It’s the Democrats who have mostly had to answer questions about electability this midterm season, but why are there so few questions about the “E” word for the other side?

Gas prices are still skyrocketing. A number of Republican candidates, such as Ohio Rep. Max Miller and former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running for a Senate seat, are mired in scandal. The Iran war was unpopular from the start, but it is getting even less popular as it drags on. And Trump’s approval rating recently hit 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency yet.

On this week’s episode of America, Actually, host Astead Herndon speaks with one of Trump’s most vocal defenders, conservative influencer CJ Pearson, about whether we’re seeing Trump’s brand slip even among his supporters and the young people who helped him win in 2024, and how that could affect the midterm elections. 

Pearson, a conservative content creator and influencer, first went viral when he posted himself, then 12 years old, criticizing Barack Obama in a YouTube video. Now 24, Pearson is one of MAGA’s most prominent Black voices.

In this episode, Astead and Pearson discussed how Republicans should answer questions about whether voters’ lives are better than they were two years ago; whether Trump still has any cultural cachet left over from his last presidential campaign; and when Pearson started to see young Republicans turning away from the MAGA movement.

Below is an excerpt of Astead’s conversation with Pearson, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel.

That “E” word’s been thrown around a lot about Democrats, but we want to think about how Republicans are on their own. If you could rate Donald Trump’s second term one through 10, what would you give it?

I think the president’s doing incredibly well for the American people. Promises made, promises kept in many ways. 

I think if you look at this president who ran on securing our southern border, he’s done it. You look at this president who’s talked about bringing down costs, he’s brought down the cost of dairy, eggs. He’s achieved that. 

And I think also this president is only just getting started. He ran on “no tax on tips.” He did that. He ran on “no tax on overtime.” He did that. Oftentimes I tell people the challenge of this administration is keeping up the messaging at the same pace as the accomplishments of this president.

And so I think that there’s a lot more work to do. Thankfully, we have two more years to do it.

Can I get a number?

I think he’s doing well. I will say I grew up in a place where there’s always room for improvement, so I’ll give him an eight.

You’re giving him an eight. I wanted to just start there because Trump’s approval rating has fallen, as I’m sure you have seen. Why do you think the country isn’t maybe on the same page as you?

I think a lot of people are focused on their pocketbooks, right? They’re focused on domestic issues, and I think that we have been very internationally focused over the course of the past few months as we’ve navigated and dealt with the Iran conflict. 

But I think that as we get ready to get through this last wave of primaries, I think you’re going to see a change in his messaging and a reset at the midterm convention in Dallas next month in September. 

And I think you’re going to hear this president talking about how he’s made America more affordable, how he’s kept Americans safe, far safer than they were under President Joe Biden.

And I think that you’ll see those numbers start to change. And a reminder, the only poll that matters is on Election Day. There are many polls that had Kamala Harris beating President Trump, in 2024, and that didn’t happen.

Yeah, I don’t want to be overly poll-reliant, but we’ve heard some of this directly from Republicans even. 

We were at Donald Trump’s UFC event in DC talking to young men, and even there we heard people really come to be critical on three issues specifically: tariffs, the Iran war, and the handling of the Epstein files.

You mentioned the question of affordability. Donald Trump has said, quote, “I love the inflation.” And when asked by reporters about the public strain that has come from the conflicts with Iran, he said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

How can you say that Republicans are gonna run on affordability if the president’s saying he doesn’t care if Americans’ lives are unaffordable?

Well, I’ve often said that we can’t cede this entire affordability debate to the Democrats. The reason that I think a lot of young people are giving a little bit, even a flirtatious nod to the DSA and their socialist and communist candidates, is because they’re talking about an issue that’s top of mind for them.

In the same way that when President Trump won in 2024, he was talking about issues that were top of mind of the American voter, which was the cost of living. 

And so I think that we need to get back to that messaging. I think that this president has continued to deliver on that front. Costs are coming down.

The economy is resurging. We’re seeing economic and global investment in this country unlike anything we’ve seen before. In Oklahoma, we’re bringing back manufacturing with the aluminum smelting plant.

But the president’s not saying this. The president’s saying, “I love the inflation, and I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” Do those words help Republican midterm candidates?

Well, I think the president has a lot of time to say a lot more things because Election Day is pretty far away from now. I think we have two or three months left, and I think the president will make this case. 

But I think what will also make the case is that the candidates that the Democrats are running and nominating all across this country, who are now affiliating themselves with the socialist movement, are not actually fighting for things that will actually ever work.

Socialism has never worked anywhere it’s been tried, and I think that this is going to be an election between common sense versus crazy. Do you wanna run a candidate that hates Thanksgiving?

For the record, that candidate lost in the primary. She will not be on the ballot in November.

She did. She almost was there, though, and that’s the thing. I’m glad common sense won the day in Wisconsin, that the good people there love turkey.

I know that you say that the argument is based on how Democrats are out of touch, but we have talked about some ways in which Donald Trump has not lived up to folks’ expectations, particularly on things like prices and on things like the Iran war.

How does the GOP overcome that electability question? What is their message when folks ask, is their life better than two years ago?

I think we’ve got to lock in. I think we also need to prosecute the case that it’s going to be a lot worse under the Democrats if these crazy communists get into office. And so I think that when you’re looking at costs, we need to make that argument central. We need to make that what we lead with.

And I think that we have to pump the brakes on a lot of the international stuff. And I think that we need to talk about the things that are actually affecting people’s everyday lives at grocery stores, at gas stations, wherever it may be. And I think that is how we can kind of turn the ship around.

When we talk about the Democratic candidates, you’re saying the DSA candidates are far left, and we’ve certainly explored some electability questions for them and some ways that I think they might have stances that are misaligned with the American people. But so does Donald Trump, and he’s endorsed scandal-plagued candidates like Ken Paxton in Texas, like Max Miller in Ohio.

Why is that not just as much a sign of a conservative version of extremism, just as you are arguing that there’s a Democratic or leftist version of that?

Because I think you’re talking about folks who have dealt with issues in their personal lives, not necessarily their voting record.

Okay, maybe I should say Tom Tiffany, who didn’t vote to certify the 2020 election, but I imagine you agree with him.

Well, no, I think that was six years ago. I don’t think about 2020 anymore. I think about 2026 and I think about 2028. So when I look at that … it’s important that we really make the case for crazy communism versus common sense. And I think that the American people are not going to vote for that.

I guess I’m saying, does Donald Trump win the commonsense argument? Like, isn’t crazy versus commonsense an argument that Democrats can make and say Donald Trump is said crazy?

No, because I think Donald Trump definitely wins the common sense argument when we’re running against folks who belong to a party that is now, you know, waging a war against Thanksgiving, who believe that biological men should be playing women’s sports. Again, these are 80/20 issues, and so I actually really like our odds here.

It’s going to be hard, right? It’s always hard for the party that controls the White House to fare all too well in any midterm election. But I think that we’re going to overperform. I think we’re going to hold onto the Senate. The House will be a dogfight, but I like our chances.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s ballroom is still happening. 

What’s the latest? On Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stayed a lower court injunction threatening to halt construction on Trump’s East Wing ballroom, hours before it would have taken effect. 

The order came from Roberts alone, and it isn’t final. But the new stay will remain in place “pending further order” (likely, the Court’s full decision), allowing construction to continue for now. It’s the latest in a series of escapes for the project, despite adverse rulings in lower courts. 

What have other judges said? Earlier this month, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous district court ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in unilaterally pursuing the ballroom project and would need to seek congressional approval to continue. (Trump, meanwhile, has attempted to justify the project on national security grounds, describing it as a “Military Complex” and its opponents as “TREASONISTS.”)

Both the appeals court decision and the previous district court decision had been paused, however, to allow the appeals process to play out. That pause would have expired on Friday, but for Roberts’s order. 

How far along is the project? Trump has been working fast. According to Trump’s solicitor general, the ballroom was already 65 percent complete last week, standing around 70 feet tall and five stories below ground. Crews have been working on the project nearly around the clock — 20 hours per day, seven days a week. 

What else should I know? When the full Supreme Court does weigh in, it could have implications far beyond just the ballroom. 

As my colleague Ian Millhiser explained earlier this week, the ability of the plaintiffs challenging the ballroom to bring their case in the first place hinges on the “aesthetic injury” theory of standing, which also underpins a great deal of US environmental law. If the Court clears the way for the ballroom, those laws could go with it.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy Friday! If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, you could take my colleague Adam Clark Estes’s suggestion and rescue some of your favorite photos from your phone’s camera roll by printing them out. He explains why it’s worth doing — and how to do it — here (it’s a gift link).

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration’s meddling with the US military is getting more direct — and potentially more dangerous. 

What’s going on? Fresh on the heels of coverage last week about the plight of the USS Abraham Lincoln (now on its way home), a flurry of recent stories underscores just how much the Trump administration is micromanaging the Pentagon. 

