Today’s notice: How the Epstein drama is playing out back home. An opportunity for Mitch McConnell’s donors. NOTUS talks to Sen. Bill Cassidy. And: What actually matters?
THE LATEST
Hope springs eternal: Sen. Bernie Moreno brought word from the hinterlands Friday when he returned to D.C. for the pro forma session: the Jeffrey Epstein story is over.
“I was talking about that last night with some friends at dinners and they kept bringing it up and I said, ‘That is 100% an inside baseball D.C. story,’” he told NOTUS’ Samuel Larreal. “We must’ve talked to thousands of people literally, I gotta tell you, nobody even remotely brought it up.”
This is not what we’ve heard. NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson reports on how often Epstein questions are popping up at town hall(esque) events.
A true statement: “I wish you didn’t ask me that question,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told constituents at a tele-town hall when asked his view on the Epstein saga.
The hope: “I think that you will see us discuss this when we return to Congress in September, provided that [Pam] Bondi or others don’t already release this information,” Rep. Stephanie Bice told constituents on her own telephone session when asked about the nebulous unreleased Epstein files.
Open Tabs: Trump nominates Tammy Bruce for U.N. Role (CBS); Vinay Prasad Rehired by FDA (NYT); Kelly Ayotte rules out redistricting for New Hampshire (Politico); Shooter who attacked CDC HQ ID’d (AP)
From the White House
What comes next for D.C.? “The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried but she has been given many chances,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday, previewing today’s press conference “on Crime and ‘Beautification.’”
Madam Mayor: “One reason I wanted to be here today is to let people know that their nation’s capital is among the most beautiful and best cities in the world,” Bowser told MSNBC yesterday. She declined to criticize the president directly for his many threats to stage a federal takeover of the city, saying instead that she planned to focus on their “shared priorities.”
From the campaign trail
“A spectacularly stupid idea”: That was the response from former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s campaign for Senate to a secret plan to knock down businessman Nate Morris’ candidacy.
Sources tell NOTUS’ Reese Gorman that state strategist Jonathan Duke wants Cameron and rival Rep. Andy Barr’s backers to team up and create a super PAC to hit Morris, who appears destined for a Trump endorsement. The potential funding? Sen. Mitch McConnell’s donors, Reese’s sources say.
The Big One
What matters?: Call it cynicism or call it realism, but a general acceptance that everything is fungible is going to be a central theme this fall. Consider three of the biggest stories playing out.
Redistricting is a game. The party in power’s barely veiled message to voters is we might lose with this map, so we need a new map. Democrats stand ready to fight back with the same tactics.
- “The Republicans are threatening to totally warp that reality back to a place where they’re trying to completely consolidate and lock in power,” John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, told NOTUS’ Emily Kennard. “It’s not a reliable electoral system for us to continue to operate this way.”
Job numbers are meaningless. “The next commissioner, I think it’s going to be tough for whoever steps in,” Bureau of Labor Statistics data expert Marshall Reinsdorf tells NOTUS’ Nuha Dolby of Erika McEntarfer’s firing. The next BLS commissioner will “want credibility,” Reinsdorf said, but will also need “to stay out of trouble with the president, and it seems like those two are almost in conflict.”
So are crime stats. D.C.’s crime rate is at a 30-year low, according to DOJ numbers posted just before Inauguration Day.
- That’s not what the White House is going with. “Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long,” Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NOTUS. “President Trump is committed to making our Nation’s capital safer for its residents, lawmakers, and visitors from all around the world.”
The question for the fall: Are these decisions going to make life easier or harder for Trump 2.0 and its allies? Last year, Gallup found American trust in institutions was at a record low. Last month, Gallup reported that number had not changed. Conventional wisdom dictates that results like that are not seen as a boon to incumbents. But also: Who still believes in convention?
NOTUS Interview
Sen. Bill Cassidy’s pitch: “If you want to talk about somebody who’s working effectively with the president to get an agenda passed which is good for the country, and, frankly, good for Louisiana, in which we are working together to get it done, I’ve been highly effective,” he told NOTUS’ Torrence Banks in the days after his first reelection campaign event.
Running while disliked by MAGA: Cassidy voted to convict Trump after the Jan. 6 impeachment trial and he has publicly criticized RFK Jr. on a number of occasions. The most recent came last week after HHS canceled $500 million in mRNA vax research. This kind of thing has encouraged Republicans hoping to unseat him.
His reply: “The president has eight Cabinet secretaries that he would not have if I had not voted for them and got them through,” he told Torrence.
On opponents who call him a squish: “It’s being said by people who don’t have anything else to campaign on.”
NEW ON NOTUS
ICE and the priest’s daughter: “Someone did say to me that this was the first time people really understood how close to home this whole new world we live in is,” Mary Rothwell Davis, an immigration attorney with the Episcopal Diocese of New York, told NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak of the unexplained ICE detention and release of Yeonsoo Go, a college student and daughter of a diocese clergy member.
More: Trump Appellate Judges Halt Court’s Inquiry Into Defiant DOJ Officials, by Jose Pagliery
California Dems: We’ll Only Redistrict if Texas Does First, by Samuel Larreal
NOT US
- Chip Roy eyeing bid for Texas attorney general, by Mychael Schnell for The Hill
- Trump is rushing to build his ballroom. A review process could take years. By Jonathan Edwards for The Washington Post
- Trump Weighs Reclassifying Marijuana as Less Dangerous Drug, by Josh Dawsey for The Wall Street Journal
- How Trump’s judicial picks could reshape abortion rights for decades, by Christine Fernando for the Associated Press
Week Ahead
Today: Two-day donor retreat for House Republicans kicks off in Jackson Hole.
Tuesday: Rep. Harriet Hageman has scheduled one of the rare Republican in-person town halls this August. She has scheduled even more in the coming weeks.
Wednesday: A reworked Atlantic Council event on the U.S. Space Force in D.C. (The original version was canceled following Pentagon orders that officials no longer attend think tank events.)
Friday: Trump is scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
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