The Green Energy Group Helping to Pick Off Republicans

A clean energy group has quietly managed to derail several Republican races.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC has raised and spent millions of dollars to dethrone at least three conservative figureheads that have backtracked on their green energy promises. Its latest victim: South Carolina Senate candidate Ralph Norman.

The group’s third major political coup occurred Tuesday evening, when Norman lost to Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. The group, which is backed by solar executives and investors, told Politico that it had spent nearly $1 million to undermine the lawmaker’s odds.

Earlier this year, the group’s ad buys stymied Representative Chip Roy’s unsuccessful attempt to become Texas’s attorney general. The PAC also spent roughly $2 million to unseat Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles—an effort that came to fruition earlier this month, when the incumbent was defeated by a former state official.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition’s vendettas are nothing short of personal: Norman, Roy, and Ogles had pushed their caucus to nix clean energy incentives in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“The clean energy industry’s political muscle is only getting stronger and more intimidating,” Invest in Tomorrow Coalition co-founder Michael Brune told Politico. “Our hope here is that clean energy will go back to being a bipartisan issue, and maybe one of the few issues that all Americans can agree on. But before we get there, we’ve got to continue our retribution tour and take out a few more members who have voted the wrong way.”

Norman, for instance, effectively backstabbed the renewable energy industry when he tried to kill the Biden administration’s wind and solar tax credits, despite co-launching the Congressional Solar Caucus in 2018.

“Norman’s somewhat even traitorous to the clean energy industry and solar industry,” Tom Matzzie, chair of the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition and a solar CEO, told Politico. “It’s about stopping Norman, but it’s also about sending a message to other members of Congress that if they try to hurt the industry, we’re going to fight back.”

With wins under its belt and millions in the bank, the group could prove to be one of 2026’s most formidable election season foes. So far, the group has raised more than $6.8 million, according to data collected by the Federal Election Commission.

Does President Trump even know how trade talks with Canada fell apart?

After negotiations with Canada imploded last week, both sides started pointing fingers. U.S. officials like JD Vance blamed Canada for introducing new asks late in the talks, while Canadian officials claimed that it was the U.S. that brought unreasonable eleventh-hour demands to the table.

In a phone call, CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked Trump whether the U.S. had been the one to make late-stage demands. The president seemed to have no recollection of these events.

“That sounds like me,” he said, adding, “They have to pay a fair amount. And if they don’t pay a fair amount, we won’t make a deal. That’s fine.”

Right before the deadline, American negotiators reportedly walked back their promise to drop tariffs on Canadian automobiles from 25 to 15 percent, revealing that they planned to exclude medium and heavy-duty trucks. They also tried to restrict Canada’s ability to strike trade deals with other countries. It was also reported that one reason Canadian negotiators walked away was that the U.S. made what were, in their view, unreasonable demands restricting French-language product documentation.

“Our culture, our language, is central to our identity, and it is important to exclude that from the negotiating table,” Canadian Premier Christine Fréchette said, “Even though we are threatened with different tariffs, it won’t change. We will stay the way we are.”

Trump has since threatened to double tariffs to 50 percent on roughly $28 billion worth of products starting on January 1. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a slate of retaliatory tariffs on about 700 products up to 50 percent that will go into effect on September 8.

A federal judge struck down a Texas ban on drag shows on Tuesday, ruling it was unconstitutional—and that anyone who really has that much of a problem with it just shouldn’t go.

The law known as Texas Senate Bill 12, which is supported and enforced by Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, would have fined business owners up to $10,000 for hosting events with “sexually oriented performances.” The performers themselves faced the potential of a Class A misdemeanor, which can carry up to a year in jail.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, ruled that the law was a vague and unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

“For those who find such activities as described in this case offensive, the solution is relatively simple ... just don’t go,” he wrote.

Hittner also used Elvis Presley, Miley Cyrus, and recently deceased country music legend Dolly Parton as examples of why the drag ban was unconstitutional.

