“Vice President JD Vance on Thursday expressed sympathy for former president Richard M. Nixon, suggesting that Nixon was wrongly forced out as president in 1974 and comparing his political travails decades ago to those facing President Donald Trump now,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Vance: “As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”

Bloomberg: Vance says Nixon Watergate scandal wouldn’t end a presidency now.

“President Trump said twice in two days last week that he doesn’t want to be associated with Herbert Hoover, who served during the early years of the Great Depression,” Axios reports.

Said Trump: “I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

And another time: “I’ve studied presidents — some good, some bad, some great… And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

President Trump argued earlier this year that he was “more powerful than some of the most feared and treacherous leaders in history — including Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler,” CNN reports.

President Trump’s nominee to serve as a top independent watchdog at the Department of Justice refused to call the January 6 insurrection an “attack” during questioning by senators, The Guardian reports.

Washington Post: “A giant banner bearing the face of Theodore Roosevelt decorates the facade of the Office of Personnel Management in downtown Washington and carries an inspirational quote it attributes to the late leader.”

“There’s one problem: Historians say the 26th president never uttered the phrase.”

John Harris: “So there they are: three American presidents turning 80 this summer, old men by any measure. They have starkly different styles, temperaments and goals for their country. But they are united in some important ways. All in their own way and in their time were uncommonly talented politicians.”

“All three are also the preeminent representatives of the generation that trashed American politics.”

“Clinton, Bush and Trump surely hold significantly different measures of culpability for the squalor of American political culture. But all three children of 1946 are central characters in a decades-long descent in which Americans have been progressively more tribalistic in their political affiliations; ever-more coarse and insulting in public discourse; more mystified by and contemptuous of those who disagree; less trusting in government and most other establishment institutions, less confident in the country’s ability to reliably and rationally govern itself or fashion a consensus around solving long-term problems, or even to agree on the most basic standards of right and wrong.”

Kyle Kondik: “Over the course of the last three election cycles—including each of the most recent elections for all 100 Senate seats—just 29 of the 100 races were decided by less than 10 points.”

“That is still a higher percentage of at least somewhat competitive elections than we generally see each cycle in the House.”

“Despite being in the minority, Democrats have won more of the truly close races than Republicans have, and it’s something they likely will need to continue to do in both 2026 and into the future given the overall GOP skew of the Senate map.”

Wall Street Journal: “The statue wars that swept away monuments six years ago are back. This time, the battle is to restore them.”

“Traditionalists are suing and lobbying local governments to resurrect memorials to Confederate generals, Founding Fathers and European explorers. Many of the statues disappeared from town squares and other public places during the pandemic-era protests against police violence and racism following George Floyd’s murder in 2020.”

Matt Bai: “No president really wants to be compared to Jimmy Carter (rest his soul), but in Donald Trump’s case, the parallels now are hard to ignore. Carter’s presidency was overtaken by a hostage crisis in Iran, where in 1979 followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini seized 66 Americans and held them (or most of them, anyway) for more than a year. The impasse played out as a televised drama… and became entwined in the public mind with uncontrolled inflation, interest rates, and gas prices, while Carter pleaded with Americans to turn down their thermostats and put on sweaters instead. All of it signaled that the country was spiraling and the president overmatched.”

“Almost a half century later, Trump stumbled into his own implacable hostage crisis in Iran, this one entirely of his own making. For several weeks, Iran has held the Straight or Hormuz — and, by extension, the global economy — at gunpoint.”

“Chances for permanently ending the standoff seem to fluctuate by the day, as Trump desperately seeks a way out of the conundrum. As I write this, the most likely outcome seems to be a humiliating capitulation on Trump’s part, in which Iran will loosen its grip on the oil in exchange for a bunch of vague talking points about future accomplishments.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted that Bill Clinton’s impeachment over his affair with Monica Lewinsky was “a mistake,” the New York Post reports.

Said Gingrich: “I think it was a mistake because the real problem wasn’t Lewinsky.”

He added: “The real problem was he had committed perjury in a case involving sexual harassment while he was governor. In fact, he was stripped of his law license in Arkansas after he left the presidency, and for five years couldn’t practice because he clearly committed a felony.”

John Avlon: “Giuliani has always been a mix of sunshine and shadow. He was a young man who had wanted to join the priesthood but chose to be a prosecutor instead, in part because he knew that he was too hot-blooded to keep his vows. In city hall, there was a constant struggle between the better angels of his nature and the darker impulses of his soul: the instinct to respond to a mosquito with a howitzer, the fact that he was more content to be feared than loved. Earlier this month, Rudy was suddenly hospitalized with pneumonia, sinking into a coma before recovering.”

“This urgent reminder of his mortality prompted me to reflect on the arc of his life. I had a front-row seat to this daily wrestling match as a 27-year-old chief speechwriter in his second term. I learned a lot from him—and the lessons of his life, both positive and negative, should not be lost.”

New York Times: “The Constitution’s framers were doubtless brilliant, and the document they drafted has endured. It is the oldest written national constitution still in force anywhere in the world. But, as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, some constitutional scholars say the second Trump presidency is calling into question whether the nation’s founding charter and sacred text truly provides the balance the founders wanted.”

“President Trump has used the power of the federal government to bully universities, law firms and news outlets; undermined the independence of the Justice Department by instructing it to prosecute his political enemies; defied Congress by impounding money it had instructed him to spend; flouted countless court orders; and cut off funding to states led by Democrats.”

“Barney Frank, the longtime Democratic congressman and leading liberal who brought new visibility to gay rights and crafted the most significant reforms to the financial system in a generation, has died,” the Associated Press reports.

“He was 86.”