Good evening, everyone. Another crazy day in Washington, D.C. I recently got back from visiting Mitch McConnell’s “rehab facility” again, and calls for his resignation are only growing louder. I don’t think the public is getting the full story here, and I’m doing everything I can to find out and explain it to you. I also spoke with Ben Wikler, the former Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party about what Democrats need to do to get back to winning again.
Meanwhile, AI companies are buying up antique and rare books, uploading their contents to train their models, then destroying them at a breakneck pace. Todd Blanche’s confirmation is in doubt as of this afternoon. And the Kushner family may soon take over the World Cup.
Tomorrow is going to be a huge day. I’ll be on Capitol Hill in the morning with Epstein survivors, and I’ll have big news and video for you. Then we’ve got our weekly episode of Raging Perspective with Jessica Tarlov, plus interviews with governor and Senate candidates, and more. Our next paid subscriber live is Thursday evening at 8 PM EST.
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Here’s the news:
Mitch McConnell:
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear demanded Senator Mitch McConnell either publicly and verbally prove he can still serve or resign, warning that if McConnell does not comply, he’ll push Senate Majority Leader John Thune to investigate McConnell’s condition and begin the process of replacing him. Beshear noted it has been forty three days since McConnell’s June 14 hospitalization, during which McConnell has cast zero votes and communicated only through two photos and written statements that don’t address whether he can speak, reason, or carry out his duties.
Thune, asked about Beshear’s demand, deflected, saying it’s “an issue really that’s between Senator McConnell and the people of Kentucky” and not clear what authority the governor has in the matter. Senator Rand Paul, who has a strained relationship with McConnell, dismissed Beshear’s letter as “a campaign ploy” to appear relevant, arguing elderly senators from both parties have faced health questions without this kind of public pressure. Kentucky law does not allow the governor to appoint a replacement senator; any vacancy would require a special election, and McConnell, who is not seeking reelection, has already been succeeded on the ballot by Representative Andy Barr, the Republican primary winner favored to win his seat.
Beshear said on Bloomberg TV that a theory is circulating that McConnell's true condition is being hidden until after August 3, the date some believe is the last point Beshear could still call a special election to fill the seat for the remainder of the term. Beshear said those pushing the theory apparently believe a Democrat could win that seat, noting Kentucky hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1992, though he also acknowledged McConnell's absence isn't necessarily bad for Democrats, since McConnell has missed votes on the SAVE Act, the Iran war, and a potential Supreme Court confirmation while Republicans hold just a 53 to 47 Senate majority.
Author Jeff Yang, who says he has known two of Elaine Chao’s sisters since college, publicly cast doubt on the latest proof-of-life photo of Senator Mitch McConnell and Chao, calling details of her appearance “just implausible.” Yang argued Chao, whom he described as “one of the most put-together people in existence,” would never be photographed in a thin, untucked shirt visibly worn over a black bra, and identified the seashell-print top through a reverse image search as a roughly twelve dollar Chico’s shirt, writing “HOLY CRAP SHE WOULD RATHER DIE.” The photo, released Monday alongside an unsigned statement from McConnell’s attending physician describing a “strenuous course of physical therapy,” is the second image released of McConnell since his June 14 hospitalization.
AI/Technology:
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale. AI companies are increasingly buying up antique and rare books in bulk, then destroying them by cutting off their pages and industrially scanning the text to train large language models, a practice that gained attention after Anthropic paid a $1.5 billion settlement to authors for doing exactly this. The tactic exploits the first-sale doctrine, which lets buyers do what they want with a purchase, and a judge ruled that converting the physical books into digital training data counted as “transformative” fair use. Book database service ISBNdb, once focused on helping libraries and bookstores, now facilitates bulk orders of 1,000 to a million books at a time for AI labs and even markets pre-2022 print books as “structurally clean” of AI-generated slop that has since polluted much of the internet. The company openly acknowledges the reputational risk, writing on its site that “the optics problem is real” since “AI company destroys two million books” isn’t a sympathetic headline.
Independent booksellers say they’re seeing the effects firsthand, with one telling 404 Media his sales jumped from about 20 books a week to hundreds starting in April, a shift he attributes to AI labs given the random, ISBN-driven nature of the purchases. He noted his inventory skews toward rare and out-of-print titles, meaning an AI company could be destroying some of the last surviving copies of certain books. He described mixed feelings about the trend, saying it has helped him financially and cleared out slow-moving inventory, but that he dislikes both the end use and the loss of uncommon books.
The practice appears to extend internationally, with rare booksellers in the Netherlands reporting a surge in bulk purchases they suspect, but cannot confirm, are coming from AI companies training on obscure editions. Services like ISBNdb keep buyers anonymous as a selling point to AI labs wary of the backlash Anthropic and Meta faced, meaning booksellers across the industry are left largely speculating about who is actually buying and destroying their stock. The pattern reflects a broader shift in AI training data sourcing, as companies seek out material seen as untainted by AI-generated content now saturating text published after roughly 2022.