Last week, President Donald Trump directed the Defense Department to overhaul the aircraft carrier mechanism for launching jets — by reverting from electromagnetic catapults to old-fashioned steam catapults.

And on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Army is axing its new drone assault battalion, which was established in January. The decision to do so comes from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new acting chief of staff of the Army, who took over the role after Hegseth forced out its previous occupant this spring.

What’s the context? Neither of these moves seem poised to help the military succeed at its core objectives. As naval expert Bryan Clark pointed out Wednesday in the Washington Post, the catapult switch won’t only limit the next generation of aircraft carriers, but cost an exorbitant amount of money — contrary to Trump’s insistence that steam is “much less expensive” — and delay the rollout of new ships (badly needed, as the Lincoln debacle proves). Trump may also name one after himself.

If possible, the demise of the drone unit makes even less sense. Innovative drone designs and tactics are revolutionizing warfare in Ukraine and elsewhere; being ahead of the curve on these changes has allowed Ukraine to hold its own against a numerically superior opponent.

And it’s very clear that the US hasn’t mastered these tactics yet: As the Journal reported last week, Ukrainian drone operators flattened the US in war games held earlier this year.

Why does this matter? To be clear, Trump is the commander in chief. None of this is beyond his authority as president. But the steam catapults in particular are a strange obsession that would normally be well below his pay grade, and none of it gives the impression of a steady hand at the rudder.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s some good news from my colleague Constance Grady: The kids might be all right. Or at least, they might be reading more thanks to a new generation of “middle-grade books,” and that’s a step in the right direction. You can read her story about what those are and what’s changing here with a gift link.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s planned Canada tariffs are off — for now. 

What happened? Trump had previously threatened 50-percent tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, but delayed them late on Tuesday, hours before they were set to take effect. 

In a social media post, he wrote that the tariffs were on hold for “a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”

Is there actually a deal? We’ll find out in the next three days. Trump’s claims should always be taken with a grain of salt, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said only that “substantial progress” had been made toward a deal, with “important work still to be done.”

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US could reduce previous tariffs on Canadian goods —which applied to cars, steel, and aluminum — as part of a potential trade deal. Trump has also suggested that a deal could resurrect the Keystone XL oil pipeline. 

Can Trump still impose new tariffs? He can. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of a specific law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose tariffs. In doing so, the Court ended many of his most sweeping tariffs and took away his favorite way to impose them. 

He has plenty of other tools to keep at it, though, albeit on a more limited basis. Trump was threatening to use a never-tested section of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to impose his most recent Canada tariffs. (Other existing Canadian tariffs fall under yet another law.)

What’s the big picture? This trade fight could preview an even bigger one to come, as the US, Mexico, and Canada attempt to renegotiate the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump struck in his first term. Trump declined to renew the deal last month, kicking off new negotiations.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

We got some incredibly good news about cancer treatment on Wednesday from the pharma companies Moderna and Merck, which announced a successful trial of an mRNA vaccine for melanoma, a particularly dangerous type of skin cancer. 

The idea of using vaccines — and specifically mRNA, which helped produce Covid vaccines in record time — to treat cancer isn’t new, but the Moderna and Merck trial is a big step on the path to getting a cancer vaccine approved by the FDA.

As always, thanks for reading, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Can President Donald Trump pen a new chapter in his love story with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un? 

In Trump’s first term, the two leaders, in Trump’s words, “fell in love” after exchanging letters and held three historic meetings, but failed to make much progress toward the goal of denuclearizing the heavily armed hermit state. 

Now, Trump appears to be trying to recapture the magic, reportedly urging aides to set up a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall. This news comes soon after Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday announcing he had ordered the US military to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with ally South Korea in part because it would send “a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful” — North Korea. 

Trump has claimed, without elaborating, that Kim has responded to this overture, but there’s been no public response from Pyongyang yet. 

Trump’s outreach didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. Trump has made clear since the beginning of his term that he would like to meet with Kim again, and there was speculation that a meeting might happen when Trump traveled to South Korea for a summit last fall. North Korea’s UN Mission in New York has also rebuffed several attempts by US officials to deliver a personal letter from Trump seeking to restart dialogue. 

In the midst of an unpopular conflict with Iran that seems unlikely to end in anything resembling a victory, it makes sense that Trump might be reaching back to what he sees as one of the foreign policy high points of his first term. “Kim Jong ​Un has always treated me with great respect,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I understand him. He understands me.”

Beyond reconnecting with an old friend, it’s not entirely clear what Trump actually wants out of North Korea. But if his goal is a new diplomatic breakthrough, that will be even harder than it was the first time: The country is a much different place than it was the last time the two leaders sat down and even if they were to meet again, Kim seems even less likely to make real concessions. 

Like it or not, North Korea is a nuclear power now

Analysts believe North Korea possesses around 50 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material to build 40 more. It has missiles that are theoretically capable of reaching the US mainland. There was a time when the North Koreans were willing to at least discuss giving up their program in exchange for sanctions relief and major concessions on US military support to South Korea, but that time is probably over, partly thanks to Trump’s own actions. 

“There is no chance that North Korea is going to denuclearize. Zero chance,” said Joseph Yun, a veteran US-North Korea negotiator who recently served as acting US ambassador to South Korea. “They have seen what happened to Iran. They have seen what happened to Ukraine. The way they see it, their nuclear weapons are what protects them.” Last year, the country’s official news agency dismissed denuclearization as an “unrealizable pipe dream.”

On top of that, North Korea is in a much stronger negotiating position than it was the last time these two leaders met for a photo op.

“It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”

Jung Pak, served as US special representative for North Korea in the Biden administration

In 2018, North Korea was heavily isolated and struggling under an international sanctions regime that was at least officially — if not always in practice — supported by China and Russia as well as the United States. For a young leader still looking to establish his internal legitimacy and international standing, a meeting with the sitting US president was a major coup. 

But things improved dramatically for North Korea after the pandemic. After it began lifting its Covid-era lockdown — one of the toughest in the world — North Korea has become what the Wall Street Journal has called “the world’s most unlikely growth story.”

The country’s economy has grown for three straight years, and while it’s still an impoverished country where nearly half the population is malnourished, Pyongyang is by all accounts booming, with thousands of new homes built along with a surge in Western-style restaurants and ride-hailing apps. 

“North Korea emerged from the pandemic stronger, despite the odds,” said Jung Pak, who served as US special representative for North Korea in the Biden administration. “It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”

North Korea has been one of the main beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine, sending thousands of soldiers and munitions to help the Russian war effort. While thousands of those troops have died, the North Korean regime has gained billions of dollars in revenue and military aid from Russia in response, as well as invaluable battlefield experience for its commanders and weapons systems.     

Russian President Vladimir Putin has come through for the North Koreans in other ways. In 2024, Russia vetoed the mandate of the UN body that monitored the enforcement of international sanctions on North Korea, effectively shredding the international sanctions regime. In 2025, trade between North Korea and China, its main economic partner, rose 25 percent.  

The regime has found other innovative ways of raising revenue, reportedly netting billions through cybercrime targeted at foreign banks and cryptocurrency exchanges. 

Kim is also less desperate for legitimacy these days. In September 2025, he stood alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in Beijing, a powerful demonstration of unity among three US adversaries. These days, Kim likely feels he’s the one being wooed. Xi’s high profile trip to Pyongyang in June was interpreted by many as a sign that China, warily eyeing the increasingly close relationship between Russia and North Korea, was looking to shore up its ties with its longtime ally. 

Domestically, when the world’s first millennial dictator took power after his father died in 2011, many wondered how long he would last. Today, he’s feeling secure enough to be thinking about long-term handoff plans, publicly positioning his 13-year-old daughter as his future successor. 

Kim is clearly not desperate to meet with Trump, and these days, the United States has fewer means to pressure him. Without Chinese and Russian support, the US can only dial up international sanctions so much. As for military pressure, the US has been moving military assets out of the Korean peninsula to the Middle East and recently redeployed its last aircraft carrier out of Asia. 

As Trump’s actions this week demonstrate, he’s not all that interested in working with US allies in the region to pressure the North Koreans. But if he were considering pairing his warm overtures to Kim with a stick, a “fire and fury” threat wouldn’t pack the same punch today.  

Is there any reason for new US-North Korea talks?

Still, there are reasons Kim might want to sit down with Trump again. North Korea would still like US sanctions lifted. Kim’s influential sister has stated that the regime is looking for the US to formally accept its status as a nuclear power, as Russia has now done.  

Former US State Department North Korea negotiator Joel Wit suspects that given Trump’s desperation for talks, Pyongyang might try to press its advantage even further. 

“If I was a North Korean, I would ask the United States for what I would call a ‘peace agenda,’” he said. “That would mean more than just reducing the size of US-[South Korean] exercises. It could include cutting back on US troops in South Korea or even Guam.”

