Today’s notice: Trump threatens Iran’s civil infrastructure — again. The House and Senate prepare for war powers votes. A fight brews at the DNC over which state goes first. Congress earns its paycheck. Darline Graham faces an “unknown” problem. And: state election officials sound the alarm.
THE LATEST
The next stage: “I don’t know what the objectives are, so it’s kind of hard to measure what success is,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told NOTUS’ Igor Bobic yesterday after attending the return of four fallen U.S. service members at Dover Air Force Base. “I know what success isn’t — going to Dover like I did today and seeing the service members coming back.”
The term “forever war” has been thrust back into the zeitgeist, punctuated on Wednesday when U.S. Central Command launched the 12th consecutive day of airstrikes hours after Donald Trump attended his third dignified transfer since the Iran war began. He later called it the “toughest thing” he has to do as president.
Trending
Bridges and power plants. Those are the next targets near Tehran, according to Trump, who threatened to train the U.S.’s military might on a new civilian infrastructure target in retaliation for every boat Iran strikes in the Strait of Hormuz. While the president has made similar claims before (and then backed down), these new claims carry more heft as the war escalates.
The rhetoric is also escalating. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, wrote on X, “In a region where we do not sell oil, no one will sell oil. If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe, and the security of the strait is in the absence of American forces.”
Another front: Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for missile and drone attacks against two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, just days after announcing a blockade against Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reports.
The House and Senate are expected to vote — yet again — this morning on a war powers measure to curtail the president’s war as his language ratchets up.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), who has opposed previous resolutions restricting war powers, told NOTUS’ Manuela Silva that civilian targets should be off the table: “I don’t want anything to do with blowing up the bridge. And when you blow up the bridge, you’re going to have civilian casualties for sure. Nobody wants that. Nobody in the world wants that, but what are you going to do?”
Open tabs: The Next Big Tests for the Left: Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota (NYT); OpenAI blamed a hacking event on its AI models going rogue (AP); U.S signs nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that gives it path to enriching fuel (WaPo); Maine Democrat Troy Jackson has raised $1M for his Senate bid so far. (Politico)
From the campaign trail
Fight Club, DNC edition: Democrats are preparing for battle as a handful of states jockey to lead off the presidential nominating calendar for 2028. That lobbying campaign is being waged through phone calls and media attention, NOTUS’ Elena Schneider reports.
“We’re first, and we maintain that,” Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said on journalist Roland Martin’s YouTube show Monday. South Carolina, where voting Democrats are majority Black, is locked in a tense fight to go first with Nevada, with its strong Latino constituency. The Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Friday to make its recommendation.
“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” said one of the members, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Most states represented have at least one or two members on the committee, and I think they’re all going to fight to the death for this.”
First on NOTUS: NRDC’s midterm play. The political spending arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council plans to spend more than $6 million this cycle on ads aimed at flexing environmental voter muscle. While the topic has been ignored of late in favor of fights over who can lower energy prices the fastest by any means necessary, the NRDC’s new ads try to connect those dots with data-center politics.
The first spots are going up in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District against Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a top target for Democrats. The ads have a podcast bro-y energy — pretty different from the earnest “In the Arms of an Angel”-style environmental appeals of old. One spot focuses on stock trading, specifically on Bresnahan’s purchase of stock in a data-center supplier.
From the Hill
A day in the life: The House finally did what few believed possible just a few weeks ago: pass some big-ticket legislation. House Republicans banded together with a 216-214 vote to ram through the third reconciliation package this term, this one coming in at $95 billion, NOTUS’ Stephen Neukam reports. Democrats banded together to oppose the funding for the war in Iran, farm aid and grants incentivizing states to adopt restrictive voter-ID laws on their own.
The House also passed (with some Democratic support) the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act to muscle through Trump’s plans for the Pentagon and the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would curb members of Congress and their families from purchasing individually traded stocks.
Now, it’s the Senate’s turn, but don’t hold your breath for all of it: the chamber is historically not in a rush.
Speaking of that side of the Capitol, Sen. Darline Graham (R-South Carolina) is officially in the race to succeed her late brother, Lindsey Graham, but the question still remains: what does she believe? NOTUS’ Igor Bobic, Al Weaver and Oriana González report on the quandary facing Republicans who don’t personally know Graham or where she stands, despite wholeheartedly endorsing her.
“These are people with legislative records that they can point to, that are proven to say, ‘Hey, prices are up, we can bring prices down if we do X, Y and Z. Here’s what I’ve done in the past,’” CJ Westfall, chair of the Dorchester County Republican Party, told NOTUS. Darline Graham is “somebody that’s unproven and just has the stamp of approval by the president. I don’t think that’s the end-all, be-all for South Carolina.”
NOTUS PERSPECTIVES
A savvy social-media campaign — dubbed Nixonmaxxing — has made Richard Nixon cool again. Today at NOTUS Perspectives, Matt K. Lewis writes about why this is happening now and why it’s a good thing.
NOTUS METRO
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Local news: House Committee Advances Bill Limiting D.C.’s Ability to Raise Taxes, by Martin Austermuhle
In his NOTUS debut: You Have Dining Questions. Tom Sietsema Has Answers.
Sports desk: Five Players to Watch at Commanders Training Camp, by Martenzie Johnson
NEW ON NOTUS
Trump says he wants election security beefed up, but some election officials are questioning why the federal government is failing to help protect states from possible cyberattacks ahead of the midterms, NOTUS’ Samuel Larreal reports.
“The federal government knows that there are nation-state actors desperately trying to come after us and cause chaos in our elections, yet, they are reducing resources,” Steve Hobbs, Washington state’s Democratic secretary of state, told Sam. “We’re doing everything we can to try to protect ourselves with far less resources than we did before.”
More: Soldier Shot Near White House Files Claim Against the Secret Service, by Jenna Monnin
Trump Offered Gold Star Family a Ride on His New Air Force One, by Torrie Herrington
Second WHCA Dinner Isn’t a Security ‘Redo’ for the Secret Service, Officials Say, by Derek Hawkins
Software Vendor Denies Responsibility for New Jersey Voter-Registration Error, by Angie Orellana Hernandez
NOT US
- Trump administration weighing military options in Mali, officials say, by John Hudson and Rachel Chason for The Washington Post
- People are watching the Reflecting Pool like reality TV. What does that say about us? By Rachel Treisman for NPR
- The false claims, chaos and coverups behind the Trump administration’s killing of two American citizens, by Jake Tapper for CNN
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr, Brett Bachman and Andrew Burton. Photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP.
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