Today’s notice: We read the new FEC reports. Rescissions deals are being made. Jaime Harrison wants to talk about the future of the Democratic Party.
THE LATEST
What’s in your wallet? Campaigns had a deadline of Tuesday night to report their second-quarter fundraising. The NOTUS team sifted through the numbers that will mean a lot come next year’s midterms. Some key takeaways:
Majorities help. Republicans are really padding the coffers as they go into what’s typically a harder election cycle for the party in power.
Vulnerable Republicans are largely keeping their fundraising up. For example, Rep. Scott Perry, who represents a south-central Pennsylvania swing district, raised nearly $900,000 from April through June. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine collected about $2.4 million.
One exception: Sen. Joni Ernst. She reported raising just over $720,000 during the second quarter, which isn’t nothing (plus she has $3.4 million on hand), but it’s also not going to quell retirement rumors. Compare that to Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who raised over 13-times more than Ernst.
Which brings us to the Democrats. Establishment House Democrats in competitive seats like Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Henry Cuellar couldn’t hit the half-million mark. Reps. Jim Costa and Dina Titus didn’t even clear $300,000.
The fresher faces in the Democratic Party had better quarters. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet raised around $800,000. Rep. Adam Gray brought home about $721,000. Rep. Laura Gillen raised just over $741,000. And Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who recently made headlines for proposing ethics investigations into cognitive impairment, netted just under $905,000.
Open Tabs: Trump touts investments at tech summit (Semafor); Tariff-driven inflation begins to emerge (AP); Big banks profit in the Trump era (NYT)
From the Hill
Resizing rescissions: The Senate moved through a procedural hurdle with Donald Trump’s rescission package last night, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Today they debate, then comes vote-a-rama.
Where things stand: Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski voted against moving forward with the bill. Sen. Mike Rounds got to “yes” after the Office of Management and Budget promised to shift $10 million in funding for 14 tribal radio station grants in rural areas. (The bill cut the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s funding by roughly $1 billion.) Republican senators also plan to leave $400 million in foreign aid cuts out of the package.
“I’m willing to take on faith that they’re going to do it right,” Sen. Thom Tillis said, “but if they mess up, they may destroy any chance of another rescission, and that’ll be on them.”
It’s a clock game now. This is how close Republicans are playing this: As long as senators can give the House at least a few hours to pass the bill, Republicans think there’s enough time.
From the White House
This phase of the Epstein saga was self-inflicted. For a second there it seemed as though Trump had successfully quelled the Epstein fervor. MAGA stalwart Dinesh D’Souza said it was “time to move on,” while the FBI’s deputy director, Dan Bongino, showed up for work again after speculation he would quit over this.
“It’s dormant, not dead,” a MAGA strategist close to the White House told Jasmine. “And they have Bongino staying and toughing it out to thank.”
Then Tuesday afternoon, Trump told a reporter that whatever Attorney General Pam Bondi “thinks is credible, she should release.” Bondi has said there’s nothing more to release.
On cue, Bondi was asked about what the president said at an event, and she demurred. By day’s end, Speaker Mike Johnson was on MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson’s show. “We should put everything out there and let the people decide,” the House speaker said. The attorney general “needs to come forward and explain.” Which is what Bondi was supposed to have been doing last week.
THE BIG ONE
Democrats’ new podcast bro: Former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison is jumping into audio. Whereas others, like Gov. Gavin Newsom, have pushed to appear with political opponents, Harrison told NOTUS his show is about giving Democrats space to “let their hair down a little bit” and “dispel caricatures.”
His show, “At Our Table,” drops tomorrow and the first episodes feature Hunter Biden and Gov. Tim Walz. Future episodes include conversations with Govs. Andy Beshear and Wes Moore.
Why Hunter? “I just thought, what a way to start this off is to let Hunter show who he is, and you can either like it or hate it,” Harrison said Tuesday.
Why Walz? The 2024 campaign “sort of put handcuffs on him and the VP, Kamala Harris, in terms of not letting them be who they are.” Harrison said he felt that same “straightjacket” while serving as DNC chair.
On the newest young face of the party: Harrison said it’s on Zohran Mamdani to calm establishment Democrats’ concerns, particularly by “spending time with the Jewish community … and doing everything in his power to alleviate those fears.” (Mamdani has many prominent Jewish supporters in New York, but establishment Democrats nervous about him keep raising his criticisms of Israel.) Still, “I think the first step is with him, because if he does what he needs to do everything will fall into place,” Harrison said.
On aging Democrats, Harrison said activists are missing the mark. “People are so big right now on just the caricature of ‘OK, you’re 70-something years old. You need to go away.’ But the real question is, what do you bring to the table? What young person has more fire than Maxine Waters, right?”
So, who is the most inspiring Democratic leader at the moment? “I don’t want to get myself in trouble with that right now,” he said, laughing.
NEW ON NOTUS
Softball politics: “I just see her like, ‘Oh, she’s a great teammate.’ Then, of course, I come off the field and I might see something that she said politically, and then it becomes unfortunate, because … you’re like, ‘Oh, like, I can’t believe she said that,’” Rep. Nanette Barragán told NOTUS’ Oriana Gonzáles of playing with Rep. Lisa McClain in the Congressional Women’s Softball Game at a time like this.
ICE masks: Videos of masked, plainclothed ICE officers detaining migrants have become a viral hallmark of Trump 2.0. NOTUS’ Emily Kennard reports on the growing partisan split over this practice. “Just look at the increase in reports of people impersonating ICE agents and creating even more chaos in communities,” said Rep. Grace Meng, who introduced a bill that would require agents to display badges.
More: Congress’s Crypto Week Derailed on Day 1; Democrats Say They’ll Fight Redistricting in Texas; Michael Waltz Is Trying to Become UN Ambassador. Senate Democrats Are Trying to Make Signal-Gate Stick.; New York House Democrats Stop Short of Pressuring Leaders to Endorse Mamdani
NOT US
- Andrew Cuomo on His Loss, Zohran Mamdani’s Win, and the Rematch Ahead, by David Freedlander for New York
- Lead investigator into Biden’s use of an autopen signed letters with a digital signature, by Ryan Nobles and Melanie Zanona for NBC News
- Vote.org promised 8 million voters. Its founder says that was never the goal. By Daniel Lippman for Politico