Trump, who has repeatedly, including in his recent Truth Social post, made clear that he sees the US military presence in South Korea as a waste and the South Koreans as coddled, wealthy freeloaders, might be amenable to concessions like this. 

But what could the US get out of talking to North Korea if denuclearization is off the table? Some analysts have suggested a limited deal might be possible, which could see North Korea dismantle its reactors or some of its centrifuges, slowing down the growth of its nuclear program if not eliminating it. 

Pak also noted that given North Korea’s refusal to engage in nearly any diplomacy with the US since 2019, just holding talks and building some confidence between the two sides would be progress. “The meeting itself would be the win,” Pak said. 

On the other hand, holding talks that do not explicitly aim at eliminating North Korea’s nuclear program would be seen as effectively accepting that North Korea is a nuclear power now. At this point, there’s a strong realist case to be made for accepting North Korea’s nuclear status and proceeding from there, but it’s hard to square with the administration’s stance on Iran’s nuclear program. 

It’s also likely that the kind of incremental concessions North Korea might, in the best of circumstances, be willing to offer, would not satisfy a US president with a penchant for grand bargains. 

In his first term, just the fact that Trump and Kim sat down made history. Now that that’s been accomplished, they may find that, like many a romance a few years in, they’ve run out of things to talk about. 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is trying to open up more public lands to logging, 

What’s happening? On Tuesday, the administration filed a proposal to repeal the “roadless rule,” a 2001 regulation protecting nearly 45 million acres of national forests not just from having roads built through them, but from logging. 

The majority of the forests that would be affected fall in 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, while two — Colorado and Idaho — have their own state-level roadless protections.

The next step in the rulemaking process is a 30-day public comment period, after which the repeal can be finalized — though it’s likely to face legal challenges that could delay implementation. 

Why is the Trump administration doing this? According to the Agriculture Department, the change is intended to reduce the “regulatory burden” and return decisions about forest management to a more local level; the US Forest Service and some Republican governors in affected states have pointed to fire management concerns and the need to clear out accumulated fuel in forests. 

As Wall Street Journal reporter Robbie Gramer pointed out, however, only a tiny fraction of wildfires start in roadless areas of national forests (unsurprisingly, given the relative lack of people). 

Why are public lands advocates alarmed? Opponents of the repeal say ending the rule could irreversibly damage some of America’s most pristine forests and cause a long list of environmental harms. They have good reason to be wary: In 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing the “immediate expansion” of timber production in the US, including a 25 percent increase in logging in federal forests.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

The Smithsonian National Zoo is welcoming three new red panda cubs, who were born earlier this summer. According to the zoo, right now, the cubs are “really just balls of fur that eat and sleep.” But they’re also pretty dang cute, and the zoo shared some photos here. Enjoy, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow! 

The question of whether President Donald Trump may, without seeking permission from Congress, demolish much of the White House and replace it with his own projects is now before the Supreme Court. 

Last fall, construction crews acting under Trump’s orders abruptly tore down the East Wing of the White House, the first step in Trump’s plan to replace the historic building with an enormous ballroom. A conservationist organization, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, soon sued to stop the construction on the ballroom in a case that is still ongoing. Lower courts have thus far agreed with this plaintiff that the ballroom is illegal. 

Last week, Trump formally asked the justices to greenlight his ballroom while the challenge works its way through lower courts. The case is known as National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

Trump’s claim that he may tear down large sections of the White House and replace them with the ballroom is not supported by law. A federal statute provides that “a building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.” Although Trump’s lawyers claimed that two separate statutes allow him to get around this provision, the federal appeals court that heard National Park Service thoroughly dismantled that claim in a 101-page opinion. 

That said, the Court could potentially hand Trump a victory by prohibiting anyone from bringing a lawsuit against his ballroom to begin with. Should this argument succeed, it could have major ramifications for a wide range of laws that seek to conserve environmental resources or preserve sacred or historical sites. 

Under current law, a plaintiff who alleges that a defendant’s actions will illegally damage such a site may file a federal lawsuit so long as they can demonstrate that they plan to visit the site in the near future and will find the site less attractive if it is altered. This is exactly what happened in National Park Service: A member of a conservationist group — the National Trust for Historic Preservation — who often went by the White House said the new construction would diminish the beauty of the site.

More broadly, the Court has long held that plaintiffs who wish to observe something beautiful may often sue to enforce environmental statutes that seek to preserve that beauty. As the Court said in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), a seminal case that is often cited because it laid out limits on who is allowed to bring federal lawsuits, “the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest” that can be asserted in federal court.

Trump’s brief, however, rejects this longstanding rule. Without it, numerous environmental, conservationist, and historical preservation laws could effectively cease to function, because no one would be able to file a lawsuit enforcing them.

The stakes in National Park Service, in other words, are far greater than whether Trump can replace the East Wing with an eyesore. And they are even greater than the question of whether Trump can remake one of America’s most cherished landmarks without congressional authorization. If Trump prevails in National Park Service, he could fundamentally wound America’s environmental protection regime in the process.

Trump’s ballroom is illegal

Recall that federal law bars new construction on federal lands within the District of Columbia “without express authority of Congress.” So, unless there is some existing statute that allows Trump’s ballroom to move forward, the ballroom is illegal.

But Trump cited no such law in his brief. Instead, he relied on two statutes that might be read to authorize parts of what Trump needs permission to do.

The first is a provision that permits Congress to appropriate money that the president may use to pay for “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air-conditioning, heating, and lighting (including electric power and fixtures) of the Executive Residence at the White House.” But, as the appeals court that ruled against Trump explained, there are numerous reasons why this statute cannot be read to permit the ballroom. 

The most straightforward reason is that Congress only gave the president a $2.475 million budget to spend under this statute. But Trump’s lawyers claimed this project will be funded by “approximately $400 million in private donations.” So, even if Trump’s ballroom counts as an “alteration” or “improvement” of the existing “Executive Residence at the White House” — and all three of these points are contested — Trump cannot use his White House maintenance budget to fund a $400 million project.

To get around this problem, Trump’s lawyers argued that the National Park Service is allowed to accept private donations, so it can use donated money to build the ballroom.

But, while it is true that the Park Service may accept donated funds, that doesn’t mean that it can use these funds to tear down an historic federal building and replace it with something completely different. The relevant federal law permits the Park Service to “promote and regulate the use of the National Park System by means and measures that conform to the fundamental purpose of the System units, which purpose is to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in the System units and to provide for the enjoyment of the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

This law could not be clearer that it calls on the Park Service to “conserve” historic objects such as the East Wing and to leave them “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” So, if anything, this law prohibits Trump from using Park Service funds to build his ballroom. Tearing down an historical structure and replacing it with a different, much larger, and architecturally distinct structure is the opposite of conservation.

Still, there’s one big reason why Trump’s argument might win over the justices anyway. According to Trump’s brief in the case, the ballroom will sit on top of an enormous bunker that extends five stories underground and that includes “bomb shelters,” “secret military structures and equipment,” and “state of the art hospital and medical facilities.” The lower courts have already permitted construction on this bunker to continue; its legality isn’t before the justices. 

Trump’s lawyers’ attempt to characterize the ballroom as part of what their brief calls an “integrated military complex” is savvy, as the courts often defer to the other branches on questions of national security. And Trump’s Justice Department also makes an argument that plausibly could persuade this Supreme Court to rule in Trump’s favor despite the fact that the ballroom has no legal support. 

The most significant legal issue in National Park Service is whether anyone is allowed to sue in order to challenge the ballroom

As a general rule, no one is allowed to file a federal lawsuit unless they have been injured in some way by the defendant that they are suing; this requirement is known as “standing.” But the Court has long held that plaintiffs may challenge illegal practices that might alter the aesthetic beauty of a site that is protected by law. As the Court said in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (2000), “environmental plaintiffs adequately allege injury in fact when they aver that they use the affected area and are persons ‘for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened’ by the challenged activity.’”

Friends of the Earth does not permit literally anyone to challenge any alteration to protected lands or buildings. Such a plaintiff only has standing if they can show that they will visit the site at issue in their lawsuit and that the planned alterations to that site will actually reduce their aesthetic enjoyment of it — but that’s enough.

The plaintiff in National Park Service is a conservationist organization whose members include a professor emerita of architectural history who said that she travels “to the White House neighborhood frequently”; that she “regularly view[s] the White House”; and that she believes that Trump’s proposed ballroom would render the White House less attractive because it would “diminish the primacy of the White House,” because “no longer would the eye be drawn to the jewel of the building at the center,” aka the residential section of the White House complex.

Thus, because organizations are typically allowed to sue on behalf of their members, this conservationist group has standing. They have at least one member who clears the low bar the Court set in Friends of the Earth.

Trump’s brief, however, dismissed this “seeing-is-standing theory,” claiming that the professor’s mere discomfort, produced by “‘observation of conduct” that she disagreed with is “not an injury sufficient to confer standing.” Trump, in other words, is effectively asking the Court to overrule Friends of the Earth, along with many other cases establishing that plaintiffs may often sue over aesthetic injuries.

