Instead of Tariffs, Maybe Help Canada Put Out Wildfires?

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.

Inside Washington

Instead of tariffs, maybe help Canada put out wildfires?

Democratic lawmakers don’t merely think Trump’s newly announced 50 percent tariffs on Canada are a bad idea from an economic standpoint. They also want to see the U.S. actively helping Canadians fight the Ontario wildfires currently sending smoke into the U.S., and fear for the future of the two countries’ relationship.

Trump has told reporters that the tariffs he announced Monday aren’t in response to the wildfires, but the timing is highly suspicious. The announcement came just days after Trump said, “Maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs.”

To some, the arbitrary nature of Trump’s decision is the biggest affront. “There’s no question that Trump thinks he’s a king and he can use these tariffs to execute whatever he wants,” said Senator Ron Wyden, who on Wednesday unveiled a bill to reassert congressional authority over tariffs.

Others are worried about the economic impact in their own states. “Canada is a friend, one of our closest allies,” said Michigan Senator Gary Peters. “In Michigan, where we have close trading relations with Canadians, they’re a vital part of our economy, and it’s an important friendship.”

Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota is similarly concerned about her home state. “Minnesota has a good relationship with Canada. Clearly, the hostile and reckless approach of the Trump administration towards Canada makes those relationships hard to maintain.”

But beyond the typical condemnation of tariffs, several politicians are also suggesting that with wildfires in particular, the U.S. might be better served by collaborating more closely with its northern neighbor. Some would even like to see direct aid. “I was on a call this morning with Secretary [of Agriculture Brooke] Rollins and leaders from the Forest Service talking about the fires in northern Minnesota, and I know that the Forest Service and Canadian officials are working closely and well together. So I think at the operating level, the relationships continue to be effective,” Smith told me.

On Saturday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized the “short memory” of American politicians who have blamed Canada for Ontario’s wildfire smoke drifting southward. “We had the water bombers and everyone going over to California [last year],” he said. “That’s what neighbors do.”

Californian Senator Alex Padilla hasn’t forgotten that. “They’re there for us in our time of need,” he said, “and we should be there for them.”

—Emma Janssen  

Full-time workers increasingly need SNAP and Medicaid to make ends meet

The number of Americans who rely on SNAP and Medicaid despite working full-time for major companies has shot up, according to a report the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, released Wednesday. The number of Amazon workers who receive anti-poverty benefits nearly tripled between February 2020 and September 2025, the report found. Gig-based companies like Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, Instacart, and DoorDash also employ high numbers of Medicaid and SNAP recipients, the report found, a major change from 2020. Meanwhile, Walmart was the top employer of Medicaid recipients in both 2020 and 2025.

The report confirms what anti-poverty advocates have been saying for years: It’s becoming harder to be a working American, and working full-time does not guarantee financial security. It also shows that some of the country’s most successful companies don’t pay their workers a living wage, according to Senator Bernie Sanders, who requested the GAO produce the report.

“American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon,” said Sanders in a statement.

Between 2020 and 2025, Walmart increased its profits from nearly $15 billion to nearly $22 billion. Meanwhile, the number of Walmart employees relying on Medicaid in the 11 states sampled in the GAO report increased by 55 percent.

Life has probably gotten harder for these employees in the months since the data was collected. This report comes just over a year after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, implementing massive cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. SNAP participation is already down more than 4.5 million people, according to USDA data. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, estimates that up to 15 million people could lose their Medicaid coverage by 2034. 

Californian Senator Alex Padilla hasn’t forgotten that. “They’re there for us in our time of need,” he said, “and we should be there for them.”

—Emma Janssen  

Outside Washington

Canada “politely” withdraws party invites in response to Trump tariffs

Americans have been “politely, but effectively, disinvited” from the opening ceremony on Friday for the new and long-awaited Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, three sources tell the Detroit Free Press. The reason, Todd Spangler reports, is Trump’s threat to slap 50 percent tariffs on Canada. Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has publicly worried about the threat’s effect on the state’s economy, and the Trump administration already delayed the bridge’s opening last month by demanding that Canada give the United States half the bridge’s profits for the first 15 years—in addition to a debt-repayment arrangement that remains a little unclear. (The text of the deal was only released on Tuesday.)

