"DAY AHEAD" - My Daily Editorial Note
July 14, 2026
A carton of milk that’s beyond its expiration date.
Seafood platters served at a gas station.
A threadbare, rickety bridge over white water rapids.
Some things are difficult to trust. They’re not impossible to trust. But they’re difficult to trust.
In the day ahead, a main question will be: How much do we trust the next set of claims from Trump about elections and legal matters?
Easy to trust? Or… as difficult to trust as raw oysters sold near the unleaded gas pumps?
Trump persists with his lies about January 6 and the 2020 election and appears poised to continue claims that our elections can’t be trusted.
His Administration is still pressing a phantom argument about the “rigging” of 2020’s vote and has deployed agents to Fulton County, Georgia. And they’re attempting interference in Michigan.
This morning: There are reports that Trump will offer a speech in primetime on Thursday. Will he talk about elections? There are also reports that his election task force will release classified records:
https://www.ms.now/news/trump-classified-intelligence-midterm-elections-2026
But the milk might’ve already spoiled.
Trump’s claims about the 2020 election have long ago become a form of “white noise”, that much of the public has tuned out.
I’ve heard a lot of public debate, legislative chatter and speeches about the 2020 election.
Perhaps no one articulated the reality better than David Becker, a former Justice Department official and election security expert.
The 2020 election was the most secure in history.
The election is not what Trump has long alleged, per Becker’s address in Washington earlier this summer.
Take a listen.. to how Becker described the current state of play to a group of state elections officials.
It’s worth it:
Meanwhile…. speaking about trust….
A judge in Florida emphatically and fiercely blasted the Administration on Monday. In a 56-page ruling, Judge Kathleen Williams drove a stake into the heart of Trump’s $1.7 billion slush fund and the sweetheart immunity deal granted to Trump to avoid IRS scrutiny.
But she did more than that. The judge also indicated: She doesn’t trust Team Trump.
She doesn’t trust Trump’s bonkers lawsuit against his own IRS. And she doesn’t trust the machinations Trump’s attorneys undertook to dismiss and “settle” the case, potentially redirecting taxpayer money to convicted crooks and cop-beaters in the process.
Judge Williams wrote, “The court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose—to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.”
She also spotlighted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche‘s recent public claim that the slush fund will not be “moving forward.” The judge said Blanche’s public claim “demonstrates his confidence that he could speak for, and bind, both sides of this matter. This certitude supports the conclusion that the parties worked in tandem and were never actually adverse.”
The judge also found, “Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ to prominent positions.”
As former Justice Department attorney Brendan Ballou warned, in an interview with the DAY AHEAD editorial note, the Trump Administration has lost more trust from judges, juries and the public – through its politicization in Trump 2.0.
Trust … like gas station sushi … can be a tricky thing.
It’s not easy to restore or regain.
As Congress begins one of its final “in-session” weeks before the midterm elections, Trump is facing an unleashed and unbridled opposition challenging his handling of the War in Iran.
Criticisms of Trump’s rhetoric, strategy and management of the war is going to animate the day ahead here in DC, especially Trump’s announced plan to reinstate a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and to charge some ships for safe passage.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, crystallized the growing objections. Smith slammed Trump’s claim that the US will takeover the Strait of Hormuz: “There is likely no scenario in which the U.S. could take total control of the Strait of Hormuz without significantly escalating the conflict and putting U.S. military personnel in harm’s way. To do so and demand other countries pay us to gain safe passage would be a violation of international law and, frankly, just wrong. The President of the United States is now in a fight with Iran over who can extort the rest of the world.”
Trump has issued a formal notification to Congress that military action has commenced…. again… in Iran as of late last week.
The alert said the U.S. military actions are ”limited, measured, planned, and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties.”
The U.S. military’s statements to the public have a different tone. See if you can detect it: “These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Heavy cost” vs. “limited, measured”
Oil prices jump 10% as the morning begins. And no one knows precisely when - or how – this will end.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) is an Army veteran who represents the community that’s home to West Point.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), vice-chair of the Armed Services committee, told CNN that the war has greatly depleted resources from the U.S. military. “We are in a very precarious position,” Reed said.
The Trump Administration is still trying to push Congress for $88 billion+ in funding for the war, munitions and other needs. The sales job is ongoing today.
Many, many, many other stories I’m tracking today
1) There are growing calls this morning for a robust and thorough investigation into the latest deadly I.C.E. shooting.
State law requires the Maine Attorney General office to undertake an independent probe of fatal shootings by law-enforcement, per WGME news. And the findings must be made public…. and likely would be released in several months.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reportedly told Congress that the officer opened fire because the man was seeking to use the “vehicle as a weapon against officers.”
This is a piece of the reporting by PBS on the incident, “The advocacy groups Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia. They said he was authorized to work in the U.S. and had a Social Security number. Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.
‘I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,’ Hayes told The Associated Press as she held a piece of cardboard with ‘No ICE Stop ICE’ written on it. ‘I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) posted her concerns on social media Monday night: “The shooting in Biddeford requires a full and impartial investigation of what happened. It is my understanding that the Biddeford police have secured the site and that the FBI is investigating.”
Outgoing Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) referred to the situation as “alarming and frightening.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus stages a press conference at 9am here at the Capitol today to talk about the recent fatal I.C.E. shootings. I’d expect Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) to take a leading role in this event, considering the fatal shooting this month in her home district of Houston.
2) At 2:30pm eastern, we expect the swearing-in of Darline Graham Nordone as the temporary, caretaker Senator for South Carolina, succeeding her brother.
The GOP needed her in place promptly. They’re nursing a remarkably-thin majority, especially with the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell. And there are big confirmation hearings, votes and a fierce to-do list awaiting Senators. (defense authorization, intelligence surveillance tools, budget bill, annual funding) They’re gonna need her vote.
Graham Nordone has no experience in high, elected office. But that’s not uncommon for caretaker, temporary appointments.
Meanwhile, would-be contenders for the GOP Senate nomination in South Carolina have one week until the window opens to get into the race. There is precious little runway for candidates to marshal the political troops.
3) The Senate is looking into how much taxpayer money has been spent on those North Korean-style banners of Trump’s image which are draped outside of the US Dept. of Labor, the Justice Dept, et al.
Per my teammate Aaron Parnas - documents cited by Sen. Adam Schiff’s office show that the Department of the Interior awarded a contract worth approximately $39,000 for banners featuring President Trump alongside an “America First” slogan.
Obviously .. that ain’t much money by federal government standards. But the optics are tricky at this moment… with our costs soaring. I mean… If our car breaks down, it’ll cost us $39,000 for a new one. And that’s brutal.
“The Trump administration is spending hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars to glorify and pay tribute to a sitting U.S. President and his political agenda,” Sen. Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement. “Not only is this a terrible waste of Americans’ hard-earned money, it is clearly against the law. Congress has long outlawed spending tax dollars on propaganda and self-aggrandizement and an eight-story high Donald Trump head certainly qualifies as propaganda.”
4) Holy hell. When the public comment period closed overnight, there were approximately 300,000 comments on the newly-proposed Trump Administration rule to strip experts, scientists and other unbiased scholars from their role in helping decide the recipients of federal grant money.
Instead… that power shifts to Trump appointees.
Experts with the American Physical Society warn: “The rule would give political appointees the power to override peer review and terminate active grants at any time. It would impose sweeping restrictions on international collaborations, cutting U.S. scientists off from partnerships with researchers in many countries. It would make conference attendance much more difficult, and publication costs largely unallowable, under federal awards. It would undermine programs that broaden participation in science and support the next generation of researchers. Together, these changes would insert political control deep into the federal research enterprise, undermining the independence and rigor that have made America a global leader in science.”
Nothing is quite as uniquely controversial as…. inserting political control into science.
I’ve reached out to the Office of Management and Budget for guidance on the timetable for this proposed rule.
I’ll update you once they respond in the day ahead.
5) This morning, I’m staring at this report from the bipartisan Joint Economic Committee of Congress:
Since the war in Iran began four months ago, Americans have paid $56.4 billion more, or $477 more per household, on gasoline.
That’s a big number. Not necessarily a surprising number. But that’s the equivalent of two or three weeks of groceries.
