Good morning, everyone. America is facing ridicule across the globe following confirmation that Trump fled an Iranian assassination plot in a catering truck. Overnight, while you were asleep, the President said he will not rule out declaring a national emergency and seizing America’s elections. I have key footage showing the bait and switch that left reporters and White House staff in danger.
A couple of notes. Tomorrow at 2:30 PM EST, I’m going live with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker right here. Let me know if you have questions for him. Because of tomorrow’s live, we’re pushing the paid subscriber live to Thursday evening at 8:15 PM EST. Links for both coming tonight.
A lot of you have asked how I do this day in and out. Every morning I wake up to the craziest news, and all I want to do is go back to sleep. Then I hear my four month old giggling in my ear, hoping I wake up. That’s what keeps my passion alive.
This is your fight too. Let’s build it together.
Trump’s Catering Cart Escape:
Donald Trump was so afraid of being killed by Iran that he let his own press corps and staff fly on what was, by his administration’s own security logic, the plane most likely to draw a missile. According to the Washington Post, intelligence officials identified a credible Iranian plot to strike Trump’s aircraft after he left the NATO summit in Turkey. Rather than warn everyone on board and evacuate them safely, Trump’s team quietly swapped him onto a separate, secure jet using a catering truck and a hidden exit, then let the legacy Air Force One take off as a decoy with reporters and unwitting staff still inside, telling them to close their window shades as it lifted off. Those passengers had no idea Trump wasn’t with them. He was already gone, sealed inside a different plane, an Air Force C-32A slipping quietly toward Britain while the people who trusted they were flying with the president of the United States sat on the aircraft actually at risk. Here’s how it worked:
Phase 1 — The setup in Ankara: Trump flew into Turkey for the NATO summit aboard the new $400 million Qatari-gifted Air Force One, but a credible Iranian assassination threat, intelligence pointing to a possible missile strike on his plane, triggered a secret deception operation for his departure. Security officials decided he’d fly out on one of the older VC-25A jets that traditionally carry the “Air Force One” call sign instead, reportedly because those legacy planes carry missile-defense countermeasures the newer Qatari jet lacks. Trump then publicly boarded that legacy Air Force One in Ankara, walking up the stairs and waving for cameras, making it look like his flight home.
Phase 2 — The switch: Once inside, out of view, Trump fled through a door on the opposite side of the plane onto an airport catering truck, along with several aides, that had been hydraulically raised to meet it. The truck lowered and drove them across the tarmac to a separate, smaller Air Force jet (a modified C-32A Boeing 757), which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then secretly boarded. Meanwhile, reporters and some White House staff boarded the legacy Air Force One believing Trump was still aboard, were told to close their window shades, and that plane took off as the decoy, still using the “AF1” call sign despite Trump not being on it.
Phase 3 — The real flight and the reveal: Trump’s actual plane flew separately and secretly to the UK, reportedly under a nondescript call sign with normal flight-tracking disabled, landing shortly before the decoy Air Force One arrived. Exactly how Trump then transferred back onto the legacy Air Force One after landing remains unclear, per the Washington Post’s own reporting, but he emerged from it in front of cameras as if that had been his plane the whole time. From the UK, Trump then boarded the Qatari-gifted jet for the actual flight back to Washington with the press and staff, the same plane that had left Turkey without him.
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says he's suing the Trump administration after the Pentagon revoked his security clearance, allegedly over comments he made questioning whether Trump's Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 is adequately equipped for presidential use; the Pentagon accused him of an unauthorized classified disclosure, which Kendall denies, saying he learned of the revocation only via a tweet from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and was never given a chance to respond. Kendall, who has hired attorney Mark Zaid, calls the move politically motivated retaliation for his criticism of the administration since leaving office in 2025, and says it fits a broader pattern of arbitrary clearance revocations used against political critics.
This comes as Trump appeared to be golfing alongside surface-to-air missile defense systems over the weekend in Bedminster.