Tariffs are also a wild card in Maine’s Senate race, where Democrats have been frantically shoring up support for Troy Jackson to replace the scandal-a-day Graham Platner as Democratic nominee against Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Republican candidates in the state quickly distanced themselves from Trump on tariffs, with Collins disavowing her own party head to Politico on behalf of Maine’s lobsters and blueberries. (They’re “harvested in Maine, processed in Canada, and then come back,” said Collins.) Meanwhile, U.S. businesses obviously aren’t thrilled with the new chaos, and the American dairy and distilled spirits lobbies, representing industries Trump is allegedly protecting with these tariffs, have already voiced their displeasure.

Elsewhere:

• The Massachusetts state Senate is considering a proposal to increase affordable housing by upzoning vast swaths of the state, ending single-family zoning in favor of allowing “duplexes by right.”
• At CalMatters, Jeanne Kuang examines Gavin Newsom’s intricate balancing act as he attempts to position himself as a populist candidate for 2028—an act that has included opposing a state billionaire tax while voicing support for a federal one. Progressives are skeptical, Kuang notes.

—Heather Souvaine Horn  

The Ideas Factory

The Century Foundation’s Angela Hanks, Aissa Canchola Bañez, and Eduard Nilaj find that “rising energy debt is climbing into the middle class,” in part because “energy bills have increased three times faster than the rate of inflation while Trump has been president.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council slams the Trump administration for “making climate science denial its official policy” and then threatening Canada with tariffs over Ontario wildfire smoke. “Some 180 million Americans were threatened last week by dangerous heat” in addition to the perilously poor air quality, senior attorney David Doniger writes in a memo, and widespread drought has contributed to “Colorado wheat farmers … reporting their worst year in six decades; in Nebraska, it’s the worst in more than a century.”

Resources for the Future’s Brandon Holmes, Molly Robertson, Kevin Rennert, Keith J. Benes, Natalie Baillargeon, Juniper Katz, Robi Nilson, and Ben Hoen publish a new working paper analyzing solar and wind development, finding that “Texas’s renewable energy development often proceeds quickly when compared with projects on federal land and many state-level permitting processes.”

Earlier this week, the Urban Institute’s William J. Congdon, Elisabeth Jacobs, Amanda Briggs, Ryan Kelsey, Shayne Spaulding, Oluwasekemi Odumosu, and Julia Payne released an article outlining “Policy Priorities for an Inclusive AI Economy.” A few of their proposals: “use AI to match workers with jobs and employers with talent,” “update” labor regulations to address the risks of AI, “incorporate worker voice in AI design and implementation,” “improve policies and programs for displaced workers,” and “ensure gains in productivity and prosperity are widely shared.” So, basically a complete redesign of how the AI transition is currently going.

—Heather Souvaine Horn  

In Closing

$37.5 billion for Trump’s war on Iran? Something doesn’t add up ... 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week, saying the Pentagon has spent $37.5 billion bombing Iran so far, and needs another $67 billion, stat. Those numbers are a bit suspicious. Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted get into the math.

Political Trivia Question of the Day

Who was the first Socialist Party member elected to the House of Representatives, and when, and where was he from? (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.

Inside Washington

“On day one, Democrats will pass a bill to end the Iran war” 

Democratic lawmakers currently can’t do much to stop the Iran war, House members admitted on Tuesday. Instead, their strategy is to continue to push for oversight and remind voters why gas prices are high. Then, if voters deliver them the House in November, Democrats could cut off funding. Some members would like to see that happen right after the swearing-in ceremony.

“It’s going to be very difficult,” said Representative Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, when I asked what legislative options Democrats currently have to curtail the war. “At the end of the day, this president—most presidents—have asserted their authority to use the military as they see fit.”

Democrats have tried a number of options against President Trump and Republicans. They’ve offered multiple amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, that would prevent future Defense Department funds from being spent on the war, but the Republican-led Rules Committee rejected the amendments. In June, Democrats passed concurrent war powers resolutions in both the House and Senate, each time with the help of four Republicans. But concurrent resolutions don’t have the force of law. Just this Monday, two American service members were killed in Jordan by an Iranian strike.

