“President Trump revived the idea of taking over Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, saying the capital city should be run ‘flawlessly,'” Axios reports.
Said Trump: “We could run D.C. We’d get the best person to run it.”
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GOP Lawmaker Won’t Challenge Josh Shapiro
“At a rally in Pittsburgh in May, Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA) received the most powerful co-sign in Republican politics: an endorsement from President Donald Trump in the upcoming gubernatorial race,” ABC News reports.
“But after months of speculation, Meuser has recently told associates he will not enter the race to challenge Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D).”
How Insularity Defined the Last Stages of Biden’s Career
New York Times: “The effort by Joe Biden’s inner circle to limit access to him helps explain why it took him more than three weeks to drop his re-election bid after his disastrous debate performance.”
Trump Claims He’ll Make ‘Changes’ to the Media
President Donald Trump raged at the media during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, ominously claiming that the media “ought to make a lot of changes” and adding that “changes are going to be made,” Mediaite reports.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
— President Trump, quoted by the New York Times.
China Says It Will Retaliate on Unfavorable Trade Deals
“Chinese state media warned the Trump administration Tuesday against striking deals that sideline China, after the president announced that Asian countries would face higher tariffs starting Aug. 1, unless other arrangements are agreed on before then,” NBC News reports.
From the People’s Daily: “If such situations arise, China will not accept them and will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
Trump Insists He Won’t Budge on New Tariff Deadline
President Trump said “no extensions will be granted” to his Aug. 1 tariff deadline in a Tuesday social media post, the latest bit of uncertainty over when his tariffs will go into effect, Politico reports.
Said Trump, on Truth Social: “There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change. In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 – No extensions will be granted.”
Bloomberg: “U.S. equities swung between small gains and losses in midday trading Tuesday, with traders’ initial hope for further negotiations on tariffs dashed as President Donald Trump said he would not offer any extensions to a new August 1 deadline.”
Trump Frustrated by Jeffrey Epstein Questions
“President Trump expressed exasperation on Tuesday at questions about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein after the Department of Justice announced Epstein did not have a ‘client list’ and confirmed he died by suicide,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump to reporters: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.”
He added: “I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy, with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.”
House Democrats Demand Release of Epstein Files
“House Democrats on Tuesday demanded that the justice department release documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case that mentions or references Donald Trump, citing a comment by Elon Musk after he fell out with the president this year,” The Guardian reports.
“The House judiciary committee’s ranking member, Jamie Raskin, together with 15 other Democrats sent a six-page letter to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, accusing her of withholding some Epstein files to protect the president from any damaging disclosures.”
Trump is Daring MAGA to Oppose Him
Aaron Blake: “In recent days and weeks, the Trump administration has repeatedly bowed to the realities of governing. It’s done things – on Jeffrey Epstein, on Russia’s war in Ukraine, on deportations, on government spending and on Iran – that risk alienating the MAGA base that brought Trump to the dance.”
“None of that is to say the president is about to lose his base; such predictions have long proven overzealous. And MAGA supporters often take their cues from Trump, readjusting their principles on the fly.”
“But everyone has their limits. Trump’s giving them reasons to be suspect about his and top administration officials’ intentions. And there’s been at least some evidence of a brewing backlash.”
The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller
Jason Zengerle: “There is much truth to the conventional wisdom that the biggest difference between the first and second Trump presidencies is that, in the second iteration, Mr. Trump is unrestrained. The same is true of Mr. Miller. He has emerged as Mr. Trump’s most powerful, and empowered, adviser. With the passage of the big policy bill, ICE will have an even bigger budget to execute Mr. Miller’s vision and, in effect, serve as his own private army. Moreover, his influence extends beyond immigration to the battles the Trump administration is fighting on higher education, transgender rights, discrimination law and foreign policy.”
“Mr. Miller, 39, is both a committed ideologue and a ruthless bureaucratic operator — and he has cast himself as the only person capable of fully carrying out Mr. Trump’s radical policy vision.”
Trump’s New Masked Monster
Garrett Graff: “As someone who has covered federal law enforcement for the last two decades and has spent recent years writing both about the state of democracy today and authoring history books about the fall of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, it’s hard not to look at the new legislation and fear, most of all, how we’re turbo-charging an increasingly lawless regime of immigration enforcement and adding superpowers to America’s newly masked secret police.”
U.S. to Ban Chinese Purchases of Farmland
“U.S. Department of Agriculture chief Brooke Rollins announced Tuesday that the U.S. government will move to ban sales of farmland nationwide to Chinese buyers and other foreign adversaries, citing threats to national security and food security,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump to Visit Flood-Ravaged Texas
“President Donald Trump said he would visit Texas on Friday as the state reels after more than 100 people have been confirmed dead in last weekend’s devastating floods,” USA Today reports.
Congress Is Addicted to Megabills
Ron Brownstein: “Extraordinarily narrow and unstable House and Senate majorities have become routine in modern American politics. The frantic, final maneuvering last week before Congress approved President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act shows why that’s likely to persist for some time.”
“And that means business, local governments, non-profits and ordinary Americans need to buckle up for more hairpin turns in national policy that make it almost impossible to plan for the long term.”
Musk and Yang Have Discussed Third Party Threat
“As Elon Musk moves to create a third party to upend America’s political system, he’s spoken with one-time Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang about the nascent effort,” Politico reports.
Said Yang: “I’m excited for anyone who wants to move on from the duopoly. And I’m happy to help give someone a sense of what the path looks like.”
Who’s Running American Defense Policy?
Tom Nichols: “It’s not the president, at least not on most issues. Trump’s interest in foreign policy, as with so many other topics, is capricious and episodic at best. He flits away from losing issues, leaving them to others. He promised to end the war in Ukraine in a day, but after conceding that making peace is ‘more difficult than people would have any idea,’ the president has since shrugged and given up.”
“It’s not Marco Rubio—you may remember that he is technically the secretary of state, but he seems to have little power in this White House. It’s not Hegseth, who can’t seem to stop talking about “lethality” and trans people long enough to deliver a real briefing that isn’t just a fawning performance for Trump…”
“It’s not the national security adviser. That’s also Rubio.”
“Apparently, American defense policy is being run by Bridge Colby, and perhaps a few other guys somewhere in the greater Washington metropolitan area.”
Why a Third-Party Bid Is Unlikely to Work
New York Times: “The American electoral system tends to favor a two-party system, and one of the most important reasons is that it’s winner-take-all.”
“It doesn’t have proportional representation, which might allow a third party to gain a modest number of seats with a modest share of the vote. Most states don’t employ ranked choice voting, which could hypothetically allow a third party’s voters to eventually transfer their support to a major party. And unlike a parliamentary system, the presidency doesn’t lend itself to coalition government.”
“With third parties unlikely to obtain power, people often see a vote for a third party as a wasted vote that might be better spent ensuring their preferred major party prevails.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “This is one of those things, perhaps, that sounds clever until one thinks about it for, oh, thirty seconds.”
For members: Why Elon Musk’s Third Party Is Doomed
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