An Escalating Situation: Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to call in the National Guard against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and (to say the least) his constitutionally hazy move to send in the Marines on top of that is pushing the country into uncharted political and legal territory yet again.
The White House is bullish. This is a whole new ballgame — but it’s also just another inning in a game that MAGA has been playing for years. They’ve long claimed that Democratic leaders of major cities welcome disorder to please political constituents.
“Democrats are feckless,” one White House aide told NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright on Monday. Another specifically called leaders in California “foolish” and seethed contempt. “They’d rather let California burn,” that aide said.
The unprecedented: California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s lawsuit against the administration would likely be the first one to ask a court if a president can deploy the National Guard like this. Trump used part of the U.S. code that legal experts see as a last resort in the face of serious domestic unrest or an attack by a foreign power, when regular forces are unable to execute the law. California says it was nowhere near that.
“[T]hings were quiet. By the time the first National Guardspeople arrived in LA, they were quiet,” Bonta told NOTUS at his Monday press conference. He said Trump’s actions escalated tensions on the ground. “Since then, they have not been quiet.”
“I’ll let you conclude whether the National Guardsmen that were called unnecessarily, unlawfully by the Trump administration, contributed to, caused, stoked the flames, inflamed, increased tensions, provoked,” he added.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are blaming Trump for ongoing unrest, too. “What Trump is doing is simply pouring gas on the fire,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen told NOTUS. Van Hollen was at the center of another immigration story where both parties are claiming victory: the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.
That case is now being adjudicated on U.S. soil following Democratic outrage at the administration’s stubbornness in the face of legal norms (like obeying the spirit of a court ruling). The party is still arguing among itself when it comes to immigration as an issue, but moments like these are about something different, Van Hollen said: “What Democrats are doing is standing up for the rule of law.”
The White House only sees that as a political winner. “By pointing the finger at the president, yes, they’re stoking this further,” one of the White House aides told Jasmine.
RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Panel Purge is instilling “fear” that the committee will be “filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Sen. Bill Cassidy posted on X. The statement came amid what he said were multiple conversations with the HHS secretary. Still, Cassidy — who was a skeptic of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation, but eventually voted for him — told reporters Kennedy hadn’t misled him. Trump’s health secretary promised in his hearings that he wouldn’t change the vaccine recommendation process, not that he’d maintain the committee as it was.
More bad citations at HHS: A department report on transgender youth and “gender dysphoria” cites a study that was retracted by its first publisher, NOTUS’ Margaret Manto found. Of the report’s 850 citations, only about half link to peer-reviewed scientific papers. The other references are to news articles, blog posts, opinion pieces and books — and about a dozen citations are to studies from a controversial scientific journal that has been accused of bias.
About That ‘Cuck Chair’ Meme the DNC Posted About Stephen Miller... It was seen internally as a great DNC success, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty reports. “I really think it is about putting the posters in charge,” Tim Hogan, senior adviser for messaging at the DNC, said of the party’s recent turn toward regularly shitposting on main.
Democrats’ new strategy: This is a party trying to sound less like the “when they go low, we go high” Democrats and more like the party they lost to. Democrats’ digital content and creative director, Paulina Mangubat, is among the leaders of a group of a dozen staffers given wide discretion to post what they think will attract attention online. The “cuck chair” meme was apparently a no-brainer in the office.
“It got proposed, and the immediate reaction was, ‘We have to do this,’” Hogan said.
“They have no idea what they’re getting into,” Trump White House communications director Stephen Cheung tells NOTUS.
Reconciliation Timeline Slipping? Trump told reporters Monday that if Republicans in Congress go “a little longer” than their self-imposed deadline of July 4 to pass the final version of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, “that’s OK.”
The old deadline is still Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s target, but all the big questions remain unanswered: Medicaid cuts, tax provisions, whatever the parliamentarian is going to do with that House bill. And there are only three Senate legislative weeks until that deadline (and only seven before the long August break, but who’s counting?).
Clarence Thomas vs. the DEI Purge? The conservative justice undermined one of the mechanisms the administration wants to use to clear DEI out of programs that receive federal money. In his concurring opinion in the unanimous Kousisis ruling, Thomas questioned whether a government’s political preferences were truly material — and thus prosecutable.
“It is ironic that this conservative, Republican appointee may have laid a trap for this administration,” former federal prosecutor David L. Douglass tells NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery.
New on NOTUS
- Trump Allies Lose Their Bid to Take Over the D.C. Bar Association: Bradley Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, lost a landslide to lawyer Diane Seltzer.
- Democrats Say They Can Support Crypto While Calling Out Trump: The president and other Republicans have benefited politically and financially from being friendly to the industry.
- Northern California Lawmakers Sound the Alarm on Trump’s Military Mobilization: “It’s not limited to California or Los Angeles,” one Northern California lawmaker told NOTUS.
Not Us
- The stealth Senate dealmaker who could deliver Trump’s tax cuts, by Benjamin Guggenheim for Politico
- How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools fueled the biggest youth crime surge in a generation, by Robert Samuels, Lauren Lumpkin and John D. Harden for The Washington Post
- DHS Black Hawks and Military Aircraft Surveil the LA Protests, by Joseph Cox for 404 Media
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