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Hi all, Ben here. It’s Monday, and there is an enormous amount to get through today, so let’s get to it.
Here’s what we’re tracking:
Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei funeral continues to draw a staggering crowd
Trump’s White House “Trump Accounts” launch turns into another rambling stream of consciousness, threatening to “finish the job” on Iran, and becomes a live infomercial for Dell
Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, killing more civilians
Ukraine hits back with a massive drone raid deep into Russian territory, including Russia’s largest refinery
China test-fires a nuclear-capable missile in the Pacific, drawing condemnation from New Zealand, Japan, and Papua New Guinea
A looming deadline on the housing bill, which becomes law automatically this Friday night if Trump doesn’t act
FIFA reverses a red card suspension for USMNT’s Folarin Balogun after Trump personally pressured them
Israeli forces continue operations in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire framework
Mitch McConnell’s office won’t say whether he’s conscious
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner abruptly cancels multiple town halls as rumors swirl about a new scandal
And the aftermath of Trump’s disastrous July 4th event, including who’s cleaning up the mess and who’s getting paid to do it again
Before I go any further, if you haven’t yet joined as a paid subscriber, consider doing so now by clicking here to support our work. This is how we grow. It will give you access to all recaps like this, our exclusive Ask-the-Editor series, and more. Plus, it is the best way to help support the growth of this network.
Let’s get into it.
The Ayatollah’s Funeral Continue to Grow
Let’s start with Iran, because the scale of this is hard to overstate. According to the Financial Times, the funeral for Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could see somewhere between 12 and 15 million people pass through across multiple days of ceremonies. That would make it one of the largest funerals in modern history, and the footage backs it up. Plazas packed shoulder to shoulder, streets jammed for miles, a sea of red and black flags stretching toward the mountains.
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This is not a small thing. This is a regime showing the world, and showing Donald Trump specifically, that whatever damage was done, they are not going anywhere, and their people are rallying behind them in a way that should worry anyone paying attention.
There were banners directly threatening Trump, chants of “America is the Great Satan,” and posters featuring targeting crosshairs over the faces of Trump, Laura Loomer, Ben Shapiro, Miriam Adelson, and Lindsey Graham, with language about heads rolling. I’m not going to pretend that’s not disturbing. It is. But it’s also a direct result of the position Trump’s approach to Iran has put this country in.
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Throughout this war, the Trump regime has pretended the Islamic Republic of Iran was near collapse. These images tell a much different story.
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Trump’s Presser Goes Off Script
Trump held a “Trump Accounts” launch at the White House today, and Trump was asked about Iran. He said the US could knock out Iran’s power plants “in a small part of an afternoon,” casually musing about war crimes. He also complained that the media isn’t covering how well things are going with Iran. Probably because the whole situation is a disaster.
With Dell founder Michael Dell standing right next to him, Trump told the country to go out and buy a Dell computer, saying his son loves Dell laptops, and so on. Dell stock qucikly jumped more than 8 percent, adding roughly 22 billion dollars in market cap. The spike appeared to be tied directly to Trump’s comment. The stock is now up about 3.5% as of the time of this posting.
In case you were wondering, yes, Trump personally purchased more than a million dollars in Dell stock earlier this year per his financial disclosures.
He also used the moment to boast about his TikTok following, joke about crypto investigations magically disappearing when he’s involved, and claim progress on Ukraine peace talks that, again, is disproven by reality.
Kyiv Under Fire Again
Speaking of Ukraine, while Trump was talking about how close we are to a deal, Russia was busy launching a massive aerial assault on Kyiv ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara. Multiple journalists on the ground documented missile strikes on residential buildings, a destroyed Roshen confectionery facility, and reporting that at least 14 people were killed in the latest wave, part of a broader weekly total Zelenskyy says included over 2,200 attack drones and more than 100 missiles.
Ukrainian journalist Kateryna Lisunova posted devastating footage from the night of July 6th, describing the strikes on residential neighborhoods as the mark of a losing side lashing out. Zelenskyy himself warned that Russia appears to be preparing another massive strike timed deliberately around the Fourth of July and the Ankara summit, calling it typical of Putin to strike right when the world’s attention is elsewhere.
Ukraine launched a huge drone raid into Russian territory, with strikes reaching as far as Russia’s largest refinery in Omsk, along with hits in Crimea, Luhansk, Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod. Poland, meanwhile, raised its NATO air defenses to maximum readiness in response to the scale of Russian long range aviation activity near its airspace.
China’s Message in the Pacific
China’s navy test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a submarine into the Pacific over the weekend, according to New Zealand outlet 1News. New Zealand, Japan, and Papua New Guinea all condemned the move as a threat to regional stability. It’s another sign of how many fronts are heating up at once while our own government is already at war overseas and distracted at home with made up culture war fights.