Now, some House Democrats are planning to vote against the NDAA this week in protest of its unrestricted funding for the war. “To ask us to spend another $1.5 trillion of our constituents’ taxpayer funds, hard-earned, is just outrageous,” said Representative Pat Ryan on Tuesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on the Hill Tuesday afternoon making the case that the funding is crucial for national security, and for the first time gave an estimate on the war’s cost to date: a staggering $37.5 billion. His testimony was interrupted multiple times by antiwar protesters, who were removed from the hearing room.

Representative Pete Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Dems’ other symbolic legislative protests will continue, too. “We’re going to use the opportunities we have in the Rules Committee to add amendments to the NDAA [and] to future appropriation bills each and every time,” he said—even though Republicans will likely continue to reject the amendments.

But Dems also have a parallel mission: winning the messaging fight. “Normally, the way this works is public opposition reaches the point where the executive branch realizes they have to respond. But Trump has decided the public opinion doesn’t matter, and that puts us in a very dangerous place,” said Smith.

Even if Trump doesn’t respond to public opinion like most presidents do, Democrats hope voters will. “I think the American public is clear that this is a war they didn’t ask for,” said Aguilar. “I think they’re also very clear that Democrats want nothing to do with this, and so that’ll be the case that we make over the next 105 days or so.”

Representative Ro Khanna thinks the case will make itself: “As gas prices go up, as food prices go up, as Americans see more, unfortunately, of their service members be killed, the cry to end the war will increase,” he told me.

Without currently having enough votes to get their oversight amendments into the NDAA and enforce restrictions on the war, some Democrats are looking ahead to January, when they hope to have a majority in the House. “Hopefully, this war is going to be ended soon,” said Representative Ted Lieu. “If it is still around next term, on day one, Democrats will pass a bill to end the Iran war.”

—Emma Janssen  

Outside Washington

Rob Sand rakes in the (populist?) cash 

Democrat Rob Sand is smashing fundraising records in the Iowa gubernatorial race, The Des Moines Register reports. The most recent disclosures, filed this week, show $9.4 million flowing to Sand and only $6.4 million to Republican Zach Lahn, bringing Sand’s total receipts up to almost $38 million, while Lahn stands at $10 million. 

The Sand campaign on Tuesday was quick to argue that these numbers weren’t just high, but also fundamentally populist: Sand’s donations, the campaign wrote in a press release, came from 33,500 individuals as opposed to Lahn’s 431. Also, 95 percent of Sand’s contributions were under $100, with an average contribution of $280, whereas only 61 percent of Lahn’s contributions were under this figure, with an average contribution of $14,786.

This week, noted political commentator Charlie Cook predicted to people on a Zoom call that Sand will win in November, but he cast doubt on Democrat Josh Turek’s chances against Ashley Hinson in the Senate race. A New York Times/Siena University poll in late June showed Sand up two points, while a Fox News poll conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research showed Sand up nine points.

Elsewhere:

• Florida’s gubernatorial hopefuls, still waiting for the state’s very late August 18 primary, are already pivoting to their general election messaging. Democratic front-runner David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, spent Tuesday hammering his likely Republican opponent Byron Donalds on data centers, Politico reports—“reiterating” his own support for a moratorium and saying Donalds is in the industry’s pocket. Maybe you haven’t been following this race, given that Republicans have occupied the Florida governor’s mansion for the past 27 years. But a recent poll from the University of North Florida showed Donalds leading Jolly by only five points—an intriguingly close margin given that the state’s voters backed Trump to the tune of over 13 points in 2024.
• The Washington Post’s “Climate Coach” columnist Michael J. Coren reports that peanut butter jars only need “a quick scrape” to be recyclable—no scrubbing or rinsing. Huge, if true, as they say on social media. “Peanut butter jars” were trending on the WaPo homepage on Tuesday, while the paper’s scoop on Troy Jackson’s temper languished below the digital fold.

—Heather Souvaine Horn  

The Ideas Factory

Public Citizen announces a “Combating Corruption” event on July 30 at the National Press Club, featuring Senators Chuck Schumer and Sheldon Whitehouse. The watchdog promises that the event “will dive into topics such as money in politics, contracting scandals, pay-to-play schemes and family enrichment deals for elected officials.”

Data for Progress releases a new poll finding that jittery voters overwhelmingly want the government to put some guardrails on AI. First, 69 percent of voters support “requiring AI companies to give the U.S. government a 30-day window to review their new AI models before releasing them to the public.” Second, 68 percent support “requiring large AI companies to invest a portion of their revenue in local development projects and community services.” And even larger majorities support creating new jobs training programs and direct government employment programs for workers who may be displaced by AI.

