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Hi all, Ben here. It’s Friday, and there’s a lot to get through, so let’s dive in.
Here’s what we’re tracking today:
BREAKING: The Great American State Fair shuts down and evacuates the National Mall for “heat related reasons,” hours after opening to nobody
Trump attacks NATO allies over defense spending
Trump’s bizarre Oval Office “storytime” interview circuit with Usha Vance
Mamdani’s America 250 speech
US Ambassador to Canada makes more threats
Strait of Hormuz tanker data undercuts administration’s shipping claims
International delegations pay respects at Khamenei’s funeral, notably including Saudi Arabia
Trump’s approval among independents craters to a new low
Jobs numbers revised down again, for the 14th time in 17 months
DOJ asks for a two-month delay releasing more Epstein files in Meidas host Katie Phang’s case
Karoline Leavitt says Gen Z complaining about affordability should be sent to Cuba or Iran
Newsom rips Trump over the housing bill, talks 2026 strategy
Record heat to continue in DC ahead of Trump’s outdoor speech
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.
Now let’s get into it.
The Fair Nobody Came To Just Shut Down Entirely
Let’s start with the most fitting image of the week. Fox’s Bill Melugin posted breaking news just now that the National Mall is closing and the Great American State Fair has been postponed until at least 5 PM, with organizers citing heat. Everyone was told to head to the exits. The sign posted at the venue reads “EVENT POSTPONED, WE WILL REOPEN AT 5PM,” sitting behind empty barricades on a stretch of grass with, notably, still nobody around.
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Here’s the thing though. This fair had already been sitting empty all morning before this closure happened. Fox’s own live shots from the National Mall showed the same thing: an empty field where a celebration was supposed to be happening. So the “heat related” closure of an event that already had zero attendance feels a little bit like shutting the doors on an empty restaurant. Plus, it’s not the first time this has happened this week. Nor the second.
This is the same energy we’ve seen from this regime over and over. Big declarations, empty rooms, and a state regime media apparatus desperately trying to convince you otherwise.
Trump’s NATO Tantrum
Trump broke the silence with a rant about NATO, posting a graphic claiming the United States spends $999 billion on defense while allies like the UK, France, Italy, and Poland spend a fraction of that, and complaining the relationship “is not reciprocal.” He capped it off with “They were not there for us!!!”
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Trump keeps pushing the false narrative that NATO is a one-sided rip-off sucking America dry, but the facts show otherwise. The US military budget of roughly $1 trillion funds global operations protecting American interests far beyond Europe. Meanwhile, NATO allies, the EU, and democratic partners are ramping up to nearly $1 trillion in combined defense spending, stepping up burden-sharing as Europe hits record highs above 2% of GDP.
But that NATO tantrum wasn’t even the strangest. After that, the regime dropped a prerecorded interview between Trump and Usha Vance? And Trump genuinely looked and sounded unwell.
Usha Vance asked him a simple question. Does he ever read for fun? His answer was that he mostly reads news stories about himself. Then, he starts flipping through a children’s history book and rambling about past presidents. He tells Usha Vance that William Taft was “a large man, very large,” our heaviest president, and that he has to be careful not to “supersede” that record himself. Then he pivots to Obama, says he doubts Obama is a good basketball player, insists Obama’s real sport is golf, and says that he won’t be playing in the Masters anytime soon. From there it’s Nixon, whom Trump says got “into trouble” through no fault of his own. Then he moves to JFK, calling him “a great guy, handsome,” calling him the second most good-looking president in history. He rambles about horseback riding, saying he’d like to try it but is scared of falling off. And then, he says he actually likes Bill Clinton, that Clinton’s a nice guy, and that he still does. Hmm.
I have thoughts about why Donald Trump might be thinking about Bill Clinton and depositions and Jeffrey Epstein all in the same week, and I’ll get into exactly why in a minute. But first, here’s what’s actually happening underneath all of this.
Trump’s Fourth of July speech is tomorrow night, and by his own admission, he’s promising to make it a long one, in what he says will be roughly 107 degree heat, just to prove that he can. His people are terrified nobody’s going to show up, and given what happened at his own state fair just hours ago, they have every reason to be nervous.
Mamdani Delivers His America 250 Address
While Trump’s fair sat empty, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani delivered a powerful speech for America 250. Predictably, it sent the right-wing media apparatus into a tailspin. You can watch the full speech right here on the MeidasTouch YouTube channel.
Mamdani talked about what American exceptionalism has actually meant throughout our history, about the generations of immigrants this country was told were not its best, and about how the real story of America is that nothing here is fixed in place, that the work of living up to the values in the Declaration of Independence belongs to all of us, including the newest Americans standing beside him that day. He didn’t shy away from naming the contradictions either, pointing out that we’re the richest country in the history of the world while children go to bed hungry, while a small handful of oligarchs hoard more wealth than entire generations before them ever touched, and while masked agents drag away undocumented neighbors whose cooking half these same critics happily eat at restaurants across the city.
Fox News, naturally, framed this as Mamdani attacking the country. Former Trump press secretary turned Fox host Kayleigh McEnany said it made her “angry,” and claimed we need “more Fettermans and fewer Mamdanis,” expressing outrage that someone who benefited from the American dream would now be mayor of the country’s biggest city. Harris Faulkner declared “he is not my mayor.” Here’s the thing: most Americans actually agree with what Mamdani said. Just not the oligarchs who happen to own the network covering it.