If that gambit succeeds, the consequences for conservationist laws of all kinds would likely be catastrophic. As the appeals court explained, Trump’s “cramped standing theory would deem no one injured by a decision to raze the Statue of Liberty, to obscure the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, or to install a political billboard atop Mount Rushmore.” It could also prevent private lawsuits against a company that dumps foul-smelling chemicals in a national park.

The whole point of many environmental and historical preservation laws is to ensure that something that Congress believes is beautiful will remain beautiful. If no plaintiff can assert an aesthetic injury, that means that laws intended to preserve pristine, sacred, or historical sites will go unenforced — and may become completely unenforceable.

So, the stakes in National Park Service are quite high. While Trump’s statutory arguments are meritless, this case is potentially an existential threat to numerous environmental laws. The question is whether the justices will be persuaded by some combination of Trump’s attacks on Friends of the Earth and his allusions to national security to upend many decades of established law.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Hi readers, it’s me again! Caitlin will be back on Wednesday. Now, for today’s news: President Donald Trump, South Korea, and the state of the US’s military alliances.

Remember Trump’s first-term “love letters” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un? Trump was so fond of them that he took them with him when he left the presidency in 2021 (the National Archives did not approve). Now, it seems like the two leaders are taking up where they left off.

Over the weekend, Trump announced in a social media post that he would “substantially reduce” scheduled joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, which get underway today. The reason? His “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea.” 

But there may have been another reason. Trump also wrote that “While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, “No thanks!””

The US-South Korea exercises “are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!),” Trump wrote, “but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

That last part — “unthreatening and respectful” — is not exactly true; in 2017, Kim called Trump “a mentally deranged US dotard” whom North Korea would “tame…with fire.” But in the present day, Trump’s announcement is a boon to the North Korean leader, who has denounced the military exercises. 

It’s also just the latest incident in the historically close US-South Korea relationship (the two countries have held military exercises annually for more than 70 years). Earlier this year, Trump lashed out with new tariffs, accusing South Korea of “not living up to its Deal,” referring to a 2025 agreement on trade and security between the two countries that South Korea’s legislature had not yet approved.

Go a little deeper

The US has more permanent troops in South Korea than it does almost anywhere else in the world, behind only its deployments in Japan and Germany. Under Trump, though, those once-durable commitments have started to look a lot shakier.

Europe — and Germany in particular — has borne the brunt of Trump’s second-term harassment: In May, Trump announced his intent to remove 5,000 US troops from Germany and threatened to go “a lot further”; the Pentagon has said that withdrawal will take place within 12 months. The US currently has more than 38,000 troops stationed in Germany.

Trump has made similar threats about US troops stationed in Italy and Spain, and even suggested removing all US troops from Europe.

Most of these threats have been triggered by Trump’s unhappiness with European defense spending, which he’s eternally trying to boost. 

But in his second term, the threats have grown much more tightly tied to Trump’s personal ambitions and grievances. Trump’s Germany announcement followed a clash with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US war with Iran, which Trump has tried — unsuccessfully — to drag US allies into. Spain, in particular, has also drawn Trump’s ire for vocally opposing the war. 

Last month, he also tied the US troop presence in Europe to his insistence that the US be allowed to take over Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, a US ally and founding NATO member.

One link for later

➨ A low-tech way to save coral reefs. My colleague Benji Jones visited the island nation of Palau, in the western Pacific Ocean, to learn about a new approach to reef restoration. Scientists there are testing species of coral specifically for heat resistance to find better options for replanting reefs — all using some plastic picnic coolers and a bit of hot water. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the Chilean Andes has the largest digital camera ever made? It captured its “first light” last year in staggering high-definition. 
• Today’s trivia: What was the title of Iran’s ruler until 1979? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Friday’s trivia: On Friday, we asked you which US president responded to inflation by ordering wage and price freezes. That was President Richard Nixon.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Remember President Donald Trump’s first-term border wall? It’s still being built — through a pristine Texas national park.

What’s happening? The Trump administration is preparing to build hundreds of miles of roads through Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas as part of its latest border security project, despite a bipartisan outcry over damage to the beloved park. 

Starting last week, bulldozers and heavy machinery began to clear land for the construction of about 200 miles of patrol road, new border barriers, and electronic surveillance measures to cover the park’s 118 miles of shared border with Mexico. The construction is proceeding after the administration overrode environmental laws intended to protect places like Big Bend earlier this year.

What does a border wall look like in 2026? In this case, “wall” is a bit of a misnomer. Despite Trump’s fixation with an actual, physical wall circa 2016, the Trump administration’s current project isn’t always 30 feet high and topped with concertina wire.

Instead, the Big Bend project is part of what the administration has described as a “smart wall,” which will combine stretches of traditional wall elsewhere along the US-Mexico border with patrol roads and vehicle barriers like those planned for the park, all blanketed with surveillance. 

It’s a small retreat from the administration’s original plan for a border wall through Big Bend, which sparked outrage earlier this year. Still, the administration intends to build about 700 additional miles of “primary” wall, spanning all four border states. The whole project is slated to cost around $47 billion. 

Why Big Bend? It’s hard to say. As the New York Times reported earlier this year, the park has long been considered low-priority given its remote location and inhospitable weather. Only about 1 percent of those apprehended for crossing the US-Mexico border have been detained in Big Bend.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy Friday! Before we log off today, here’s a story from my colleague Allie Volpe about how to bring some playfulness back into your life and why we’d all stand to benefit from it. You can read it here with a gift link. 

Have a good weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The cracks are starting to show in President Donald Trump’s Iran campaign.

What’s happening? Conditions on a US warship deployed in the Middle East have grown so dire, multiple sailors have reportedly tried to go overboard (at least one did so but was rescued safely, according to CNN). 

The attempts to jump overboard comes as family members of sailors are raising concerns with Democratic lawmakers about deteriorating mental health on the ship amid sanitation issues and shortages of food and basic supplies. 

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier has been deployed for more than 250 days, starting last November, including a stretch of more than 200 days at sea — a modern record. Its deployment was supposed to end months ago, in May, but has continued as Trump’s Iran war stretches on. 

How is the administration responding? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that reports about conditions on the Lincoln are “completely misrepresented.” Help is on the way for the Lincoln, though, with another US aircraft carrier en route to the area to replace it (according to the Wall Street Journal, the replacement was already planned, and not in response to deteriorating conditions on the Lincoln).

Why does this matter? Conditions on the Lincoln are not the only recent stumbling block for the US war with Iran. Earlier this month, we learned more about the US’s increasingly serious shortages of key offensive and defensive missiles, including THAAD and Patriot interceptors used to protect US troops and allies. On top of that, the Washington Post reported Thursday that the US has run through around a quarter of its Reaper drones, which cost tens of millions of dollars apiece. 

It’s the latest example of how the math of the war is starting to slant against the US: Reaper drones and Patriot missiles are incredibly expensive, while Iran has figured out how to mass-produce attack drones on the cheap. And with no end in sight, shortages and situations like the Lincoln will only become a larger problem.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s some good news from my colleague Adam Clark Estes: As wrecked as your attention span may feel, it’s not permanently degraded. He talked with attention experts to figure out how to repair his, and how we can all do the same. You can read his full story here with a gift link — and then, for all of our brains’ sake, let’s log off. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. 

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old firebrand who became the nation’s youngest-ever press secretary in 2024, is stepping down to “spend more time with her beautiful young children.”

President Donald Trump announced the news on Wednesday night in a Truth Social post, adding that Leavitt would remain an adviser and “an influential voice within the Republican Party.”

It feels fitting that Leavitt — whose public persona required her to perform both her job and her role as a wife and mom — is stepping down to parent. In MAGA’s conception of womanhood, there can be no higher calling. Not even serving the president. 

For more than two years, however, Leavitt made a show of trying to do both. She returned to work on Trump’s reelection campaign only days after the birth of her first child and regularly shared photos of herself working while holding her son. 

Leavitt also welcomed a daughter over the spring, amid what Fox News dubbed a White House “baby boom.” Officials and conservative media quickly turned the new mothers into advertisements for the pro-natalist movement: Proof that women could, and should, have both careers and children. 

Leavitt is still being held up that way, even — perhaps especially — as she departs. “She’s been a role model to millions and millions of young women,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News on Wednesday. “A mother, a family woman, a press secretary, a patriot.”

MAGA’s rules for women

The MAGA movement tends to glorify traditional female roles — wife, mother, homemaker — while simultaneously (and confusingly) elevating ambitious, career-driven women like Leavitt. 

At first glance, her prominence — and that of other women in Trump’s administration — would seem to rebut the charge that the movement is misogynist. In fact, that’s a line of defense that Trump himself has advanced. 

But look a little closer, and you’ll see the structural contradiction at the heart of MAGA femininity: Female power is only legitimate when it’s exercised on behalf of Trump, and by women who conform to traditional expectations around gender, marriage, motherhood, and physical appearance.

