to make sure loyalists get compensated.”
Inside America’s Ugly Birthday Battle
Michael Scherer: “The Trump administration broke an agreement to fund the bipartisan semiquincentennial celebrations, saying they will not ‘light taxpayer money on fire.'”
Trump Pushes Limits of Election Investigations
New York Times: “Speaking to a conservative radio host on Monday, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles made an unusually pointed prediction that cast doubt on the results of California’s primary races, even as votes were still being counted.”
Said prosecutor Bill Essayli: “We will be charging some people. It will be election fraud charges in the next — I hate to put timelines on things — one or two months I believe. We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations.”
“The declaration, issued by an outspoken loyalist to President Trump, was a vivid example of the Justice Department’s approach to voting under the Trump administration. The agency is seeking to assert more control over elections and challenge how states conduct them, a shift that could have significant consequences in the midterm elections this year, when control of Congress hangs in the balance.”
‘Left It All on the Field’
Sen. Eric Schmidtt (R-MO) made quite a catch in the congressional baseball game last night.
Trump Officials Suggest a Loan for Health Care Bills
New York Times: “Buried in the fine print of Obamacare regulations, the Trump administration is floating a novel idea for those who can’t afford to shell out tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs.”
“Why not borrow the money from your health insurance company?”
“In the dense 1,121-page final rule issued last month about how the Affordable Care Act market will operate next year, the administration suggested that insurers consider offering loans to cash-strapped customers.”
Trump and Hegseth Broadcast U.S. Military Strikes
New York Times: “In the U.S. military, commanders do not typically speak publicly about future operations to avoid tipping off an adversary or jeopardizing the mission’s success and, possibly, American lives.”
“But that has not dissuaded America’s commander in chief from proclaiming when and how the United States will next attack Iran.”
JD Vance To Guest On ABC’s ‘The View’
“Vice President JD Vance will make his first appearance on The View next week,” Deadline reports.
“His guest spot comes as the show is the subject of an FCC investigation, led by President Donald Trump’s appointed chairman Brendan Carr, over the agency’s equal time rule.”
What Is the Democrats’ Answer to ‘America First’?
Missy Ryan: “Allies no longer believe Trumpism was an aberration and are unlikely just to pick up where Biden left off. Beijing and Moscow are asserting themselves in the belief that America is on the decline. Democrats broadly agree that Trump’s foreign policy—the disregard for allies, the solicitude toward autocracies, the muddiness of the Iran war—has been atrocious.”
“But there are wide differences in opinion over what positions the party should adopt heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election—and the divisions don’t play out in the ways one might expect. Some of the new Democratic proposals carry more than a whiff of Trumpism. Others call for a complete reset, especially on aid to Israel. Underlying everything is the widespread recognition that the establishment order, personified by Biden and his predecessors, left many Americans behind.”
House Republicans Huddle with Hegseth
Politico: “A group of senior House Republicans gathered at the Pentagon on Thursday morning to discuss the military funding portion of another party-line reconciliation bill with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.”
“It’s a sign conversations around ‘Reconciliation 3.0’ are heating up after President Donald Trump signed the GOP-only immigration enforcement funding measure earlier this week.”
House Rejects Bill to Extend Surveillance Power
New York Times: “The House on Thursday rejected a three-week extension of one of the government’s most powerful surveillance authorities for collecting information on foreign threats overseas, further raising the prospect that the law will expire on Saturday.”
“In a 218-to-198 vote, Democrats and Republicans both opposed even temporarily renewing a statute that underpins the government’s cornerstone electronic spying program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It left the law, now set to expire after midnight on Friday, facing its gravest threat in years, with the Senate also at an impasse over extending it.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“They’re dying to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly. We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night. They’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet.”
— President Trump, on Fox & Friends.
How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi
Idres Kahloon: “Who broke Britain? Someone—or something—must have. The past 18 years, enough time for a whole lost generation to be born and brought up, have yielded nothing but stagnation and mass disillusionment. In 2007, before the global financial crisis, Britain was at its postimperial zenith. Median household income had just surpassed that of Germany. A pound was worth more than $2, and London was arguably displacing New York as the center of international banking.”
“But since then, Britain has been left behind. The country’s output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state—and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London. Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I don’t want to reopen the old wounds either. I mean, the debate was one chapter of 35 chapters… And could you imagine if I left that out? How I’d be criticized? Of course I had to include it. But do I want to relive it again and again and again? No. And I think the Democrats are going to do great in the midterms, and we’ll go on and move past this time in history.”
— Jill Biden, quoted by Time, on the Democratic backlash to her memoir.
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Social Security is Facing a Political Crisis
Paul Krugman: “It’s important to understand, however, the nature of the looming crisis. It won’t be an economic crisis. It won’t even be a serious fiscal crisis. Whatever you may have heard, Social Security isn’t in danger of going bankrupt.”
“What we’re facing, instead, is potential political crisis. Congress and the White House could easily take action to sustain America’s retirement system. But given the current state of our politics, there’s no guarantee that they will.”
Democrats Could Win the Senate Without Maine
Semafor: “A once-unthinkable outcome is now a live discussion among Democrats: whether they truly need to win Maine to flip the Senate in November.”
“Democratic groups in Washington closed ranks behind Graham Platner after his decisive primary win on Tuesday, declaring that the novice candidate who’s taken hit after hit can defeat Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins. But the Senate Democratic Caucus isn’t united behind him, and his series of stumbles has some in the party contending that Collins’ defeat is no longer a prerequisite to winning the majority.”