Election Emergency:
Trump left the door open to declaring a national security emergency over U.S. elections during an interview on Real America’s Voice, after host Wayne Allyn Root pressed him to use such a declaration to impose photo voter ID requirements, citizenship proof, and mail-in ballot limits. Trump didn’t commit to the idea but gave a measured response rather than ruling it out, while reaffirming his support for the SAVE America Act, which has passed the House and awaits Senate action. The exchange has split opinion online, with supporters framing it as a necessary tool to prevent fraud and critics pointing out that presidents lack constitutional authority over state-run elections, even under an emergency declaration.
Voters head to the polls today across Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, and Connecticut, with South Carolina Republicans also choosing a new Senate nominee following Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death last month, and a handful of Alabama House districts holding delayed primaries after redistricting. The results will highlight both Democratic ideological divisions and the continued influence of Trump’s endorsement in key GOP races nationwide. In Wisconsin specifically, national Democrats are watching with apprehension as democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong appears ascendant in the gubernatorial primary, with party establishment figures warning her history of inflammatory statements could make her a weaker general election candidate and risk handing the governorship to Republicans in a crucial presidential battleground state.
A recount in Indiana’s contested state Senate primary has flipped the outcome, putting Trump-backed challenger Paula Copenhaver ahead of incumbent Spencer Deery by three votes after the Indiana Recount Commission threw out 10 ballots, eight that had favored Deery and two that had favored Copenhaver. Deery was one of seven Republican state senators targeted with primary challengers this spring after voting down a Trump-pushed redrawn congressional map last year; five of the seven ultimately lost their primaries. Deery had initially clung to a three-vote lead before Copenhaver challenged the result, underscoring how closely contested, and how consequential, Trump’s redistricting push has become within his own party.
A panel of North Carolina Republican officials selected state lawmaker Jennifer Balkcom to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards on the November ballot after Edwards dropped his re-election bid following sexual harassment allegations, which he has denied, and an ethics panel recommendation that he be censured. Balkcom, who represents a state legislative district in Henderson County, will face Democrat Jamie Ager, who won his party’s primary back in March. The swap adds another layer to today’s broader storyline of Republican primary turbulence, following closely on the heels of the Indiana recount fight over Trump’s redistricting agenda.
Iran:
Oil prices hit $90 a barrel Tuesday, their highest in two weeks, as the US-Iran war stalemate drags into a sixth month and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz nears a standstill. Brent crude jumped 1.6% before settling around $88; WTI rose 1.8% to about $83. Only a handful of tankers have crossed the strait since the weekend (down from roughly 130 daily before the war), with many ships masking their identity, according to maritime data firm Kpler. Trump said he’s told aides to demand compensation from Iran, responding to Iran’s demand that the strait stay closed until the US lifts its naval blockade. US gasoline prices held flat at $4.11/gallon, up 38% since the war began.
According to the Wall Street Journal, US forces fired on a Panama-flagged ship early Tuesday after it tried to run the American naval blockade of Iranian ports, according to a US official. A military helicopter shot at the vessel’s rudder when its crew ignored warnings from American personnel enforcing the blockade. The incident marks an escalation in enforcement as the Trump administration leans on economic pressure since Iran hasn’t met its demands.
Other news:
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo Monday, authored by Assistant AG T. Elliot Gaiser, holding that executive privilege can extend to Trump’s communications with “private advisers” — and to his direct advisers’ communications with outside private citizens — as long as those communications relate to official presidential decision-making, involve the president or his direct advisers, and remain confidential.
The opinion lands amid court fights over demands for testimony and records from informal Trump advisers like Boris Epshteyn. Legal experts quoted in coverage warn it could spark major constitutional battles and, if it holds up, permanently expand presidential power by shielding informal political fixers from judicial oversight — which lines up with Sherman’s point about the stakes if Democrats retake the House and launch investigations.