To Trump, a female White House correspondent was a “piggy,” for instance. But a female press secretary who defended the slur was “knocking them dead.” 

A female employee at a Trump golf course was asked to sign an NDA after reporting harassment. But the female attorney who allegedly pressured her to sign it was, according to Trump, “a rocket ship.”

A female politician rose to prominence championing the president’s deportation agenda. But to get there, she had to find her “Mar-a-Lago face” — and she was ousted after showing signs of personal ambition. (In fairness, she was also very bad at her job.) 

It’s a very tricky little tightrope to walk. And lately, that strain has begun to show. While Trump began his second term with an unusually high number of female Cabinet members for a Republican president, women now hold only four of 23 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions. 

Trump’s support is also down among young women. In Congress, a bloc of prominent conservative female lawmakers recently broke from their party to censure Republicans accused of misconduct. Now, the MAGA movement is losing one of its fiercest female proxies in Leavitt. 

Even at the height of her powers, however, Leavitt never really got her due. The luxurious office traditionally reserved for the White House press secretary instead went to another White House staffer. A dude.

One link for later

➨ Meet the latest and greatest exercise cult. It’s called HYROX — yes, in all caps — and it’s an eight-round agility and strength competition. Participants spend thousands of dollars on training, registration, and travel for these events, which tend to “subsume your entire existence.” That’s a very hard no for me, personally…but a lot of very fit and competitive people are apparently into it. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the US attempted to assassinate longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro by poisoning his ice cream? And that’s somehow not even the weirdest or most far-fetched Castro assassination scheme. 
• Today’s trivia: Who was the first woman to perform hip hop at the White House? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the German philosopher who wrote Critique of Practical Reason. That would be Immanuel Kant, whose work also arguably inspired one of the core conflicts in the Avengers films.

Tom Tiffany, the new Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, is not just a passive supporter of President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. He is an active promoter of them.

In December 2020, when he was a member of Congress, he signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory. On January 6, 2021, he voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Texas just hours after rioters threatened to kill his colleagues. He has stated he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results too, and just this year endorsed an FBI investigation into the state’s elections. And though the national climate in 2026 favors Democrats, Wisconsin is a closely divided state: Tiffany could beat the odds and win the general.

There is, in short, a very real chance that someone who doesn’t believe American elections are legitimate may soon be supervising them in one of the 2028 presidential cycle’s most important swing states.

It’s not just Wisconsin. In each of the other most critical 2028 states — Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada — Republicans have chosen an election denier as their nominee for governor, secretary of state, or both. If any of these candidates win, they will have at least some degree of authority over the administration of elections in a state that could determine the outcome of the next presidential election. 

So could the outcome of the 2026 midterms ultimately lead to a stolen election in 2028, as some are already warning? Election experts say it’s very unlikely.

State election laws contain numerous overlapping checks on interference from top officials. The judiciary has a pretty strong track record in stopping election malfeasance. A reform to the Electoral Count Act, passed quietly during the Biden presidency, significantly improved federal protections against election interference. And in 2028, the man uniquely responsible for previous pushes to invalidate the 2020 election won’t be on the ballot.

“[There are many] reasons why one should not be concerned,” said Rebecca Green, the co-director of the Election Law Program at the College of William and Mary. “Even in circumstances where there is a single partisan in control of a state’s election process, there are numerous checks on that power.”

That said, the risk isn’t zero. There is a remote chance, if the election is extremely close, that a well-placed election denier could swing the outcome. And even if they don’t outright steal an election, someone like Tiffany could still use their office to damage the electoral system in some pretty important ways.

“We have to be walking between complacency and alarmism,” said Rick Hasen, an expert on election law at UCLA. “Both of those are bad.”

Why the 2028 election is more secure than you think

Election law varies from state to state. Most of the time, the state’s secretary of state (SOS) is in charge of elections, but sometimes it’s the state board of elections. Sometimes the SOS is directly elected, and sometimes they’re appointed by the governor. 

But in broad strokes, there are three ways for governors or an allied SOS to attack an election. They can try to suppress opposition voters before the voting starts, by (for example) purging them from the rolls or putting insufficient polling stations in their neighborhoods. They can try to interfere during the vote count, by trying to disqualify outparty ballots or even falsifying the vote count. Or they can try to interfere afterward, by refusing to certify election results.

“Courts have shown themselves to be pretty good against election denialism. That’s true of both Democratic and Republican appointed and elected judges.”

Rick Hasen, UCLA election expert

Each of those is exceptionally, perhaps even prohibitively, difficult to pull off — even for a committed election denier.

Voter suppression is hard because the tactics are legally limited. Current federal law bans voter roll purges within 90 days of the election, which allowed Democrats to simply re-register voters disqualified in previous Republican purges (though the Supreme Court may overturn this provision in an upcoming case). Impediments like polling station placement are, per Hasen, hard to target; they are most likely to affect low-income and low-propensity voters, who have trended Republican in recent elections.

Interfering with the counting of votes is made difficult by what Green terms “adversarial election administration”: basically, the fact that partisans from both parties are involved in multiple different stages of the counting process. Every state has strict rules governing the counting process, and observers from both parties can see if they’re being breached in the other party’s favor. If there is an irregularity, courts are empowered to step in and correct it.

And it is simply illegal for governors or secretaries of state to refuse to certify legitimate elections. State laws in all relevant battleground states allow courts to issue a writ of mandamus requiring officials to certify duly counted results, which they have done repeatedly since 2020 when Republican-controlled county election boards withheld certification.

“Courts have shown themselves to be pretty good against election denialism,” Hasen said. “That’s true of both Democratic and Republican appointed and elected judges.”

The 2022 reform to the Electoral Count Act added several additional safeguards for presidential elections specifically, including a requirement that Congress defer to court determinations on electoral legitimacy if a governor attempts to defy them. 

And all of that assumes that a Republican who denied the result of the 2020 election would necessarily attempt to steal future elections. That may not be the case. 

“Just because you have partisan control of an election, and just because that person has cast doubt on previous elections, doesn’t mean that person is not going to be committed to running a fair election,” Green said.

Such a sentiment may sound naive, but it also may reflect the reality of post-Trump politics. The president was the driving force behind the attempt to overturn the 2020 election; his insistence that he did not lose, and his iron grip on the hearts and minds of the GOP base, pushed the party onto grounds that its other leaders clearly feared to tread. 

While Republicans certainly attempted to stack the electoral deck in their favor prior to Trump, these brazen attempts to overturn or steal legitimate elections are a product of his time in office. Whether he has permanently changed the Republican Party into an entity that will regularly reject elections they lose is very much an open question.

Why electing election deniers could still matter

All of this should give us some comfort about the upcoming state-level races: It is simply very hard for a governor or SOS to steal a presidential election even if they want to. While American democracy is weak in many different ways, the security of its election architecture specifically is actually one of its strong points.

But even the most impregnable-seeming fortresses can be breached. And there are reasons to worry that, in an extreme case, an election denier in key positions could well damage the integrity of the 2028 presidential election.

In a 2022 paper, the law professor Lisa Marshall Manheim argued that conventional legal analysis has proven inadequate for addressing the threat of election subversion. While legal experts are correct to say that the law makes stealing an election hard, the most dangerous threat to US elections — Trump’s 2020 campaign — was essentially extra-legal in character.

While American democracy is weak in many different ways, the security of its election architecture specifically is actually one of its strong points.

While “superficially” operating through the legal system, Trump was actually asking officials from Congress on down to engage in obviously unlawful behavior. When Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to overturn the state’s results, or for Mike Pence to find the “courage” to nullify the results on January 6, he wasn’t asking these two men to act according to their legal duties. He was asking them to step beyond law, to embrace a reading of their office’s powers so obviously absurd that it amounts to declaring the text of the law to be no limit at all.

This is the nightmare scenario: one in which officials in key positions simply decide that they no longer have to follow a good-faith reading of the law. If enough officials in the right places decide to cast off legal shackles, no carefully crafted statute can stop them. We will, as Hasen put it, exit the domain of law into “something else”: the politics of raw power.

Anyone who endorsed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election — let alone actively attempted to act on them — has already shown a degree of contempt for election law. That means that one can’t rule out a similar display of contempt in the future, only this time with the power to turn that into impactful defiance of law.

It’s vastly too early to say the conditions under which such a radical breach might occur, in 2028 or in the future. A lot depends on the makeup of the Republican Party; whether leaders after Trump embrace or downplay his hostility to the electoral system itself. But we now know that the risk is there. And the more election deniers we have in key positions, the greater the odds are that the risk becomes real — even if the baseline probability remains low in absolute terms.

This connects to another, more insidious risk: that electing election deniers could exacerbate the ongoing crisis of electoral confidence since 2020.

