Plus: Donald Trump retreats on abortion.
• Harris says her underlying values haven’t changed, which is a succinct description of the problem.
• Dana Bash threw Harris and Walz some softballs during their CNN interview: At one point, Bash asked Walz to react to his son’s cheering for him during his speech. But she did have a few pointed questions, too, and the Democrats had no good answers for them. Harris’s flip-flop on immigration went unexplained; Walz insulted the world’s intelligence by saying he had made an error of “grammar” when he said he had carried weapons “in war.” Nor did the Democrats do much to address their vulnerabilities. Harris’s defense of their economic record was to suggest, just as Biden often has, that they inherited a collapsing economy. In truth, it was recovering rapidly. It may take a debate for them to face a real challenge—and even that isn’t a sure thing.
• Special counsel Jack Smith obtained a “superseding indictment” in the 2020 election-interference case against Trump. Donald Trump is caterwauling but this was not a surprise. On July 1, the Supreme Court held that presidents have at least presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts and absolute immunity for acts at the “core” of executive power. It directed Judge Tanya Chutkan to examine the allegations, with input from the parties, to sort out which ones implicate official acts and whether prosecutors could overcome the presumption of immunity. Smith was due today, Friday, to tell the court which allegations he intended to pursue and which he needed to abandon. The cleanest way to do that was to supersede. The new indictment abandons allegations based on Trump’s control of the Department of Justice, actions for which the Court said he was absolutely immune. Trump nevertheless complained because the new indictment came so close to the election, contrary to department policy. But it is not truly a new indictment insofar as the superseder does not materially change the case—which, in any event, is going nowhere fast because any immunity ruling by Chutkan can be immediately appealed. The next consequential development in the case will be the election of a new president.
• Republicans keep retreating on abortion. J. D. Vance says Trump would veto an abortion ban if Congress passed one. Trump said that his presidency would be “great for women and their reproductive rights” and that he would (following Biden’s bad example) not enforce the federal law that bans the interstate shipment of abortion implements. Pro-lifers are beginning to wonder what reason they have to vote for Trump. He could give them two if he promised to veto any federal legislation that would create a right to elective abortions or expand taxpayer funding for abortion. His positions on both issues would be to the right of Harris and politically viable. Trump should also commend states for passing pro-life laws even as he keeps urging them to include exceptions for rape and incest. (He could usefully prod them to clarify that doctors have full authority to treat complications of pregnancy that threaten women’s physical health.) But all of this would require Republicans, including Trump, to be interested in finding a position of strength on the issue.
• Former Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard and famous falconer and roadkill-mover Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both onetime Democratic presidential candidates, are joining the Trump campaign’s transition team. Conservatives have good reason to grind their teeth at this news. Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Bernie Sanders four years ago. As for Kennedy, back in the ancient times of . . . July 2, he declared: “I think Donald Trump was a terrible president. . . . He wasn’t draining the swamp. He was turning the government over to corporate pirates. . . . I don’t think he’s capable of governing, of meeting the expectations and fulfilling the promises that he raises with his rhetoric.” No doubt Trump fans want to believe that the Kennedy endorsement will give the campaign a shot in the arm—er, a booster—er, strong medicine? Let’s just say they want to believe it will help. So far, Trump’s embrace of Gabbard and Kennedy proves, once again, that if you go on television and say something nice about Donald Trump, he will instantly forget all previous criticism, stances, and actions—and let you shape his next presidency.
• In a letter to Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for his company’s acquiescence to the censorship that the Biden administration requested during the heady days of Covid-19. “I believe the government pressure was wrong,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.” As Zuckerberg confirmed, the Biden White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook and Instagram to remove “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire” and “expressed a lot of frustration” when it refused. Hoping to reassure the public, Zuckerberg vowed that Meta was “ready to push back if something like this happens again.” But the proof of that is in the doing. Back when Meta made its mistake, Zuckerberg and his employees were being accused of murder, genocide, human sacrifice, and deadly “misinformation.” It’s easy to stand up for free expression when things are peaceful; the challenge comes when the arrows are still in the air.
• Get excited, kids. Donald Trump is now personally hawking trading cards. Collect ’em, save ’em, show ’em off to your friends! These are of course adult trading cards, in the sense that they start at $99 a pop and are purportedly unique electronic cards, or “non-fungible tokens,” of Donald Trump engaged in various meme-like activities, such as dancing or holding Bitcoin in his hand. Though widely mocked online, the cards are only partially about fundraising. They are also consistent with Trump’s longtime efforts to profit from his image. Campaigns have always included gimmicks to get attention. But with Trump, it can sometimes seem like the gimmick is the point.
• Our friends at the Wall Street Journal decry a “bidding war” over the tax credit for children. Vance would like to increase it from the current $2,000 per child per year to $5,000. Kamala Harris proposes a credit of $6,000 for newborns, $3,600 for children aged one to six, and $3,000 for children older than that. There are real dangers here: Any expansion of the credit should be accompanied by tax and spending reforms to keep it from increasing the national debt, and Democratic versions of the idea must be rejected insofar as they reduce incentives for recipient households to work. But the credit is an important feature of the tax code, one that reflects both the government’s dependence on the financial sacrifices of parents and the injustice of taxing households on the basic cost of living. Inflation has steadily eroded the value of the credit. Tax relief for parents is stingier now than it was before Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan expanded the credit in 2017. An expansion, prudently designed, is overdue.