Trump lashed out in a 190-word Truth Social rant after catching Chandler Hall, associate director for public safety at the Center for American Progress, on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal discussing a CAP analysis finding that his administration’s $1.7 billion National Guard deployments to cities like D.C. and Los Angeles had no measurable effect on reducing violent crime. Trump called CAP “the foolish Center for American Lack of Progress,” dismissed the report as a “Radical Left SCAM,” and named a long list of the group’s funders including George Soros, Google, Apple, Bank of America, and several foreign embassies, while threatening to sue the organization and “strongly considering” targeting its individual contributors. Hall’s appearance began around 9:25 a.m. Monday, a time slot when Trump’s official schedule listed him in “Executive Time,” part of a pattern the Daily Beast says saw the 80-year-old president publicly seen in D.C. before 11 a.m. just three times during all of June. Hall did concede “in the interest of fairness” that the deployments reduced opportunistic property crime like theft and vandalism, echoing an earlier June report from the nonpartisan Niskanen Center that similarly found no measurable drop in violent crime, calling the crackdown a “blunt and expensive” stunt. Trump’s post came alongside a clip of border czar Tom Homan praising the crackdown on Fox News, citing over 16,000 arrests and nearly 2,000 firearms seized.
More than 60 congressional Democrats, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, and Tammy Duckworth, have launched a probe into whether DHS, the Pentagon, and the VA are coordinating to deport spouses and parents of active-duty troops, after the AP found more than 50 such family members swept up in ICE raids, with at least six already deported. In a Sunday letter, the lawmakers warned the crackdown “imperils military readiness, weakens service members’ morale, and betrays America’s promises,” noting that decades-old protections shielding troops’ relatives from removal under both parties have been stripped away, forcing some service members to postpone deployments to care for children after a spouse was detained. Blumenthal, the senior Democrat on the Senate veterans’ affairs committee, called the findings “appalling” and said the “unbelievable cruelty at the center of the Trump immigration agenda” demands “answers and accountability.” The letter arrives days after Trump created a Military Spouse Commission, chaired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wife Jennifer Rauchet, declaring military spouses “intrinsically linked to the good order, readiness, and retention of our military,” a claim critics say clashes directly with the detentions. DHS defended the policy, stating “U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status,” while the Pentagon said it would respond directly to the lawmakers, and the White House, VA, and Republican committee chairs Roger Wicker and Jerry Moran did not respond to the AP’s requests for comment.
Pete Hegseth appointed Marc Andreessen and Blake Masters to the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board despite both having ties to 1789 Capital, the venture fund where Donald Trump Jr is a partner. Andreessen’s firm, a16z, co-invests alongside 1789 in defense contractors Anduril, Hadrian, and SpaceX, while Masters sits on three boards linked to 1789 through Omeed Malik’s Colombier vehicles. These jointly-backed companies have won billions in federal contracts and loans since Trump’s second term began, raising conflict-of-interest concerns from watchdogs like the Project on Government Oversight. The board, historically influential but controversial (as during the 2003 Iraq war buildup), was disbanded by Hegseth in 2025 and reconstituted in June 2026 under chair Robert Lighthizer. Both appointees have prior ties to the administration and hard-right politics: Masters is a Peter Thiel protege who ran on nativist rhetoric, and Andreessen has become a major Trump donor and PCAST member whose firm backs autonomous-weapons makers selling to the US military, ICE, and Israel.
A Syrian court sentenced former president Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Syria’s 14-year civil war, which killed roughly 500,000 people. The brothers fled to Moscow after being ousted by a rebel offensive in December 2024; Maher had commanded the regime’s feared fourth division. The court cited premeditated murder, torture, and arbitrary arrest, and said it would pursue international avenues to prosecute the pair, though Russia has previously refused extradition requests. Assad’s cousin Atef Najib, former security chief in Daraa, was also sentenced to death for torturing boys whose 2011 anti-Assad graffiti helped spark the uprising. Post-Assad Syria has since seen its own waves of sectarian violence, including killings of Alawite and Druze civilians, as the new government pursues transitional justice.
Tyler Boebert, the 21-year-old son of Rep. Lauren Boebert, was arrested Sunday on three counts of sexual exploitation of a child and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, then released on $10,000 bond. The charges stem from a 2024 video he allegedly recorded with a then-17-year-old when he was 18; the girl’s mother reported to authorities that a video of the two having sex had been posted to Instagram. It’s unclear who posted it or whether Tyler has legal representation. Rep. Boebert said in a statement that she loves her son and takes the allegations seriously; he also faces separate, unresolved charges from a 2024 arrest for vehicle trespass and property theft.