Even if Tiffany or someone like him doesn’t try to outright prevent or nullify Democratic victories in their state, they could still declare that they lack confidence in the result’s integrity. That they tried to run a fair election, but that Democrats or the courts prevented them from doing so — and thus, despite their lack of legal powers to stop it, that they believe the election to have been compromised or even stolen.

This may not lead to a series of January 6s across the country. But even if it didn’t, it would deepen the lack of trust Republican voters have in the electoral system. If Republicans post-Trump continue to believe that Democrats are engaged in widespread cheating, that could contribute to an environment where the kind of extra-legal shenanigans Manheim warned of could look more tempting.

So while it is quite unlikely that the 2026 elections will lead to a crisis in 2028, it could play a role in dashing the possibility that American democracy moves on from the dangerous Trump-era fighting over elections. And as long as that fighting persists, another 2020-style crisis will remain a live possibility.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: August is famously a slow time in Washington, DC. It’s hot and humid, Congress is out of session, and everyone who’s still here generally wishes they were somewhere else.

Even by that standard, though, President Donald Trump is having an exceptionally listless month. There’s a war in Iran, which is trapped in its nth cycle of almost-a-deal-any-day-now (a deal may really be coming, but signs today are less hopeful). There’s Trump’s push for the SAVE America Act, which has long looked mathematically unfeasible, and which senators abandoned this past weekend. There’s all of that construction.

And then, there are a number of “zombie” priorities — previously dead Trump agenda items that are coming back to haunt the news cycle. Here’s what’s still on the president’s to-do list: 

• The Reflecting Pool: Late last month, the Justice Department dropped its felony case against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the pool, which was actually the victim of shoddy contractor work and poor decision-making. Trump was not pleased at the time, and, on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is pressing the DOJ to bring a new case. 
• Birthright citizenship: In June, the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship via executive order as unconstitutional. Then, earlier this month, he issued a new, far narrower executive order trying to restrict birthright citizenship at the margins. As my colleague Ian Millhiser explains here, that order is likely unconstitutional, too, but Trump is trying anyway. 
• Fed independence: Another June SCOTUS ruling curbed Trump’s immediate attempts to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump has accused of mortgage fraud. But Trump is still trying, notifying Cook last week that he was “considering” removing her, according to ABC News.
• The slush fund: Attorney General Todd Blanche committed to ending Trump’s sought-after $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in order to get confirmed to the role. Now that he has been confirmed, though, it’s anyone’s guess whether the fund will stay dead.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

My dad sent some very cute photos of a troupe of baby raccoons to the family group chat this morning, so I read this Atlantic article about raccoon domestication with great interest. As it turns out, they really might be on the path toward domestication. But, right now, they make terrible pets. Still, it’s a fun read, and you can find it here with a gift link. 

As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

It’s not exactly the stuff of Netflix spy thrillers, but…it’s also not every day that the president makes a covert getaway in a catering truck. 

White House officials revealed on Monday that, before a flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom last month, President Donald Trump used the truck to secretly move between planes, then switched aircraft again after landing in Britain. 

The ruse deceived both Trump’s press corps and many of his staff, who weren’t warned of the last-minute plan in advance. But the deception was undertaken, officials said, in response to an assassination threat from Iran. 

Such plots are one tool weaker powers can wield in asymmetric warfare, or conflict between unevenly matched opponents. Iran can’t strike the US homeland with conventional military force the way the US can strike Iran.

As the catering truck caper attests, however, that doesn’t put Americans entirely beyond Tehran’s grasp. Instead, Iran is finding other, less conventional ways to inflict damage on US turf — from assassination plots to cyberattacks. 

We might need a bigger catering truck to escape all of that. 

“We have more cybersecurity regulations for your credit card than we have for the nation’s water supply.” 

— Joshua Corman, founder of I Am the Cavalry, a digital security nonprofit

Iran doesn’t appear able to launch the kind of major cyberattacks that would seriously disrupt Americans’ daily lives en masse. But over the past five months, attacks linked to Iran and pro-Iranian groups have targeted US medical device makers, social networks, public transit agencies, and — most recently, and perhaps most alarmingly — small-town utilities.

Unknown hackers compromised the water and wastewater systems of municipalities in at least 12 states last month, prompting water shut-offs, flooding and boil-water notices in a handful of locations. Cybersecurity experts think Iran is most likely behind the breaches. And American water systems — which are overwhelmingly run by small, local agencies — are especially vulnerable to this type of attack. They have little in the way of IT support, and relatively few state or federal laws require them to take cybersecurity precautions. 

It isn’t just utilities at risk, either. Over the past 10 years, Iranian hackers have also breached US targets ranging from satellite companies to political campaigns. And if the war continues to stretch on, some analysts believe the country’s hacks could grow more aggressive. 

The Trump administration hasn’t shown any great desire to address this risk, alas. Just a few months ago, it proposed $707 million in cuts to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — the people responsible for protecting the nation’s infrastructure from cyber threats. 

One link for later

➨ Ignorance can truly be bliss. Many of us feel the very modern compulsion to suck up all the information we can: about the news, about our bodies, about random subjects we encounter on the internet. But that deluge of daily data can overwhelm both your mental bandwidth and your mental health. Try letting go of some of these low-stakes tidbits so you can focus on subjects that most deserve your attention. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that pigs are smart enough to use tools without human prompting? 
• Today’s trivia: Vientiane is the capital of which Southeast Asian country? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for Dorothy’s last name in The Wizard of Oz. That would be Gale. Author L. Frank Baum is believed to have borrowed the name from either the victim of an 1879 tornado or his late infant niece, who died in 1898 at just over five months old.

Last week, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order that purports to strip citizenship from some Americans. 

This isn’t our first time here: Last year, Trump issued an executive order that attempted to strip citizenship from many Americans born in this country. Months later, in response to a lawsuit brought over Trump’s order, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that everyone born in the United States who is subject to US law is a citizen. The Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara (2026) was hardly a surprise, as the Court first ruled that everyone born in the US and subject to its laws are citizens in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898).

Still, the Barbara decision did invalidate an executive order from Trump. And that made him very angry. The new order appears to be a response to that 2025 Supreme Court decision, though it is much narrower than his original one.

In this sense, Trump appears to be experimenting with where the line is for the justices when it comes to birthright citizenship. When Trump’s first order came before the Court in Barbara, there was more than a century of precedent establishing that the order was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, four justices voted to overrule at least some of that precedent. 

Now, with the new order, Trump is testing whether a smaller bite at the apple is enough to win over one of the justices who voted with the majority in Barbara — two of whom are Republicans. If he manages to hold onto the four dissenters in Barbara and pick up just one more justice’s vote, his new order will stand. It’s a plausible outcome, and one that could potentially foreshadow future efforts to chip away at birthright citizenship.

What does the order actually do?

Trump’s first citizenship order, the one struck down in Barbara, attempted to strip citizenship from many Americans whose mothers were either undocumented or legally-but-temporarily present in the United States when they were born. Had this order been in effect at their birth, it would have stripped citizenship from many prominent Americans, including former Vice President Kamala Harris.

The new order, entitled “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” is much narrower; indeed, it’s unclear some of the categories of people it hopes to denaturalize actually exist. The new order, for example, purports to strip citizenship from children of two non-citizen parents when either parent belongs to a “designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

So, in the unlikely event that, say, a member of Al-Qaeda impregnated a non-US citizen woman who later gave birth on US soil, Trump’s order would mandate that the child’s US citizenship would be taken away. 

Another provision purports to strip citizenship from the children of foreign nationals who work in their nation’s embassies or in similar diplomatic capacities but who do not enjoy diplomatic immunity from US law. Again, it’s unlikely that all that many children fall into this category, given the relatively small number of these jobs.

The largest group of people that Trump targets in his new order is children whose parents “engage in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States” for their birth, such as by buying a plane ticket to enter the United States while pregnant. But this category is also fairly small. 

In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 9,576 people were born in the United States to residents of foreign countries — out of about 3.6 million annual births — though it is unclear how many of these babies would be affected by Trump’s new executive order, because we don’t know if their mothers entered the United States “to ensure” that their child we be on US soil when born.

So, what does the Constitution actually say about birthright citizenship?

The question of whether people born in the United States are citizens was, until fairly recently, one of the most uncontroversial questions in US law. When Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, handed down the first court decision blocking Trump’s original attack on birthright citizenship, he commented that he’d “been on the bench for over four decades [and]…can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is.”

The relevant provision of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment provides that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” So, everyone born in the US, regardless of their parent’s immigration status, past behavior, or membership in a particular organization are citizens — unless they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

As the Court recently reaffirmed in Barbara, moreover, a child is within US jurisdiction if they are “subject to American law.” So, if undocumented immigrants and their children were not subject to US jurisdiction, that would mean that it was illegal to arrest and deport them. And, if members of foreign terrorist organizations were not subject to US law, that would mean that it is illegal for the US government to prosecute them for committing terrorist acts.