On Thursday, Brookings hosts a conversation about “top priorities for US-Africa relations in an era of great power competition,” featuring numerous experts, including Brookings senior fellow Landry Signé; Mozambique’s ambassador to the U.S., Alfredo Fabião Nuvunga; U.S. Trade and Development Agency Director of Policy and Program Management Mary Sloan; Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary Dan Byers; and others.

—Heather Souvaine Horn  

In Closing

Book of the Week: This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy by Ben Wikler.

THE GIST: This Is the Plan is a “field guide” to “dictator-proof” the United States. As former head of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Wikler helped Democrats win back the Midwestern swing state after years of gerrymandering and attacks on unions. He knows how to organize locally to fight GOP-backed voter suppression, and he knows what works in swing states, particularly in the Midwest. His plan also includes abolishing the filibuster, Supreme Court reform, and changing how the 435 members of the House of Representatives are elected. Most importantly, he thinks reform should be joyous. Democrats, he writes, should “have fun storming the castle—in a civil, metaphorical, and non-January-6th-y way.”

PRAISE: Nancy Pelosi says, “If we do what this book says, we will win.”

CRUISING THROUGH THE INDEX: In addition to big-ticket reform, Wikler also favors passing the Protecting the Right to Organize, or PRO, Act, which would expand collective bargaining rights and expand labor protections, and the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would establish a nationwide statutory right to provide and receive abortion care. 

TNR’S QUICK CRITICAL ASSESSMENT: With hindsight, it’s clear that Wikler should have been elected as chair of the Democratic National Committee after the 2024 election—though that was clear at the time, too. This isn’t the first book about unrigging democracy and saving America—but Wikler’s résumé makes this stand out. His plan worked in Wisconsin. It can work everywhere else, as well.

—Alex Shephard

Only one American president was officially kicked out of his own political party while serving as president. Who was it, and what was the party? (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.

Inside Washington

The three keys to a Jackson victory in Maine

Today we’re focused a bit north of Washington, D.C., where Maine Democrats are rallying around a new presumptive nominee for U.S. Senate to replace disgraced Democrat Graham Platner: logger and former State Senator Troy Jackson. Maine political insiders see some positive signs in how quickly the party has resolved the chaos surrounding Platner’s exit. But Jackson, they add, now has a tough task ahead.

Over the weekend, the state Democratic Party’s delegates election process delivered Jackson a majority of the 601 delegates who will officially nominate the Democratic candidate for Senate, making Jackson’s victory in the official nominating convention on Saturday all but certain. Anthony Emerson, a 31-year-old Portland resident who’s been active in Maine politics since middle school, was running to be a delegate for Cumberland County, but wasn’t selected. When we spoke on Saturday, Emerson still thought Nirav Shah had a decent chance of winning a formidable number of delegates. By the time Monday rolled around, Jackson’s main opponents had dropped out and coalesced around him. That’s a good thing, Emerson told me. “It shows enthusiasm for his campaign, and that his campaign can organize people efficiently,” he said.

Emerson said that the energy at the virtual Cumberland County delegate election meeting was slightly anxious. “But I feel like that’s just Democrats for you,” he added. “We’re always worrying. Especially because Collins overperformed expectations so much in 2020.”

Collins’s decisive, nine-point victory over Democratic state Representative Sara Gideon in 2020, despite trailing in every major poll in the lead-up to the election, is the stuff of Democratic nightmares. But David Farmer, a Maine political analyst I spoke to, said 2026 could be different—if Jackson manages a few key tasks. Here are the ones he highlighted:

1. Get Democrats to turn out. It sounds obvious, but voters are less likely to cast ballots during a midterm election than a presidential election. Getting Democratic voters to the polls should be possible: Democrats in the state have been activated by the two-week process of finding a replacement for Platner, and the party has a monopoly on attention. The murder of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero at the hands of an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13 will also likely galvanize pro-immigrant Democrats to head to the polls.