The Housing Bill Clock is Ticking
On the domestic front, the bipartisan housing bill will automatically become law this Friday at midnight if Trump simply does not sign it. Whether Trump signs it, vetoes it, or just lets the clock run out is worth watching this week.
Mitch McConnell’s Office Won’t Answer a Basic Question
Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14, after someone at his home reportedly found him unconscious and administered CPR for cardiac arrest. Weeks later, his office still will not confirm whether he is conscious.
Our very own Scott MacFarlane asked McConnell’s staff directly about the senator’s status. A staffer told MeidasTouch Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital. The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky & Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”
Is a Maine Senate Shakeup on the Horizon?
Graham Platner, who is running for US Senate in Maine against incumbent Susan Collins, abruptly canceled multiple scheduled campaign events over the past day, including a town hall in Augusta last night and additional stops planned for Gorham and Sanford tonight. As of this writing, there are no other upcoming events listed on his campaign’s Facebook page or on Mobilize.
The campaign has not offered a clear public explanation for the cancellations. What’s notable is the timing. This comes as new polling is testing other potential candidates against Collins, and as rumors circulate among progressive allies and observers online that some kind of new scandal involving Platner may be about to surface. Nothing has been confirmed yet, and I want to be careful not to get ahead of actual reporting here, but a Senate candidate pulling every scheduled event in a single stretch with no explanation is the kind of thing that tends to precede news, not follow it. We’ll be watching closely and will update as we learn more.
FIFA Bends the Knee
In World Cup news, FIFA suspended the automatic one match ban for USMNT striker Folarin Balogun after Trump personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to pressure the organization following Balogun’s red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Balogun is now eligible to play Belgium in the round of 16, and per the Associated Press, this appears to be the first time since 1962 that a red card during a World Cup did not result in a suspension.
Here’s the part that really jumps out at me. Balogun is a recipient of birthright citizenship, the exact legal principle Trump has spent his second term trying to dismantle. So the same president waging a full frontal assault on birthright citizenship personally intervened to keep a birthright citizen on the field for the country he claims should not exist for people like him. Plenty of people agree the call was bad. That doesn’t change how strange it is that it took a corrupt phone call from Donald Trump to fix it, or how many of us just wanted one thing in this country to stay separate from politics for five minutes. But then again, we are talking about the group who made up a fake FIFA Peace Prize to soothe Trump’s ego.
Lebanon’s Fake Ceasefire
Despite a US sponsored framework agreement, Drop Site News and journalist Hadi Hoteit documented continued Israeli military operations across southern Lebanon, including strikes on residential buildings, demolitions in multiple towns, and ongoing artillery and drone activity in Bint Jbeil, Tyre, and Marjayoun. The framework exists on paper. The reality on the ground looks a lot like it didn’t change much at all.
TRUMP'S CROWD SIZE DISASTER!
And now, back to that July 4th disaster
Let’s finish where I started. Trump predicted 375,000 people would attend his July 4th event. He then claimed 150,000 showed up. But the images, again, don’t lie. He stood in front of visibly empty seating, garbled his way through a speech, gave a genuinely depressing fireworks show in which smoke from the large amount of explosives blocked most people’s ability to even see the show.
The health numbers from the weekend are worse than most coverage let on. Washington DC Fire and EMS made 96 patient contacts and 40 patient transports from the National Mall on July 3rd and 4th alone. George Washington University medical reported an additional 289 patient contacts from the Mall. The 9pm hour that Saturday night was the single busiest hour of the entire year for DC’s 911 system. Arrests, by contrast, were minimal, with only a handful reported across the Metropolitan Police, Secret Service, and Park Police for the entire holiday.
RESTORE THE REFLECTING POOL BY COMPETENT PROFSSIONALS NOT TRUMP'S FLUNKIES!
And then there’s the cleanup itself. Days later, the National Mall was still littered with firework debris, some of it sitting in the Reflecting Pool, some of it piled along the walkway in trash bags as forklifts hauled away spent launch tubes marked with danger explosive signage. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the Reflecting Pool will now be drained and repaired again, using the same no-bid contractor who handled the job the first time around. Burgum’s explanation is that the contractor did great work and that the damage was caused by vandals, not by substandard work from Trump’s preferred vendor. These lies are truly sociopathic. Meanwhile, court filings show historic preservation groups are now asking a DC court to intervene and block the next phase of repairs until actual experts are consulted, specifically to prevent another round of mistakes.
More on all of this as the day develops. Thanks for reading, and get ready for Ron Filipkowski’s bulletin, Ask the Editor, and much more throughout the day.