• As excuses for sitting out the 2024 presidential election go, “I was stuck in space” is a doozy. And for two American astronauts, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams, that excuse has the benefit of being indisputably true. To great embarrassment, Boeing has acknowledged that the problems with its Starliner capsule are so severe that Wilmore and Williams cannot return from the International Space Station (ISS) before February. Until then, the Earth will be a tantalizing view from the window. The problem with Starliner lies in its thrusters, which, per a series of tests conducted on the ground, pose an unacceptable risk of failure on the journey back home. Back when NASA had a monopoly on space travel, an issue such as this would potentially have been disastrous. But, under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a backup provider was earmarked for precisely this eventuality. That backup? None other than Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which will send a Crew Dragon capsule up to the ISS next year to rescue the pair from their isolation. Not being on this planet for the election doesn’t sound so bad.
• Houthi militants in Yemen attacked a Greek-flagged oil tanker in the Red Sea, setting the ship, which was carrying 1 million barrels of crude oil, on fire. In the ten months since October 7, the Iranian-backed Houthis have attacked shipping on the Red Sea almost continuously, threatening to close one of the world’s critical littoral chokepoints and the approaches to the Suez Canal. Although it has responded with air strikes and naval patrols, the Biden administration has failed to deter the Houthis from shooting at American warships and merchant shipping. The Houthis are, needless to say, not one of the world’s great military powers. This failure is teaching Tehran, Beijing, and Hezbollah a lesson that Americans may come to regret.
• Israel launched a successful preemptive strike against Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which was about to respond to Israel’s killing of Fuad Shukr, one of its top terrorist commanders, with a barrage of rockets and drones. (Shukr helped plan the 1983 attack on U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.) Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Hezbollah has launched more than 8,000 rockets and drones into the north of Israel, displacing tens of thousands of residents. In the early morning of August 25, Israeli intelligence detected that Hezbollah was about to launch a major operation against Israel. Israel then sent about 100 warplanes to strike over 270 Hezbollah sites inside Lebanon, focusing on rocket launchers. While the threat of Hezbollah and its benefactor Iran still looms over Israel, for now the operation appears to have had a deterrent effect; Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that the group’s attack on Israel was “over” after a smaller-scale launch of drones, which Israel promptly destroyed. Israelis are teaching Tehran a lesson it will long remember.
• Russia has unleashed waves of terror attacks on Ukrainian civilians. With Iranian drones and other weapons, it has killed people in their supermarkets, hotels, and homes. Residents of Kyiv have taken shelter in subway stations. Russia has targeted infrastructure, too, trying to deprive people of electricity and water. Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said, “In order to stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from which the Russian missiles are launched.” Ukrainians are, in short, eager to do exactly what the Israelis have done to prevent their people from being killed. The United States and other allies should not keep them from doing so.
• In Nicaragua, the dictatorial regime of Daniel Ortega canceled the legal status of 1,500 nongovernmental organizations last week, confiscating their assets and raising to more than 5,000 the number of NGOs shut down by the government since 2018. The latest sweep was focused on Evangelical and Pentecostal ministries, after years of government attacks on Catholic institutions and human-rights advocates, including nuns and priests. The government has subjected nonprofit organizations to byzantine financial-reporting requirements that it uses as a pretext to crack down on targeted groups. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has published a helpful summary of the “repressive legal framework” whereby the Ortega regime attempts to silence critics and eliminate any threat of opposition from civil-society organizations that stand between it and the Nicaraguan people. In his Angelus address at the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Francis encouraged Nicaraguans to keep faith and hope, reminding them that God “guides history toward higher designs.” Let God guide this regime to the ash heap.
• In the second inning at Fenway Park on June 26, catcher Danny Jansen of the Toronto Blue Jays fouled off a pitch, in the rain. Strike one. The umpire called a delay. The grounds crew covered the infield with a tarp. After 108 minutes, rain still falling, the Red Sox announced that the rest of the game was postponed to August. Meanwhile, Jansen was traded to Boston. When the game resumed there on Monday, he was behind the plate again, this time for the home team, when his at-bat for the visiting Jays was completed by a pinch hitter. In that moment, Jansen made history, becoming the first man ever to play for both teams in the same major-league game. An authenticator was there to tag his equipment, including a jersey he sent to Cooperstown. The Hall of Fame requested the official scorecard. “It has to be kind of like the perfect storm for that to happen,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, marveling at the improbability. “Starting with the storm.”
• Update: A recent edition of this newsletter quipped that Candace Owens was going to discredit antisemitism. Now some in the airless world of antisemitism, such as Nick Fuentes, are indeed complaining that Owens, through her ignorance, is making them look ridiculous—or even more so than they already were. In the future, we will be mindful of the power of our speculations.