2. Pick up independents in Portland and surrounding suburbs. In 2020, Gideon received 67 percent of the vote in Portland, a deep blue city that Farmer says she should have performed better in. He attributes that underperformance to Lisa Savage, who was running as an independent and picked up nearly 11 percent of the Portland vote. “Those Lisa Savage votes came straight off of Sarah Gideon,” Farmer said. “In a two-way race, [Jackson] has the opportunity to pick up thousands of votes just in Portland.” Jackson won the plurality of the Portland vote, 28 percent, in the gubernatorial election this June, a good sign for his prospects in the city.

3. Win over undecided female voters. Farmer suggests that independent female voters could be key to Jackson’s win. Collins was a pivotal vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Collins called the decision “ill-considered.” But Democrats are emphasizing Collins’s role in confirming a crucial vote in the 5–4 decision overturning Roe, hoping to pick up pro-choice female voters who otherwise might stay home.

“It’s always going to be tough. There’s a reason that she’s won for 30 years,” said Farmer about Collins. But Jackson still has a path to victory. If Democrats can harness the attention and energy around his nomination, and strategize carefully from here, the Maine Senate seat could still be in play.

—Emma Janssen

Would Dems pass a different version of the Massie amendment?

Democrats aren’t even close to finding a sustainable path forward on Israel, following a seismic House vote splitting the party down the middle on aid to the country. But all signs point to a sea change in how the party talks about the Middle East.

On July 15, representatives voted on the Massie amendment, which would cut $3.3 billion in unconditional aid to the country. The amendment failed, but in a major shock, 103 Democrats—even some who have previously received funding from pro-Israel organizations—voted for the amendment. Even Representative Thomas Massie, the Republican who brought the amendment and the sole “yes” vote in the GOP, was shocked by how many Democrats supported it. “I thought we might get 24, and 60 in my mind would have been a tremendous victory,” he told me on Thursday.

Democrats who voted for the amendment say they did so because there was no better way to express their dissatisfaction with Israel’s war in Gaza and actions during the war in Iran. “Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel is an ally. Israel does not have a right to buy F-35s on its ally’s credit card,” Representative Jake Auchincloss told me.

Auchincloss has been a beneficiary of funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and received $10,000 from the group during the 2025–26 cycle. After his “yes” vote, though, the option to donate to him disappeared from AIPAC’s website, along with the other Democrats the group supports who voted for the amendment.

Representative Sarah McBride is another typically pro-Israel Democrat who voted for the amendment. “It was a hard decision to come to,” she said. “The language was poorly written. The vehicle was deeply imperfect. But when the question is called, you have to decide: What is the message you want to send?”

Many of the 98 Democrats who voted “no” on the amendment emphasized that their vote wasn’t because they support the actions of the Israeli government. Representative Rosa DeLauro, for example, pointed to the amendment’s broad language as the reason that she couldn’t vote for it. “Its vague wording gives the Trump Administration broad leeway to determine which programs are defunded and how,” she wrote in a statement.

In her statement, DeLauro signaled that she wants to set stronger restrictions on Israel in the future. “We must ensure that any future security relationship with Israel is structured similarly to defense agreements with our Western and democratic allies,” she wrote. “A new defense agreement must be based on respect for human rights and allow for a route to Palestinian sovereignty.”

Auchincloss also has a vision for future legislation on Israel: “It needs to provide for Israel’s qualitative military edge,” he said. “But it also needs to represent the profound concerns of the American public about further conflict in the Middle East.”

I asked him if there’s a middle way forward for Democrats on Israel, and whether the party would be able to coalesce on a policy toward the country. “Is there a middle way? There needs to be, both in terms of individual policies that point Congress in that direction, and also as we start to architect the next memorandum of understanding,” he said, referencing the Obama administration’s agreement that guaranteed Israel $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028.

Even though Democrats haven’t come to any concrete solutions to their Israel problem, the votes on the amendment signal that a shift is coming. “Number one: Public opinion is changing. Number two: It’s being reflected here in Washington, D.C. And number three: AIPAC’s grip, at least on one party, has been severely diminished,” Massie said of the vote.

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

Warren enters the fray in Michigan

There are just two weeks to go until Michigan’s August 4 primary, and the big battle between progressive Abdul El-Sayed and moderate Representative Haley Stevens over who gets to replace retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters shows zero signs of calming down. Monday morning, Senator Elizabeth Warren became the latest sitting progressive to back El-Sayed, despite Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer having endorsed Stevens.