That said, Wong Kim Ark did recognize a few narrow categories of individuals who are present in the US but not subject to its laws — two of which are still relevant today. Children of invading foreign armies do not receive birthright citizenship, nor do children of foreign ambassadors and other diplomats who are immune from US law.

As the Court clarified in Barbara, both of these exemptions are derived from an old English rule that provided that the King could not convey citizenship to “those born in lands that he did not control.” Thus, when a foreign military occupied English soil and stripped the King of his ability to rule over those lands, children born to members of that military were not citizens.

The exemption for ambassadors and some other foreign diplomats, meanwhile, flows from what Barbara described as a “fiction of extraterritoriality.” While senior diplomats are present in the United States, they are nonetheless deemed to “remain on foreign soil” and thus are not subject to US law.

But not all employees of foreign governments qualify for this diplomatic immunity. Consider, for example, the tragic facts of Moncada v. Rubio (2025), a recent federal appeals court decision holding that a man who lived as a US citizen for nearly seven decades was not, in fact, a citizen. 

Roberto Moncada is the son of a Nicaraguan diplomat who worked in the United Nations when Moncada was born in 1950. The US government previously concluded that Moncada’s father served as a “consul” when his son was born, and, thus, Moncada was a US citizen, because consuls and their families do not enjoy diplomatic immunity. But, in 2018, the US government discovered that Moncada’s father was actually an “attaché,” a more senior diplomat who does enjoy immunity. And then, the father’s diplomatic immunity cut the son off from US citizenship.

Under these principles, several provisions of Trump’s new executive order are unconstitutional, at least in part. The provisions stripping citizenship from the children of employees of foreign governments are lawful to the extent that they apply to children of people with diplomatic immunity but unconstitutional to the extent they apply to lower-ranking individuals with no immunity. 

The provision dealing with members of foreign terrorist organizations is also unconstitutional, since people who engage in terrorism on US soil are very much subject to US law — as are babies born on US soil to parents connected to terrorism. Although, in the unlikely event that a foreign terrorist group actually seized control of some portions of US soil, then the exemption for children of invading armies would likely apply. 

The provision dealing with so-called “birth tourists” is also unconstitutional, because a pregnant woman who enters the United States to ensure that their child is a US citizen is subject to US law, as is her child.

Indeed, Trump appears to concede this later point in a separate executive order handed down at the same time as his “Continuing to Protect” order. The second order, entitled “Ending Birth Tourism,” instructs two federal cabinet departments to update their rules to discourage alleged birth tourists from entering the country, including by taking “appropriate action to prevent the entry into the United States of, or the granting of any visa or other travel authorization” to such individuals. But, again, if the United States has the power to deny visas or otherwise bar these individuals from entering the country, that means that they are subject to US jurisdiction.

Why Trump keeps trying to restrict birthright citizenship

So, the Constitution’s text, the Court’s venerable decision in Wong Kim Ark, and its brand new decision in Barbara are all clear about who qualifies for birthright citizenship. All of these authorities establish that much of Trump’s new executive order is unconstitutional, because it purports to strip citizenship from people who are subject to US jurisdiction.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the order will be struck down. While Barbara did little more than reaffirm the same rule the Court announced nearly 130 years ago in Wong Kim Ark, four justices dissented in Barbara — although, these justices also released four separate opinions with four separate definitions of who does and does not qualify for birthright citizenship. So, on this Supreme Court, the mere fact that a legal question has been settled for more than a century does not prevent many of the justices from voting to unsettle it.

Indeed, this Court does not even reliably follow its own recent precedents. The Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais (2026), which repealed a 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act and limited Congress’s power to prevent race discrimination in elections, was wholly at odds with the Court’s three-year-old decision in Allen v. Milligan (2023). The Court’s decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood (2025), which repealed a federal law permitting Medicaid patients to choose their own doctors, cannot be squared with its decision two years earlier in Health and Hospital Corporation v. Talevski (2023). 

So, while two of the Court’s Republicans joined all three of its Democrats in Barbara, it is possible that at least one of those Republicans will vote with the dissenters on a narrower question, like whether Trump can strip citizenship from the children of so-called birth tourists. And even if all of the justices in the Barbara majority hold the line, if one of them leaves the Court while Trump is still in office, he will almost certainly replace them with someone who opposes birthright citizenship.

So, while Trump’s executive orders often defy the Constitution’s explicit text, Trump also understands something important about US law: It doesn’t actually matter what the Constitution says if you have five votes on the Supreme Court who are willing to do what you want them to do.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is trying to revise the childhood vaccine schedule. 

What’s happening? On Monday, Trump signed an executive order recommending fewer childhood vaccines, directing new vaccine research, and attempting to advance “parental choice” on vaccines. The new guidance substantially cuts the number of shots recommended for all children, from vaccines for 18 diseases to just 11. 

Vaccines for rotavirus, meningococcal disease, the flu, and Covid-19 are all among those the order no longer recommends for all children.

What does that mean for vaccine access in the US? For now, not too much. The order only issues recommendations, and as the Washington Post points out, many states have already elected to stop relying on federal vaccine recommendations. It’s certain to increase confusion over vaccine safety, though, and could throw up new administrative barriers for parents. 

Why does Trump care? Trump has long amplified baseless conspiracy theories linking childhood vaccines to autism; on Monday, he claimed that childhood vaccine doses are “the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body.” (They are not.) 

Parts of the order directly reflect Trump’s personal hobbyhorses around vaccines, such as a recommendation to break up the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine into three separate shots; as the Post points out, those kinds of individual shots aren’t even commercially available right now.

What’s the big picture? Monday’s EO doesn’t make any earthshattering changes, but it’s concerning to see vaccine policy — or at least policy recommendations — made from the Oval Office. And the order will have another impact: Trump’s attempts to dictate vaccine policy to states, combined with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s year and a half plus of meddling, will only serve to further demolish America’s splintered public health consensus.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Have you heard about the fitness competition Hyrox, possibly against your will? Have you not heard about Hyrox? Are you perhaps thinking of the Oreo-adjacent cookie Hydrox instead? Whichever category you fall into, I recommend my colleague Alex Abad-Santos’s latest piece explaining what exactly is going on over there. You can read it with a gift link here.

Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

President Donald Trump may have to settle for the hand-me-down Nobel Prize medal that he scored several months ago. Despite their best efforts, his envoys don’t seem to be having much luck advancing a peace deal in Gaza. 

Over the weekend — just days after Trump announced a “HISTORIC” agreement to gradually disarm Hamas and stand down Israeli troops — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the framework. 

The plan, brokered by Trump’s Board of Peace, would have seen both sides ramp down in tandem. But that’s apparently a nonstarter for Netanyahu, who said Hamas must disarm before Israeli troops withdraw. Israel still controls about 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, according to NPR — and has continued launching attacks in the territory, even after an October ceasefire.

What happens if the US cuts off aid to Israel?

It’s the latest setback in what has been a long and ugly conflict — a conflict that has turned many Americans against their longtime ally, Israel. Against that backdrop, some Democratic lawmakers and pro-Palestinian activists are advancing a once-fringe policy in the hopes of forcing Israel to end the war in Gaza and change its course in the occupied West Bank: cutting off military aid to Israel. 

It’s an intuitive approach to behavior modification, familiar to any parent who has denied a child a desired toy or treat: withhold something they want until they behave. But Israel, in this admittedly imperfect metaphor, is not a toddler. It’s a full-grown adult with a $600 billion economy and a mind of its own…and it can absolutely buy its own drones and missile-defense systems.

Here’s a statistic that really drove that point home for me: In 2025, Israel spent about 7.9 percent of its GDP on its military, plus US aid. To sustain that level of military investment without US support, Israel would need to allocate 8.5 percent of GDP to its military. Not exactly a massive change. 

There are other valid arguments for the US to end Israeli aid, of course. (Among the most common: to avoid complicity in war crimes and possible genocide in the Gaza Strip.) But if US lawmakers hope to force Israel’s hand, on the two-state solution or anything else, then cutting military aid probably won’t provide enough leverage. 

One link for later

➨ About that organic chicken…many consumers shell out twice as much for organic poultry because they believe it was raised humanely. But while an organic certification does, on paper, require more space, fresh air and outdoor access for chickens, farms that supply Costco and other major retailers have been accused of serious animal welfare violations. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that migratory birds can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and use it to navigate? But scientists still don’t know which body part the birds use to do that sensing.
• Today’s trivia: What is Dorothy’s last name in The Wizard of Oz? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: On Thursday, we asked you for the fourth-largest Great Lake. That would be Lake Erie, which ranks as the 11th largest lake globally. 

Democratic socialists keep winning primary elections, and Democratic voters are trending in the same direction: Recent polling suggests that a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults now identify as democratic socialists. Most recently, Abdul El-Sayed, who does not identify as a democratic socialist but was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supports policies like Medicare-for-all, won a fiercely fought Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. 