At least nine schools across Florida, Georgia, and Colorado are installing non-lethal drones from Austin-based company Mithril Defense (now Campus Guardian Angel) designed to respond to active shooters within about 15 seconds of being activated by a teacher, using tactics like strobe lights, sirens, pepper gel, and ramming at up to 60 mph, or smashing through windows to reach a threat. Florida’s pilot program, a $557,000 effort backed by state legislators, launched at Deltona High School near Orlando and has since expanded to Boyd H. Anderson High School near Fort Lauderdale and Godby High School in Tallahassee, while similar tests are underway in Georgia and at a Colorado charter school. Some school safety experts, including Curtis Lavarello of the School Safety Advocacy Council, have raised concerns that the drones could mistakenly target a fleeing student instead of an actual shooter.
Todd Blanche:
Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general is in doubt after Senator John Cornyn said the Justice Department has gone “radio silent” on his and Senator Thom Tillis’s demand that the controversial “anti-weaponization” fund be formally killed before they back his confirmation. Both senators sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to vote Thursday, and without their support the vote will fail. Cornyn said his staff is still talking to the department but that officials “know what they need to do. They just don’t want to do it.”
Blanche has repeatedly insisted the fund, a $1.8 billion pool set aside to compensate people who claim to have been wronged by the Justice Department, including possibly January 6 rioters, is dead, telling senators earlier this month that “the weaponization fund is dead” and that the only surviving piece of the settlement, a tax addendum, binds only the IRS and Treasury. The administration also previously told a court it had abandoned the fund. Cornyn and Tillis want a written adjustment to the settlement agreement rather than just verbal assurances, according to Politico.
The fund has been controversial since its inception, with critics calling it a taxpayer funded slush fund for the president to pay supporters, and Trump himself has notably refused to say it is dead even as his administration works to convince lawmakers otherwise. Cornyn raised the possibility of postponing Thursday’s committee vote until the fund issue is resolved, though he said he has not yet discussed that option with Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley. He added that postponement is “not the number one goal right now,” suggesting the committee may still attempt to move forward despite the unresolved dispute.
Lindsey Graham Funeral:
Trump delivered the eulogy at Lindsey Graham's funeral today at Washington National Cathedral, calling him a "beloved friend" and "American original." The full line was "No matter how heated things got in Washington, virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey," followed by the ad-libbed "Well, not everybody, but it sounds good," which drew laughter, then "I have to be honest, I have to veer from this for a second," suggesting he was departing from prepared remarks. The service was attended by numerous lawmakers along with Netanyahu and Zelensky, both in Washington today for separate meetings with Trump.
During the funeral Trump struggled to remain awake:
Trump held back-to-back White House meetings with Zelensky and Netanyahu Tuesday, the latter’s first Oval Office visit since he and Trump launched their joint military campaign against Iran on February 28. The Netanyahu meeting, roughly an hour long, was expected to cover Iran, the recent United States-Israel-Lebanon framework deal, and possibly expanding the Abraham Accords, coming amid visible strain between the two leaders after Trump privately called Netanyahu “crazy” and publicly declared “without me, there would be no Israel,” while protesters outside the White House chanted against Netanyahu and a new AP-NORC poll showed declining American support for Israel.
Zelensky’s meeting was described as positive by both sides, with Zelensky saying they discussed licensing arrangements for Ukraine to manufacture its own Patriot missile interceptors and the need to reinvigorate diplomacy, and opening by offering condolences over the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, whom he called “a true friend of Ukraine.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said afterward that both meetings had been “positive and productive.”
Other news:
FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced plans Tuesday to create a $20 billion commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to run competitions including the World Cup and Club World Cup, bringing in private investors such as Thrive Eternal, launched by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. UEFA immediately attacked the plan, saying “it is not FIFA’s to sell” and that “the soul and governance of football are not assets to trade, especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially.” Under the proposal, FFE would raise up to $4.2 billion this year by selling minority, non-controlling stakes, while FIFA’s 211 member federations would be offered sharply increased development funding, rising from $8 million each to as much as $24 million per cycle through 2038, though FIFA said it would retain sole control over football governance and competitions. The plan follows record World Cup revenue of about $12 billion this year and echoes a failed 2018 attempt by Infantino to strike a $25 billion deal with SoftBank and Saudi backing, which also collapsed under UEFA pressure. The Times of London reported the new entity could also create a CEO-like “commissioner” role for Infantino himself, though FIFA said that idea “has never been discussed,” and no timetable has been set for member federations to vote on the plan.
President Trump has not followed through on his vow to ask the Supreme Court to rehear its birthright citizenship ruling, missing the twenty five day filing deadline that closed Monday night despite posting on Truth Social on July 8 that he would seek a rehearing “IMMEDIATELY.” The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 30 that Trump’s proposal to limit birthright citizenship to children with at least one citizen or permanent resident parent violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause. Neither the White House nor the Justice Department responded to requests for comment on why no petition was filed. Legal experts note such rehearing petitions are almost never granted, with Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck saying the Supreme Court last granted one in 1965.