“Michiganders deserve a senator who will fight for you, not for special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat,” Warren said in a subtextually spicy video posted to X. Warren also touted El-Sayed’s union credentials, and insisted that El-Sayed was the “only candidate in this race who can build the grassroots movement needed to win in November”—a not very thinly veiled rebuttal of establishment Democrats’ view that El-Sayed is too far left to defeat a Republican in the general election. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are also backing El-Sayed and appeared at a rally with him in Lansing on Sunday.

The context for that line about special interests: Pro-Stevens TV ad buys have outpaced pro-El-Sayed ad buys by a 12-to-one margin, The Detroit News’s Craig Mauger reported last week. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliates alone have dropped almost $30 million. (Stevens recently voted against a proposal to cut off military aid to Israel.) But also, “a group called A Stronger Michigan, which hasn’t reported its donors’ names to the Federal Election Commission, has spent $12.1 million in support of Stevens,” Mauger wrote. The Detroit Free Press’s Todd Spangler, who calculated the spending ratio as more like 13 to one, noted that both A Stronger Michigan and Center Forward “have been linked to Jefferies Murray, a corporate lobbyist in Washington whose firm has represented defense contractor Northrop Grumman and Facebook parent Meta, among others.”

Last week, El-Sayed took to social media to ask his supporters to stop taking potshots at Stevens over things like her speaking voice, and instead “focus on the issues,” like the “corporations and special interests” who “support her.” Warren’s video would seem to fit the bill. It also hits many of the same notes AOC and Sanders hit over the weekend.

So who’s ahead? Recent polls are oddly split on the question. A Detroit News poll last week had Stevens up seven points. Then Data for Progress found El-Sayed up 13 points. On Monday, Tulchin Research released another poll finding El-Sayed up 16. And they were all in the field at more or less the same time. Obviously, they’re making pretty different guesses about who the electorate is going to be.

Elsewhere:

• Gas prices are up above $4 again due to renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. Last week’s optimistic reads on consumer spending—and thus the economy in general—after gas prices fell in June sure didn’t last long.
  
  
• Analysis from CalMatters’ Digital Democracy project finds that current members of the California legislature have, on average, only broken from their party majority 1 percent of the time. But some are more open to bucking the party line than others. Republican Greg Wallis, representing the swingy 47th district, has strayed in 8 percent of his votes. Democrat Jasmeet Bains—who ran for Congress this year but lost the June “top-two” primary to progressive Randy Villegas and Republican incumbent David Valadao—defected “just under 2 percent of the time since she was elected to the Legislature in 2022.”
  
  
• South Carolina Republicans continue to hurl their hats into the ring for the August 11 primary to replace late Senator Lindsey Graham. On Monday, Graham’s sister Darline Graham Nordone (backed by Trump) and Representative Russell Fry joined a field that already includes Representative Ralph Norman, businessman Mark Lynch, former Governor Mark Sanford, and lawyer Duke Buckner. Don’t forget that two sources have said former Representative Nancy Mace is “strongly considering” a “YOLO” run, too. Watch this (crowded) space to see who Democrat Annie Andrews will be facing in November.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

A new poll from Data for Progress and the Center for Climate Integrity finds that voters “strongly support legal action to hold oil and gas corporations accountable for misleading them about the harms of natural gas, whether in the context of climate change or public health.”

July 21 is Equal Pay Day for Black women—the day marking the extra days in 2026 that a Black woman would have to work in addition to all of 2025 to earn the same amount for the year as a white man. At the Century Foundation, Janelle Jones, Michelle Lavere, Michaela Minnis, Tiara Moultrie, and Lea Woods write about the various policies that might help close the gap. These include paid leave; “direct public investment” in childcare, both to lower costs and to “[raise] wages for early educators, 16.7 percent of whom are Black women”; reducing the cost of higher education; tracking Black employment in Fed data to “resist declaring full employment until Black workers experience it too”; and more.

Tuesday at 10 a.m., the Urban Institute hosts a hybrid event titled “Mobilizing Community and Economic Development to Address Climate Change: Paths for Transformative Action.” Speakers will include Jobs for the Future’s Madeleine Chaisson, Urban Institute’s Oriya Cohen, Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice’s Stuart Clarke, the Tucson, Arizona, city manager’s chief of staff Lane Mandle, and more.

Wednesday at 12:30 p.m., the Center for American Progress hosts an online conversation with Senator Chris Murphy titled “Stopping Trump’s Crypto Corruption,” focusing on “why stronger oversight and anticorruption rules for cryptocurrency markets are essential to protecting U.S. national security and our democracy.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

Four Questions For: Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Interviewed by Matt Ford

Q: Who are you, and what are you working on right now?

A: I’m currently senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, where I’ve been for almost 10 years now. I started my career as an immigration lawyer, but these days, rather than explaining immigration law and policy to a single client, I spend my days explaining immigration law and policy to the general public, policymakers, and the media. Right now, with the imminent loss of Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people, I’m diving into co-writing a new publication looking at the Trump administration’s broader “de-legalization” campaign, which is shaping up to be the largest in modern American history.

Q: What is the most difficult thing about your line of work?

A: The most difficult thing about tracking immigration law and policy is the sheer volume of changes, which keeps accelerating. Statements which are true on Monday may be false by Friday. Protections which lasted for generations can end in a heartbeat. If the first Trump administration was like running a marathon, the second one feels like trying to run a triathlon when the water’s covered in an oil slick, the bike has two flat tires, and every other competitor gets to take shortcuts.

Q: What was your biggest success in the last year or two?

A: It’s been a whirlwind couple of years. But the work I’m most proud of recently is our May publication “Restoring Credibility and Humanity to Immigration Enforcement: A New Framework for Interior Immigration Enforcement.” At a time when the need to make major changes to ICE has never been more clear, I think we offer a uniquely positive vision for fixing what is broken; one that offers high-level solutions, messaging, and concrete policy ideas that are usable for anyone looking to answer the question of what to do with ICE.

Q: What keeps you going in these stressful times?

A: It’s a cliché, but spending time with friends and family has never been more important to me, and I’ve been prioritizing that whenever possible. Beyond the directly personal, I keep coming back to the community response we saw in Minneapolis; how people came together to respond to Trump’s shock and awe campaign leveled against an American city. That level of mutual aid and community support is a model for an American future that is not as atomized and divided as our social media feeds want us to feel, and reminds us that basic human decency and a love of our neighbors makes us far stronger than stigmatizing immigrants ever could.

This state didn’t elect its first Democratic senator until 1974. What’s the state, and for bonus points, who was the senator? (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday pressed attorney general nominee Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former lawyer, on a range of controversies and came away even more convinced that he’s not fit to lead the Justice Department. But will any of their Republican colleagues come to the same conclusion?

Senator Richard Blumenthal, who sits on the committee, was alarmed by Blanche’s responses to questions about Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund and the president’s self-dealing with the IRS. “He hewed to the standard line and showed that he’s really Donald Trump’s henchman, his mob consigliere, and will enable and promote the lawbreaking that we’ve seen by Donald Trump,” Blumenthal told me. “There’s a chance” that Republicans will defect and vote against Blanche, he said, but he added, “I am certainly not optimistic because, looking at history, they have failed to stand up when it counted, even in the face of lawbreaking.”

Assuming every Democrat on the committee opposes Blanche, who is currently the acting attorney general, he will need every Republican vote to advance to a confirmation vote in the full Senate. (His two-vote cushion was cut to one with Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death.)

Another Democrat on the committee, Senator Cory Booker, cited Blanche’s response to questions about the government investigation into the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. “It was outrageous how many times he didn’t even tell the truth,” he said. “Even just about the fact that he said [he] can’t meet with the victims of Epstein.”

During the hearing, ranking member Dick Durbin pressed Blanche to commit to meeting with Epstein’s victims. Ten of those victims were present at the hearing. Blanche said he would ensure that colleagues meet with Epstein’s victims, but didn’t commit to doing so himself.

“You’re dancing on the head of a pin here,” Durbin said.

“I’m not dancing on any pin,” Blanche responded.

In another tense moment, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse questioned Blanche on FBI Director Kash Patel. “How long do you intend to put up with that Kash Patel character?” Whitehouse asked, listing some of Patel’s alleged misdeeds.

“That’s an extraordinarily obnoxious question, senator,” Blanche responded.