As democratic socialists gain ground in Democratic politics, President Donald Trump and Republicans have attempted to conflate democratic socialism with communism (though allegations of “communism” are hardly new territory for Trump). At the same time, recent reporting has pointed out that, in fact, there are some members within the Democratic Socialists of America who openly identify as communists.

To help us understand what communism actually is and its history in the United States, Today Explained co-host Noel King spoke with Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College. Isserman has written extensively about the history of communism in the United States, including in his latest book is Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism.

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify. 

Define communism for me. 

Communism began as a split off from the socialist movement. It was inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. And it is in favor of a total transformation of capitalist society with the government — the state — owning and operating what communists would call the means of production: factories, transportation, and so forth. It also believes in one-party rule. So for 75 years or so, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union allowed no competing parties to exist within that country.

There have been communists in the United States of America before. What is their history in this country? 

The American Communist Party was founded in 1919, right after the First World War.

And it was, again, inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. It seemed to point to a way out. The Bolsheviks came to power, remained in power. And so communists or would-be communists in the United States, in Europe, elsewhere said, “Well, if they can do it, we can do it too.” So an American Communist Party was founded in 1919 — small, isolated, mostly immigrants, but it gained strength in the course of the 1930s during the Great Depression.

Why did they gain strength during the Great Depression? 

Because capitalism seemed to be failing and communism seemed to be the wave of the future. The other factor leading to the increase in communist influence was that fascism was rising in Italy, in the 1920s, in Germany, in the early 1930s. And it seemed as if there was a stark choice facing the world: either fascism or communism. And many people in the 1930s said, “Well, let’s support the communists to beat back the threat of fascism.”

Did elected communists get anything done in the United States?

Well, there were very few elected communists. In the 1940s, there were two communist members of the New York City Council, but that was about it in terms of open communists being elected to office. Their influence was seen more behind the scenes in the labor movement, in organizing the big new industrial unions of the 1930s, and organizing so-called front groups, anti-fascist groups, anti-racist groups, and so forth. And the party was never huge. At its height at the end of the 30s, it had perhaps 75,000 members in a country then with a population of 130 million. Its influence extended beyond its own membership, but it was still very much a minor party — growing, but minor.

Why did communism fail in the United States of America? 

One reason was that it was repressed by the government pretty much throughout its existence — in the first Red Scare immediately after the First World War, and then again in the second Red Scare, which we commonly refer to as the McCarthy era in the late ’40s and through the 1950s. Communists were sent to jail for advocacy, for simply saying that they favored communism.  

But it also failed because of its rather slavish obedience to the dictates of Soviet leaders. When the Soviet foreign policy changed from anti-fascism and anti-Hitlerism in the mid- to late ’30s to a kind of de facto alliance with Hitler from 1939 to 1941, the American Communist Party obediently followed that line. Then Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and the Soviet Union swung back to anti-fascism. Well, [the American Communist Party] made that turn too. But all of those turns gave the communists a reputation as an organization that did not really exist to serve American interests, but rather to serve Soviet interests.

We know from reporting that’s been done that there are people within the DSA who identify as communists. Can you help us understand who these folks are within the organization and what they actually believe?

There are a number of left-wing factions. There’s a group called Red Star. There’s another one called the Marxist Unity Group. There are three or four of them that work in coalition. They’re rivals, but they also work in coalition to control, by a narrow margin, the national leadership. One of the members of Red Star is a co-chair of the organization. 

These people make no bones about their belief. They’re not secret communists infiltrating. They describe themselves as being inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution or being inspired by Maoist China, or they call themselves Marxist-Leninist. So they’re quite open about it, and that comes out of a different political tradition, an antithetical tradition to democratic socialism. 

They have a different ultimate strategy in mind, which is not to work within the Democratic Party as AOC is committed to do, as Zohran Mandami is committed to do, but rather they want to split and start an independent revolutionary socialist party, which will run against both Democrats and Republicans, which is a strategy that has been tried an infinite number of times in the past by various groups of leftists.

Is this a Red Scare, or is there something to be scared about here?

It’s definitely a Red Scare. Trump and his allies don’t have a lot going for them in this election cycle. They’ve got an unwinnable war going on. They’ve got gasoline prices skyrocketing. Trump is even underwater on immigration, his signature issue. So what do you do in that situation? You create a boogeyman, or try to. And the difference is that most Americans under the age of 45 have no memory whatsoever of the existence of the Soviet Union as a threat to the United States. 

When you launch a Red Scare in 1919, well, there’s communist Russia. When you launch a Red Scare in the 1940s and ’’50s, well, there’s the Soviet Union. There’s a real threat. I mean, they have missiles and so forth. 

Who’s supposed to be the foreign threat today controlling the actions of these American communists? Cuba? Cuba can’t even keep the lights on for its own people. It doesn’t have missiles. It’s not going to invade the United States or its allies. So I think this is an attempt to launch a Red Scare using DSA as kind of a boogeyman. But DSA, again, is not one thing. It has the ‘left wing of the possible’ Democratic socialists, who I would say include such figures as Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And then it has, unfortunately, some would-be Bolsheviks, so it’s really a question of which DSA is going to prevail in the long run. 

Which one do you think will prevail in the long run?

I’m a historian. I’m very good at predicting the past, and I’m terrible at predicting the future.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: As the Iran war drags on, the US may be running perilously low on key munitions.

What’s happening? According to reporting by Reuters this week, the US has used “virtually all” of its stockpiles of two kinds of precision long-range missiles since the start of the US-Iran war in late February. Its defensive capabilities may be slipping, too. CNN reported on Tuesday that the US has also depleted “nearly 80%” of its supply of THAAD interceptor missiles and around half of its Patriot interceptors.

What do these shortages mean for the Iran conflict? 1) They could limit the US’s military options against Iran. Reporting suggests that this is already happening. According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump decided against a “major escalation” of the US-Iran war late last month after three US troops were killed, at least partially because of concerns about munitions shortages. 

2) The shortage of interceptors increases the danger for US troops and allies in the region. According to the Atlantic, US forces are now at the point where they have to make snap decisions about whether to use an interceptor or ride out an attack. They’re also at a mathematical disadvantage; the US has relatively few interceptors, which cost millions to produce. Iran, meanwhile, can hurl mass-produced drones at the US for about $35,000 each.

How is Trump responding? Not well. The shortages are reportedly causing friction between Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the president has lashed out on social media. 

“The U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” Trump posted on Friday. “The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!”

What’s next? One effect of the shortage could be to encourage an end to the fighting. A new agreement over the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman is reportedly in the works, which could be a step toward ending the war — if the US is willing to make some concessions.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, this newsletter will be off tomorrow. We’d like to preemptively encourage you to log off and enjoy the summer weekend. We’ll see you back here on Monday. 

Now, before we go: Did you know there are World Dog Surfing Championships? I did not, so I was especially delighted to encounter this photo gallery from the Atlantic, collecting competitors from several recent years. You can find them all here with a gift link — enjoy!

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s renovation mania is reaching new heights. 

What’s happening? Not satisfied with a paved Rose Garden, lavish amounts of gold, and a granite walkway paid for with national parks money, Trump is currently adding a helipad to the White House lawn. Construction, begun in June, has been running 24/7, with the goal of finishing the project before a visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping in late September. 

But all is not well: As the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, contractors are now undoing their work as Trump demands a perfectly level helipad (on a South Lawn that is anything but).

It’s the latest evidence of something that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman recently described in a podcast with Ezra Klein: By her estimate, around 70 percent of Trump’s “mind share” is tied up not with the Iran war, affordability, or the upcoming midterms, but “on his renovations,” which she describes as a “legacy thing.”

What else does Trump have in the works? In addition to the helipad, Trump is currently working on renovating Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House; on Monday, he mused about his “big decision” on whether to change the park’s pavers from red brick to granite.

He’s also re-gilding four statues near the Lincoln Memorial in vivid 23.75-karat gold; repairing the re-drained Reflecting Pool, which was the victim of a rush job the first time around; and moving ahead with his plan for a 250-foot arch, which could be approved by early next month and which the National Park Service recently concluded would have “adverse effects” on more than three dozen historic sites in the DC area.

What’s the big picture? Trump’s construction fervor has only accelerated since he returned to office last year, especially as other agenda items have eluded him. A midterms loss will further curtail his options for the final two years of his presidency, so don’t expect it to stop here.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Here’s a stat I did not know, courtesy of my colleague Bryan Walsh: Traffic injuries are “the leading cause of death for everyone between the ages of 5 and 29 — ahead of malaria, ahead of war and homicide, ahead of every disease we spend more time worrying about.” 

That’s pretty grim, and not very Logoff-y. But there’s good news, too: As Bryan reports, between 2011 and 2025, global road deaths have fallen by 21 percent, even as more vehicles take to the roads — thanks in large part to a change in how we think about traffic accidents. You can read Bryan’s full story about what changed — and what we still have to work on — here with a gift link.

Have a great evening, and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow!