Thanks for reading this last month as we soft-launch what we’re now calling “The Brief.” I’m taking a week off to bring my toddler to the beach. I’ll be back July 27. If you’re enjoying this morning dispatch, we’ll have the option for you to sign up for it as a newsletter by early August. See you all soon. Stay cool, and breathe fresh air if you can find any.
Primetime Flop
Trump’s election speech last night, which Democrats, election administrators, and Republican legislators were dreading (each for somewhat different reasons), was a dud. Trump insinuated, lied and selectively presented information as he sought to cast doubt on the 2026 midterms and again undermine 2020, but he did so while covering well-worn ground. Despite fears, he didn’t order anything new, beyond demanding Congress pass the SAVE America Act voter suppression bill — a demand he makes in some form nearly daily.
The White House did release a bunch of pdfs that Trump described in his speech as recently declassified intelligence. In fact, much of it was also familiar. That aspect of this episode was reminiscent of the early efforts by the administration to make a show of “releasing” the “Epstein files” by handing over already-public information to gullible conservative influencers.
Among the documents released last night were some meant to cast doubt on the safety of voting machines. In them was a misleading anecdote about a hacker who installed the classic computer game “Doom” on one voting machine, a story which Hunter Walker unpacked for us last night.
DHS now looks primed to make a lot of noise about supposed noncitizens found on blue and purple states’ voter rolls, data that has historically been weaponized by conservatives but that is rife with errors. Nevada, one of the states targeted, immediately released information debunking DHS’ claims. Notably, the administration is apparently not alleging noncitizens voted.
Many television networks did not take the speech live. Newspapers fact checked it in real time. CBS news, under new, friendlier-to-Trump direction, prebutted the address with remarks from anchor Tony Dokoupil explaining that “much of what the president has said on this topic has been false, most notably, of course, the claim that he won the 2020 election, when, of course, he did not.”
Like Trump’s December 2025 primetime speech, during which he yelled at Americans about why they should feel more positively about the economy, last night was another datapoint indicating the mode that he, forever mentally trapped in the early ’90s, so loves — the primetime, Oval Office address — backfires for him both because of who he is and how politics and media has changed. It focuses attention on his weirdnesses and lies; the 9 p.m. ET time slot and the Oval Office setting are not enough to imbue a frustrated rant with gravitas.
The Big Non-Voter Swing
Democrats got some encouraging news this week in new polling on party affiliation from the Pew Research Center: Non-voters, in a dramatic swing, now identify as Democrats by a significant margin.
- In 2024, 46% of non-voters said they leaned Republican and 44% said they leaned Democrat. In 2026, 49% of non-voters say they lean Democrat and 37% lean Republican. Quite a switch.
- “There’s a good lesson here not to overreact to short-term changes in American politics, as measured by election results,” writes polls and elections analyst G. Elliott Morris. “Winning a group in one year, under particular circumstances, does not mean you have won that group forever — and often the reasons given for winning are not correct.”
- Of course, non-voters are … non-voters. But, increasingly, capturing these individuals is coming to be understood as the key to winning elections in this current, angry, strongly anti-incumbent moment, when the thermostatic theory of politics seems to be supercharged. Contrast that with the more traditional focus on theoretical centrist voters who “swing” from election to election, but who reliably turn out.
- These voters are who Elon Musk’s shady but seemingly successful get-out-the-vote operation targeted in 2024. They’re in part who Graham Platner was able to attract before his implosion in Maine, leading to his absolute trouncing of Janet Mills. They’re who young, progressive and socialist candidates are attracting in New York.
- As the above list indicates, the candidates supported by these voters differ dramatically, though they share some attributes, including a frustration with their own party.
- Democrats and activists are trying to take note of this pattern, and field candidates who might play into it. One such candidate is Sam Forstag, who fought forest fires before launching a bid for Montana’s state-wide House seat, which is open in 2026. “At the end of 2024, I was making $19 bucks an hour jumping out of airplanes for the federal government in a community where you cannot find a home for less than a half million dollars,” he told Hunter Walker in a piece we published yesterday. “Some of these guys and gals are 20-plus years in making the same wage on the same job. And if that is your situation, then your life did not improve under four years of Democratic control.”
Tabs
- Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins (GA) has a white supremacist son-in-law who regularly shares his opinions on Jews, according to new reporting by CNN. Republicans are silent in the face of this revelation, TPM’s Layla A. Jones reports.
- Spencer Pratt has become a cause célèbre among election denialists, Mother Jones’ Anna Merlan reports.
- Truth Social has found a new income stream: it will sell early access to Trump’s market-moving posts.
- “The Treasury Department’s top tax policy official was forced out of his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Man of the Hour
It’s Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), who, ahead of Trump’s speech, made this absurd statement.
Ok, dude.
Are We at War?
Yes, and its colossal price tag is among many factors complicating Republicans’ ability to do a third budget reconciliation bill.