Today’s national average gas price sits at $3.87 per gallon, which is about 30 percent higher than before the start of the war.
6) At 10am eastern, we’ll hear from Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett, at a US House hearing about the high court’s funding.
You can bank on a series of questions about court security and the safety of judges and court officers. Threats against judges have soared.
Take a look at these numbers obtained from the U.S. Marshals Service
At 2pm, the justices will walk over to the US Senate side of the Capitol for questioning from the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is on this panel. So is the top Democrat on the matters of courts and judicial nominees: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
So are Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), among others.
7) I’d expect some heat at the 10:15am hearing of the House Education Committee, which has been seeking to unravel diversity and equity programs at US colleges and universities. They’ve called a series of college presidents for questioning today… including the heads of: UCLA’s school of medicine, Univ of California San Francisco, and the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Feels like this hearing is going to be an extended public debate over the value of the goal of diversity in medical programs…. In a very diverse nation with diverse medical needs.
8) House Democratic leaders have a 10:45am news conference, in which I’d expect them to lean hard into criticisms about soaring prices, the newly unspooled military actions in Iran and Trump’s ongoing self-aggrandizing vanity projects.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) will take reporter questions at the Capitol.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and his team will also face reporters this morning. Johnson will likely talk about preparations for one (final?) GOP-only plan for funding Trump priorities, before the election. It’d be the third attempt at so-called “reconciliation”, which is a budget technique used during one-party rule.
9) I’m checking for a court date and charging documents in the matter of Wendell Royster of Mississippi. Royster was arrested at a Capitol checkpoint for allegedly unlawfully carrying a firearm on Capitol grounds.
Royster had a dog chained inside his truck. Capitol Police helped care for the animal during the arrest.
Guns on Capitol Hill are troublingly common recently, with dozens of incidents over the past few years.
Per a US Capitol Police incident summary, “Royster was not on record with the USCP. Currently, there does not appear to be a nexus to the Congress.”
10) More than two dozen Senate Democrats are demanding the Pentagon release its long-awaited report on the US military’s bombing of an Iranian elementary school.
The Senators – including those on the Senate Armed Services Committee - are seeking the following from the Defense Dept:
Promptly finalize the investigation into the February 28 strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School and provide Congress with the complete and unredacted investigation.
Provide an unclassified version of the report to Congress, suitable for public release.
According to the Senate Democrats, “More than four months after the strike, and after the reported submission of the investigation in April, Congress and the American people still have not received the Department’s investigation and findings. There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence.”
They’ve set a deadline of Monday for the handover of records.
Here’s their memo to the Pentagon:
11) Senate GOP and Democratic leaders have 2pm eastern hour press conferences in the Capitol’s Ohio Clock Corridor. I’d expect we’ll hear quite a bit about the late Lindsey Graham.
I’m also interested in hearing what the leadership think about the outlook for must-pass legislation to authorize the military.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) blasted the Senate GOP version of the military bill last night. Among his (and other Democrats’) concerns are “providing a $500 billion increase in Pentagon spending and a blank check for the President’s illegal and reckless war against Iran.”
12) Jay Clayton’s confirming hearing for his nomination to be Director of National Intelligence is Wednesday. The Senate Intelligence Committee is likely to press Clayton about what he’s gonna do with …. Whatever Bill Pulte has been cooking up at the agency in the past few days.
13) DATA CENTER WATCH: Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is making a big announcement today, which halts data center projects statewide in New York.
Here’s how they plastered this news on the frontpage of Newsday on Long Island:
I’ll see you on SUBSTACK LIVE at 10:45am eastern, with Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA), who is part of an emerging anti-corruption task force in the US House….. targeting grifting inside the Administration.
Mike Levin and I will chat — and take your questions — from here in DC.
You have a very busy day. I can't believe that, with all the things going on in this country, all Trump can focus on is the 2020 election. The people are getting so tired of him and his lies. He's a menace to the country.
Between his meddling in the elections and his awful vanity projects, we have had enough of him.
Thank you for all your hard work, and we really appreciate you. Thank you, and have a great day.
Good lord, this psychopath is certainly keeping you busy Scott. Thank you for your tireless work and investigations to keep us informed. YOU ARE APPRECIATED 👏