Perhaps most significant was GOP Senator John Cornyn’s line of questioning. Both Cornyn and Senator Thom Tillis, who is also Republican, are leaving the Senate in January. Tillis is retiring, while Cornyn lost his primary to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Trump endorsed. In recent months, the two senators developed independent streaks, but it’s no guarantee that they will break with the party in this instance. (A Spectrum News reporter said that Tillis is leaning toward “yes.”)

Cornyn questioned Blanche about the anti-weaponization fund and got the acting attorney general to confirm that it is “dead.” Still, Blanche noted, the underlying settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS, which included the creation of the fund, remains an “enforceable document.”

“His claim that the weaponization fund is a dead doornail is not a characterization that I agree with,” Cornyn said, later in the day. But Cornyn remains undecided on whether he’ll vote for Blanche. “I’m not going to make that decision until I need to,” he said.

Though Senate Democrats said they’re unsure where their Republican colleagues will fall on Blanche, they see cracks in the wall. “You didn’t see defections of any significance at the beginning of the Trump term, but you’re starting to see [them now],” Senator Tim Kaine said.

A legislative amendment that would block U.S. security aid to Israel has split Democrats in Congress to such an extent that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has decided not to urge his party to oppose it. Instead, he told Democrats to vote their conscience, setting up an opportunity for lawmakers to go on the record about their views. Some are already doing so.

“The Democratic Party as a whole needs to shift its policy on Israel and Palestine,” Representative Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told me. “I think that was clear during the last presidential election. I think it’s clear to me as a moral issue. And I think that [Wednesday’s] vote could be one step towards us beginning to shift our position as a party.”

The amendment in question, brought by GOP Representative Thomas Massie, would cut $3.3 billion in security assistance that the U.S. has pledged to Israel between 2019 and 2028 and further stipulates that “none of the funds made available under this Act shall be obligated or expended for Israel.” Lawmakers are expected to vote Wednesday on the amendment, which Massie is hoping to attach to a $47 billion foreign affairs spending bill.

On Tuesday, Jeffries wrote in a “Dear Colleagues” letter that he was planning to vote against the amendment but had decided not to whip the caucus into joining him, underscoring how divided the Democrats have become on the question of America’s relationship with Israel.

In his letter, Jeffries wrote that he opposes the amendment because it is “overly broad,” prohibiting the use of funds for nonmilitary activities like U.S. embassy operations and humanitarian aid. He also expressed concern that Republicans will “weaponize” the amendment against Democrats—a potential reference to Republicans accusing Democrats of antisemitism for opposing aid to Israel.

Even though Jeffries will vote against the amendment, his letter calls for a “change in direction,” signaling how much Democrats have changed their views toward aid for Israel. “Israel has an advanced economy and is capable of paying for its own sophisticated weapons,” he wrote. Future security agreements between the two countries, he wrote, should “strictly adhere to our human rights laws and values.”

Representative Ocasio Cortez, who plans to vote “yes” on the amendment, told me that she thinks Jeffries’s decision not to whip “no” votes provides “flexibility” for Democrats to vote their conscience.

Jeffries’s letter mirrors the advice given by J Street, the liberal Zionist advocacy organization. In a statement on Tuesday, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote that the amendment is “poorly drafted, overly broad and being used by Republican leadership to divide Democrats rather than advance a serious debate about US policy.” Despite that, Ben-Ami wrote, the organization supports whatever votes members choose to cast. Some Democrats will likely vote “present” to avoid a hard “yes” or “no” vote, a decision J Street says it supports.

Casar weighed in on the amendment in his own letter, explaining why he plans to vote for the amendment and encouraging the caucus to do the same. “The Democratic Party needs a new approach to Israel and Palestine,” Casar wrote. “I hope you will join me in beginning that process by voting yes on this amendment.”

Casar said that winning over Democrats who have previously supported aid to Israel will be critical to the amendment’s passage. “For us to achieve the goal of restricting military aid to the Israeli military, we have to have members that previously voted for aid, and I expect that you’ll see that if we have the vote,” he told me.

Though elected Democrats are divided on the issue, the party faithful’s views are clearer. According to a New York Times/Siena poll from May, 74 percent of potential Democratic voters oppose “providing additional economic and military support to Israel.” Just 20 percent support it.

Despite this, the Massie amendment is still expected to fail, as nearly all Republicans are expected to vote against it.