The Trump administration plans to fully end the roughly $3.6 billion in subsidies it pays insurers to hold down premiums on Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, according to the Wall Street Journal, a move that would raise costs for the roughly 25 million Americans enrolled in Part D starting next year. This builds on a scaling-back already underway: for 2026, CMS had cut the existing premium stabilization subsidy from up to $15 a month per plan to $10, while raising the cap on how much a plan’s premium can increase year over year from $35 to $50, changes tied to unwinding a Biden-era demonstration program. Notably, the full elimination of the subsidy reported by the Journal would not take effect until after the 2026 midterm elections, meaning the financial impact on seniors would land after voters go to the polls.
ICE has begun arresting people with expired visas at airports, including spouses of American citizens and workers with pending status applications, an expansion of a Trump administration deportation push documented by the New York Times through internal records and interviews with more than a dozen immigration lawyers, with enforcement actions confirmed at fifteen airports in recent weeks. The tactic builds on a May 2025 arrangement in which the TSA began sharing passenger information with ICE, originally intended for people with deportation orders, but now appears to sweep in a far larger population of visa overstays, many of whom have pending green card or work permit applications and no criminal record. Homeland Security did not confirm the program’s expansion but said it is working to ensure people in the country illegally “can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” part of a broader push under Secretary Markwayne Mullin to hit a target of 2,000 immigration arrests a day.
The Trump administration issued a rule Tuesday, effective immediately and without prior public comment, that could transfer nearly 450,000 pending asylum cases from USCIS asylum officers directly to Justice Department immigration judges, who have been empowered to dismiss cases without a hearing. Officials say the change targets roughly a third of the 1.4 million asylum cases pending at USCIS, largely those filed more than a year after the applicant’s arrival, which is generally past the legal deadline for asylum applications absent an exception. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow defended the rule as necessary to stop the system from being “exploited for purposes of delay and work authorization,” while immigration attorneys, including Ira Kurzban, warned it could let judges deport people “without a chance to be heard” and called it part of a broader effort to convert legally present immigrants into deportable ones.
A leaked White House document obtained by Politico outlines a legislative push to end Yucca Mountain's status as the nation's sole legal site for permanent nuclear waste storage, instead letting the Department of Energy partner with willing states to host so-called nuclear life-cycle innovation campuses covering fuel production, recycling, and disposal. The plan would also let the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reclassify waste for more flexibility and restart a nuclear generation fee for disposal costs that courts previously halted. In exchange for hosting waste and fuel production, states would be offered a surge of new business, including nuclear power plants and data centers, as Trump pushes to quadruple nuclear power production over 25 years despite no long-term waste solution existing.
The Trump administration plans to unveil new bans Tuesday afternoon targeting imports of the latest Chinese humanoid and quadruped robots, along with connected power inverters that link renewable energy sources and batteries to power grids and data center equipment, according to CNBC. The Federal Communications Commission is set to roll out the restrictions, which officials say aim to protect the United States AI supply chain from Chinese threats of disruption, data theft, and cyberattacks, while pushing manufacturers to shift production to the United States. An unnamed administration official said the goal is “independent and secure supply chains for critical and emerging technologies like robotic devices and power inverters,” framing it as part of a broader push to “reindustrialize America.”
Florida executed James Aren Duckett, 68, a former police officer convicted of raping and drowning an 11 year old girl in 1987, by lethal injection Tuesday afternoon, the first of two executions scheduled just six hours apart, the first time Florida has done that since 1964. Later Tuesday, 80 year old Dominick Occhicone was set to be executed for killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 1986, which would make him the second oldest person executed in the modern United States after 83 year old Walter Moody Jr. in 2018. Both men lost last-ditch appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, with Duckett’s team unsuccessfully arguing DNA evidence should exonerate him and Occhicone’s team arguing his age-related health issues would make execution unusually painful. Governor Ron DeSantis, who has overseen a record pace of executions including 19 in 2025 alone, added Duckett to Occhicone’s execution date after a stay was lifted, bringing Florida’s total executions since 2025 to 29, more than every other state combined over that span. Death penalty opponents, including Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, had urged DeSantis to halt both executions, calling the day “an unprecedented escalation” of the state’s use of capital punishment.
Colt Gray, 16, was sentenced to life without parole Tuesday for the September 4, 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, which killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and wounded seven others. Gray pleaded guilty last Friday to all 55 counts against him without a deal with prosecutors, leaving Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm to decide his sentence after victim impact statements; the judge told Gray he wasn't "racked with guilt" but "proud" of what he'd done, calling it a "slow boil" plotted over a year rather than an act of anger or bullying. Prosecutors said Gray was obsessed with mass shooters, particularly Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz, whose sentence he received, and had over 2,000 photos of Cruz on his phone; jail calls played in court captured Gray telling his mother "I'm in the big leagues, bro."
See you soon.
— Aaron
