The President Is Calling

Welcome to Final NOTUS, a daily speed read on what you need to know before your evening begins. I’m Tim Grieve, the editor in chief of NOTUS, and I’d love to hear what you think.

The Latest

Donald Trump has a message for John Roberts: SCOTUS could rule this week on tariffs, and Trump says the country will be “SCREWED” if he loses. The U.S. would have to pay back “trillions” if tariffs are overturned, Trump said, and it wouldn’t even know where to start.

• “It may not be possible,” the president wrote on Truth Social, “but, if it were, it would be Dollars that would be so large that it would take many years to figure out what number we are talking about and even, who, when, and where, to pay.”

John Thune seems skeptical of the Jerome Powell probe. “I haven’t seen the case, or whatever the allegations or charges are,” the Senate majority leader told reporters this afternoon, NOTUS’ Ursula Perano reports. “But I would say they better be real and they better be serious.”

• Scott Bessent reportedly warned Trump that the Powell investigation could backfire. The treasury secretary “thought that when the president named a new Fed chair, that Powell would go. But now that’s not going to happen,” a source told Axios. “Now [Powell is] dug in. This really made a mess of things.”
• Karoline Leavitt said the president has “every right” to criticize the Fed chair. “As for whether or not Jerome Powell is a criminal, that’s an answer the Department of Justice is going to have to find out.”

Iran has a message for the United States: Iran’s foreign minister told ambassadors that his country is “prepared for war” but also “prepared for negotiations.” Leavitt said U.S. airstrikes are “one of the many, many options that are on the table,” but that “diplomacy” is always Trump’s first choice.

• Breaking: The president says he’s imposing a 25% tariff on any country that does business with Iran.

The Hill

Elizabeth Warren says Trump called her today, and she told him Congress can pass a bill capping interest rates on credit cards “if he will actually fight for it.”

Mark Kelly is suing Pete Hegseth over the defense secretary’s attempts to bust back his rank and cut his retirement pay for cutting a video in which he said soldiers could refuse unlawful orders.

Mary Peltola is running for Senate in Alaska. The former Democratic representative will force Republicans to spend money in a state Trump won by double digits in 2024.The Justice Department says a House employee stole 240 cell phones. Prosecutors say a systems administrator for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure “allegedly used his position to cause 240 new government cell phones to be shipped directly to his home in Maryland … then sold over 200 of the cell phones to a nearby pawn shop.”

The Administration

Is Trump turning on Pam Bondi? The Wall Street Journal says he’s been telling aides that the attorney general is weak and ineffective.The Trump administration violated the Equal Protection Clause when it cut energy grants in blue states, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled today.

• “This case is unique,” Mehta wrote, because government officials “freely admit that they made grant-termination decisions primarily — if not exclusively — based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024.”

Two aides to Lori Chavez-DeRemer were put on leave while the Department of Labor’s inspector general investigates allegations that they came up with “official” events for the labor secretary to justify personal travel at the government’s expense.

Politics

Meta picked its new president: Dina Powell McCormick. The other president is very pleased.

Everyone’s an Editor on Wikipedia

Thank you for reading! Today’s newsletter was produced by Kate Nocera, Matt Berman and Andrew Burton. If you like it, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please subscribe — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at finalnotus@notus.com.