Today’s notice: The White House wants abortion politics to wait. The colorful description of the electoral choices in Pennsylvania. New poll finds voters want the feds’ hands off elections. Where’s Taiwan’s $300 million in aid? And: Democrats are excited about … Mississippi?
THE LATEST
Scoop: Top White House officials, led by Susie Wiles, told Todd Blanche to keep abortion off the electoral radar, The Washington Sun’s Eric Katz and Oriana González report today. The White House chief of staff indicated to the attorney general that an aggressive approach on abortion would generate unwanted attention at the moment, according to a senior administration official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly
“No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” said the official.
Trending
What our reporting shows: Cases challenging abortion pill access are making their way through the federal courts. The Trump administration is currently defending Food and Drug Administration rules that allow these drugs to be available via mail. Anti-abortion groups and allies of the movement have urged the Department of Justice to drop its procedural defense of the FDA and, instead, allow courts to rule more quickly on the merits of the cases.
The White House has made clear to Blanche that it would not support such a strategy before the election.
“This is completely false,” a White House spokesperson responded to our reporting. “These conversations never occurred between White House officials and DOJ officials.”
Multiple anti-abortion groups tell us they’ve been instructed by their Trump administration allies not to expect any aggressive action on abortion pill access until November — but to very much expect it after that. “Everything but the election is pushed until after the elections,” Kristi Hamrick of Students for Life told The Sun.
The electoral context: The end of Roe v. Wade, despite being one of Donald Trump’s most significant accomplishments, remains a dangerous political issue. Polling we revealed this week showed a majority of voters favor legal abortion access, and state-level ballot question wins by abortion rights supporters across the country in recent years bear that out.
More: MLB Drops the Idea for a Game at Grand Teton National Park • Schumer Super PAC Drops $2M in Senate Democrats’ First Texas Spend • Van Orden Hit With Cease-and-Desist Letter Over AI Deepfake Videos • Democrats Propose Bill to Cut OMB Funding if Trump Violates Anti-Propaganda Laws
Open tabs:
- Pentagon prepares for potential surge of naval forces in Middle East (WaPo)
- OpenAI Fires Researchers for Allegedly Sharing Information with AI Safety Group (WSJ)
- The Fed’s long-term interest rate problem (Axios)
- Renee Good’s family sues government, top Trump officials and ICE officer who shot her (NBC)
FROM PENNSYLVANIA
Quote of the cycle? “I’m tired of the choices being between shit and diarrhea,” Keith Swiatkowski, a 48-year-old political independent who works as a butcher in the Scranton area, told The Sun’s Alex Roarty on a recent reporting trip to the district. Swiatkowski calls Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, the Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, “a breath of fresh air.”
Alex spent time in the district to pen a story of a Democrat trying to avoid that party label at all costs. “Paige Against the Machine” is how Cognetti describes her candidacy — as in: not like other Democrats, not beholden to them. It is a story playing out in battleground districts across the country.
As is the response to it. The Republican incumbent is trying to tie Cognetti back to her party’s toxic brand. “She is certainly trying to separate herself from being the liberal progressive Democrat that she truly is,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan told Alex. “But the reality is, she is very, very far from being a moderate, middle-of-the-road person.”
On the other side of the state, it’s the Republican brand that’s the real problem. The Sun’s Paul Kane reports from Fairless Hills, where Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick or his brother Mike have not lost an election as the Republican candidate in the area of the 1st District since 2006. Brian says his name is more powerful than his party label. “I am an independent who is registered Republican,” he told Paul. He also said, “The two parties have become cults.”
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
First on The Sun: Polling shows public opposition to federal involvement in elections. A new survey out this morning from voting-access advocacy group iVote finds 74% of likely voters oppose the federal government taking over the administration of state elections, and 69% oppose the feds creating a national voter-information database from state data. The Trump administration has tried to put a tight federal leash around voting this cycle, an effort that has been partly curtailed by the courts.
Trump told Time magazine that he hadn’t ruled anything out when asked about declaring an emergency near Election Day, and demurred when asked specifically if he would send ICE agents to polling places: “Haven’t thought of it.” iVote’s polling finds 64% of likely voters oppose having ICE agents stationed at their polling location.
FROM THE PENTAGONScoop: What happened to the $300 million Congress earmarked for Taiwan? That’s classified. The Sun’s Joe Gould digs into the funding question as lawmakers press the Trump administration on why it’s obscuring where the aid money went just days after Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House. Trump has previously said the security assistance is “a very good negotiating chip” to leverage in talks with Beijing.
NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN
Department of LOL, OK then: Democrats get excited in Mississippi. “I think he’s got a real shot,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) told The Sun of his party’s Senate nominee in Mississippi, Scott Colom. Warnock backed Colom early and now finds other top Democrats hitting the state to stump.
Our Igor Bobic reports on this fever dream longest of longshots: Some see Mississippi as the next Georgia, a sleeper purple state with a large African American population that, if engaged and motivated, can help make Democratic candidates competitive there.
More: Massachusetts Man Is Charged With Cyberstalking Former Trump Official Katie Miller • Trump Administration Sues Maryland to Stop Law Enforcement Mask Ban • Judge Rules Trump Cannot Fire Court-Appointed U.S. Attorneys
NOT US
- Donation pledges to Kennedy Center fell by more than 100% in months after Trump’s name added, internal documents show, by Sunlen Serfaty, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Betsy Klein for CNN
- What Trump Misunderstands About Modern Media, by Jake Lundberg for The Atlantic
- Inside Larry Ellison’s Wide Web of Power, Money and Politics, by Tom Dotan for Vanity Fair
- ‘Ready to Blow His Stack’: How Biden Nearly Cut Off Netanyahu Over Gaza, by Peter Baker for The New York Times
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.
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