“Just as many people criticized Elvis’s signature hip gyrations and were offended by his display of male sexuality, chastised Dolly Parton as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure, and shamed Miley Cyrus for ‘twerking’ on stage during a live performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, there are ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” he wrote.

“The Texas drag ban was blocked the same day we lost Dolly Parton. I couldn’t have ever guessed this day,” said Brigitte Bandit, a drag queen and plaintiff in the case who often performed as Parton. “Drag is free speech, bitch.”

Donald Trump just lost a lot of support in South Carolina.

Supporters of defeated Republican candidate Ralph Norman booed and jeered at mentions of the president’s name during his concession speech Tuesday night, expressing their palpable aggravation over Trump’s unwanted involvement in the contentious Senate runoff.

Trump had endorsed—and actively campaigned for—Darline Graham for South Carolina’s open Senate seat. Against all odds (and the predictions of Republican strategists, who thought Graham was headed for a heavy defeat), he got his wish: Graham won the race by five percentage points.

“The president got involved. He has that right, that’s his prerogative,” Norman said, sparking a wave of boos from the crowd.

“His policies are good, I never understood why he got in this race,” Norman continued as the crowd clapped.

“But it is what it is, and I’ll accept it,” he added. “I’ve always said something good will come out of this. I don’t know what it is, but something good will come out of it.”

The junior Graham took the reins of her sibling’s powerful office last month, after the 71-year-old suddenly passed away from an aortic dissection. Despite having zero relevant experience or qualifications, Graham gained the president’s support and was subsequently appointed by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster.

Within the span of a few short weeks, the 62-year-old undertook a gambit to make her interim responsibilities more permanent, throwing her name on the ballot to be formally selected by the state electorate. The money poured in behind her, with chief executives, lobbyists, and prominent Republican donors pumping thousands of dollars into her nascent campaign, violating the weekly thresholds set by the Federal Election Commission—a detail not lost on Norman in his closing remarks on Tuesday.

“We had $8 million spent against us. I couldn’t come up with that much money,” Norman said. “All of our money came from South Carolina and my personal account. My opponent—the money came from outside PACs, I mean it’s a fact, I’m not being critical.”

Graham’s next political hurdle arrives in November, when she’ll have to face off against Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in the general election. This time, the odds will be more in the Republican nominee’s favor: The last time South Carolina elected a Democrat to the Senate was in 1998.

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion in a settlement with 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands, for the harm that its social media platforms have done to kids and teenagers. 

Under the terms of the settlement, the company will agree to put a cumulative two-hour limit for users of Facebook and Instagram under 18, which will require a parent’s permission to override. Meta will also hide likes on minors’ posts by default and block “extreme makeup filters.” The only states that weren’t a part of the settlement were New Mexico, which won its own lawsuit against Meta earlier this year, and Florida. 

Meta only has to pay 70 percent of the total sum unless TikTok, owned by Paramount Skydance, and YouTube, owned by Google parent Alphabet, also agree to pay states $5.3 billion between them and implement default time limits on their apps and services. If they don’t, Meta doesn’t have to pay the remaining 30 percent, which is also $5.3 billion. 

Meta is still facing thousands of lawsuits from individuals, organizations, and school districts. New Mexico’s lawsuit resulted in the company having to pay $375 million in civil penalties, create a $567 million fund to address harms to children in the state, and put limits on how minors interact with the app. 

The settlement is a rare agreement across political lines, with Democratic as well as Republican state and territorial attorneys general all seeking to hold Meta accountable. CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemingly sought to avoid accountability by cozying up to President Trump after the 2024 election, donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and changing Meta’s content moderation policies after meeting with the president. 

But Meta is now on the record agreeing that restitution needs to be made due to the harms of its social media platforms, even if it isn’t outright admitting guilt. It remains to be seen if other social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube follow suit.  

The settlement still needs approval from a federal judge. 

This story has been updated.