Congo’s Ebola outbreak has become the fastest-growing on record, with government data showing at least 2,011 deaths among 4,381 confirmed cases as of Tuesday, alongside 704 patients currently in isolation. The outbreak, declared May 15, took about nine weeks to reach its first 1,000 deaths but only around three more weeks to double that toll, making it the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history behind the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. Response efforts are being hampered by rebel conflict, poor roads, and health worker strikes over unpaid wages, with most new cases emerging outside monitored contact networks. The WHO said the outbreak likely began in February but went undetected for months, as early cases were misattributed to malaria and typhoid, and Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said officials are “chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us.” The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain with no approved vaccine or treatment, is Congo’s 17th since Ebola was first identified there in 1976, and clinical trials for potential treatments have now begun in the epicenter region of Ituri.
Turkey’s parliament approved legislation Monday in a 468-88 vote to offer a conditional pardon to thousands of Kurdish PKK militants, part of a broader peace initiative that will only take effect once authorities verify the group has fully disarmed. The move follows the PKK’s decision last year to dissolve itself and end its decades-long insurgency in response to a call from imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, after which the group staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony and began withdrawing fighters from Turkey to Iraq. The law would suspend prison sentences and pause investigations against many PKK members for five to ten years, though those convicted of intentional killings or serving pre-2005 life sentences, including Ocalan himself, are excluded. The PKK-linked ANF news outlet welcomed the bill as a “beginning” but called it insufficient, demanding Ocalan’s release and greater protections for Kurdish political rights, while critics like Good Party leader Musavat Dervisoglu argued the deal mainly serves to help President Erdogan extend his time in power. The insurgency has killed tens of thousands since 1984, and previous peace efforts, most recently in 2015, have collapsed.
France’s new law banning unsolicited telemarketing calls took effect Tuesday, requiring businesses to get prior consent before contacting consumers rather than relying on the old opt-out registry that consumer groups say call centers frequently ignored. The measure, backed by President Macron’s government and approved by parliament last year, responds to years of complaints, with authorities estimating about three-quarters of French residents receive at least one unwanted sales call weekly. Violators face steep fines, up to 75,000 euros ($87,000) per call for individuals and 375,000 euros ($435,000) per call for companies, with one Ireland-based firm already fined 6.9 million euros last year under the previous rules. The law has sparked alarm in Morocco, where up to 50,000 call center jobs are reportedly at risk in an industry that draws roughly $100 million in investment and over $1 billion in annual revenue, historically fueled by France accounting for more than 80% of the sector’s business. France joins Germany, which has banned such calls since 2009, and the Netherlands, which just tightened its own rules, while countries like the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. still rely on opt-out systems such as the Do Not Call registry.
China’s Long March 7A rocket, carrying the ChinaSat-4B communications satellite, failed after an in-flight anomaly following liftoff from the Wenchang space launch site in Hainan on Monday, with state media Xinhua confirming the mission was unsuccessful and the cause under investigation. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell said launch footage showed the rocket was completely destroyed at relatively low altitude and speed, meaning neither the satellite nor debris reached orbit; it marks the rocket’s first failure since its troubled 2020 maiden flight, despite completing over a dozen successful missions since returning to service in 2021. Elon Musk commented on the failure on X, writing “rockets are insanely hard” and adding “I hope they have a speedy recovery.” Analysts said the setback appears contained. Blaine Curcio of Orbital Gateway Consulting called it “not a great development” but said “the damage seems limited,” noting the Long March 7A mainly launches high-orbit communications satellites rather than China’s low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations, so the failure shouldn’t meaningfully slow that broader launch pace. The incident is also not expected to affect China’s upcoming Chang’e-7 lunar mission, which will use a different rocket, the Long March 5, to explore the Moon’s south pole for water ice, with a possible launch window later this month.
See you soon.
— Aaron