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Canada Gets Threatened by U.S. Over Oil
Meanwhile Pete Hoekstra, Trump’s ambassador to Canada, took a shot at our neighbors to the north this week again, warning that if Canada decides to ship its oil elsewhere instead of to the US, that’s Canada’s call to make, but that America “is not going to wait” and will simply find oil somewhere else. This comes as Alberta is unveiling a new proposed pipeline route to the West Coast. It’s the same bullying posture we’ve come to expect.
The Hormuz Numbers Don’t Add Up
I want to spend a minute on this, and that’s what’s actually happening in the Strait of Hormuz right now. A US official told Bloomberg this week that oil flows through the strait have surpassed 10 million barrels a day, with American military support supposedly driving a shipping surge. But tanker-tracking firm Kpler’s actual data tells a very different story. They recorded just 34, 48, and 38 tanker crossings over the past three days, compared to a prewar daily average of 125 to 140. Their numbers show roughly 5 million barrels a day exiting the strait in June, which is half of what that official claimed, and only a quarter of the roughly 20 million barrels a day that flowed through before Trump’s war began.
This is the exact same playbook we saw with the soybean deal, where Trump claimed a huge win on Chinese purchases that turned out to be a fraction of what was actually happening and a fraction of what China bought under the previous administration. Say a big number, let the headline run, hope nobody checks the math.
Respects Paid in Iran
Elsewhere, international delegations continued paying respects following the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister and delegation showed up, notable because under the old US security arrangement in the region that almost certainly wouldn’t have happened. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir were there too, given Pakistan’s role alongside Qatar in mediating the ceasefire agreement. It’s a real window into how much the regional diplomatic map has shifted.
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The Polling for Trump Is Brutal
New IPSOS polling shows Trump’s approval among independents has cratered to 22 percent approve, 76 percent disapprove, a net negative 54 points, described as the highest disapproval ever recorded for him with this group. Not a typo. 22%. Since the start of 2025, monthly jobs numbers have been revised downward in 14 of the last 17 months, totaling more than 700,000 jobs erased from what were originally reported as strong numbers. Applying the average revision pattern to June’s reported 57,000 new jobs suggests the real number could be closer to just 15,000.
The DOJ Tries to Bury the Epstein Files, Again
With mere hours left before the court deadline last night, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge for a two-month delay in releasing additional Epstein files, in a lawsuit brought by MeidasTouch’s own Katie Phang. My colleague Scott MacFarlane broke the filing down, and the DOJ’s justification is that releasing more material risks exposing victims’ identities, which is rich, considering the Trump regime already did exactly that. And this would not do that.
I read through this filing closely, because I used to handle document review in massive litigation before starting MeidasTouch, and I know what a real privilege log looks like. What the DOJ produced is not that. It’s a vague summary claiming broad categories of privilege, executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, deliberative process privilege, without identifying a single document by name or explaining why any particular record is being withheld. That’s not compliance.
Buried in the filing is something genuinely disturbing. The DOJ argues that some individuals listed as coconspirators in the Epstein files should actually be treated as victims, and that their identities are being protected accordingly, simply because those individuals have claimed victim status themselves. Meanwhile the filing notes that redactions were removed for one associate, Lesley Groff, specifically because she had not claimed victim status. Sit with that for a second. The framework here appears to be that if you were allegedly involved in trafficking and you simply assert that you’re a victim, the DOJ shields your name. The actual, documented victims already had their identities exposed.
The DOJ is also refusing to hand over handwritten investigative notes, arguing they’re duplicative of typed reports covering the same material, an argument that doesn’t hold up under any standard document review practice I’ve ever seen. And they’re trying to argue that Katie’s lawsuit shouldn’t even be allowed to proceed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act at all, insisting FOIA is the only appropriate path, despite previously telling FOIA requesters the opposite.
Great work by Katie on this. We’ll keep bringing you the receipts as this plays out. She’s on Substack too, by there way.
Leavitt Says the Quiet Part About What Trump and the GOP Think About Gen Z
In case you needed a reminder of how out of touch this White House is, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went on Fox with Jesse Watters this week and, when asked about young people complaining about affordability, said her own generation was raised with “silver spoons” in their mouths and suggested laziness is part of the problem. Watters floated sending them into the military if they misbehave, and Leavitt one-upped him, saying send them to Cuba or Iran. This, I guess, is the official position of the White House press office toward an entire generation struggling to afford groceries and housing.
Newsom Keeps Swinging
Speaking of housing Governor Newsom sat down with us yesterday and didn’t hold back on the housing bill, saying bluntly that the only reason Trump would call it a “yawn” is that he can’t claim credit for it, since it wasn’t his idea. Newsom also laid out his read on the Democratic path forward heading into November, arguing the way back isn’t through the center, it’s through the fight, with clarity, conviction, and a real economic message for working families. He also flagged the recent dismissal of the DOJ’s case against Governor Walz, calling the entire effort to weaponize the department against him outlandish. Watch my full interview with Governor Newsom right here.
Stay Cool Out There
One last thing. Washington DC hit record heat this morning, 89 degrees by 8 AM, on track for a high over 100 today, with the heat expected to continue right into tomorrow when Trump gives his outdoor Fourth of July address in what he himself predicts will be around 107 degrees. He’s already said he plans to make it a long speech just to prove he can. Given the fair couldn’t even survive the heat with an empty crowd, I’d genuinely love to know what the plan is for tomorrow.
That’s it for now, everybody. Have a great Fourth. We’ll see you back here later today with more.
