WHEN DONALD TRUMP TRIED to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election, he lacked one crucial asset: the military. The armed forces stayed out of the fight, putting loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to the president.

In his second term, Trump is working to rectify that mistake. He’s not just purging generals and installing his own loyalists. He’s also encouraging rank-and-file service members to side with him against anyone who stands in his way, including the courts.

Two weeks ago, Trump spoke to American troops at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Not once did he thank them for serving the United States. Instead, he thanked them for supporting him politically. “Nobody [has] been stronger than the military in terms of backing us” in “three unbelievable campaigns,” he boasted. “I just want to thank you all very much.”

Trump did acknowledge one service member for an act of bravery. The hero, he explained, was an Air Force Reserve master sergeant who “attended the rally where an assassin tried to take my life” and “raced to direct law enforcement toward the sniper’s perch.” This noble deed—attending a Trump rally and protecting Trump—was the only physical act for which Trump thanked anyone in uniform.

The president joked that one of the military’s new planes was a tribute to him. “Our air force will soon have the world’s first and only sixth-generation fighter jet, the F-47,” he noted. “Why did they name it 47?” he asked, smirking. “That was a nice thing.”

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Trump also joked about running for a third term. “We’ll have to think about that,” he told the troops. He explained to them, in the manner of a bro soliciting laughter from his buddies, why he loved to talk about running again: “We’re driving the left crazy.”

This dig at the American left was an implicit move to enlist service members in domestic politics, even—in the case of a proposed third term—to the point of defying the Constitution. And in case the troops weren’t clear about whom they should regard as the enemy, Trump added that Joe Biden and his administration were “evil, bad people.”

Trump even claimed that “we won three elections,” including his defeat in 2020. This was a blunt, false allegation that Democrats had stolen that election—the only recent presidential contest they had officially won—and a signal that if Republicans were to lose the next election, the military should view the outcome as fraudulent.

All this he said openly on a U.S. military base in front of uniformed service members who had sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

LAST FRIDAY, A WEEK AFTER his speech in Qatar, Trump announced plans for a military parade in Washington, D.C. On Truth Social, he declared, “We will be hosting a magnificent Parade to honor the United States Army’s 250th Birthday, on Saturday, June 14th.” But that wasn’t the only reason he gave for picking June 14. “It’s Flag Day,” he explained in a May 2 interview on Meet the Press. And also: “My birthday happens to be on Flag Day.”

Then, on Saturday, Trump gave a commencement address at West Point. He told the graduating cadets that “the military’s job” was not “to spread democracy to everybody around the world.”

What was the military’s job? On Meet the Press, he discussed two possible targets: Canada and Greenland.

Kristen Welker: Would you rule out military force to take Canada?

Trump: Well, I think we’re not going to ever get to that point. It could happen. Something could happen with Greenland. . . .

Welker: You are not ruling out military force to take Greenland one day?

Trump: I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly.

But Trump’s principal focus was at home. He invited the West Point graduates, like the troops in Qatar, to view his domestic opponents as an adversary. “They don’t like using the word ‘liberal’ anymore,” he told the cadets. “That’s why I call them liberal.”

Henceforth, said the president, a “central purpose of our military” would be to “protect our own borders” by fighting illegal immigration. “On Day One, I deployed our military to the southern border,” he observed.

That deployment has run into trouble in the courts. The Posse Comitatus Act, for example, forbids any use of the armed forces to conduct arrests on American soil unless it’s “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” But Trump had an answer to any judge who stood in his way.

“Hopefully, the courts will allow us to continue,” he told the cadets. The courts should yield to him, he explained, because “we won the popular vote by millions of votes. . . . We had a great mandate, and it gives us the right to do what we want to do to make our country great again.”

The right to do what we want to do. That sounded like an invitation to stand with Trump in any confrontation with the judiciary. And if the military were to stand with Trump, the courts would be powerless. JD Vance made that point to Trump in a podcast four years ago: “When the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

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ON MONDAY, AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, Trump addressed a military audience one more time. In the annual presidential speech honoring Memorial Day, he thanked God not for protecting America but for engineering Trump’s political comeback.

“Look what I have. I have everything,” Trump told the crowd. It’s “amazing the way things work out. God did that.” As Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and others in the audience applauded, the president repeated: “God did it.”

Maybe, in the end, Trump won’t run for a third term. Or if he runs and loses, maybe he’ll acknowledge defeat. Or if he wins, but the Supreme Court says a third term is unconstitutional, maybe he’ll accept that ruling.

But if he doesn’t acknowledge defeat—or if he doesn’t accept the Court’s decision—who’s going to stop him?

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Illinois legislators on Wednesday passed a law to explicitly prevent police from ticketing and fining students for minor misbehavior at school, ending a practice that harmed students across the state.

The new law would apply to all public schools, including charters. It will require school districts, beginning in the 2027-28 school year, to report to the state how often they involve police in student matters each year and to separate the data by race, gender and disability. The state will be required to make the data public.

The legislation comes three years after a ProPublica and Chicago Tribune investigation, “The Price Kids Pay,” revealed that even though Illinois law bans school officials from fining students directly, districts skirted the law by calling on police to issue citations for violating local ordinances.

“The Price Kids Pay” found that thousands of Illinois students had been ticketed in recent years for adolescent behavior once handled by the principal’s office — things like littering, making loud noises, swearing, fighting or vaping in the bathroom. It also found that Black students were twice as likely to be ticketed at school than their white peers.

From the House floor, Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat from Chicago, thanked the news organizations for exposing the practice and told legislators that the goal of the bill “is to make sure if there is a violation of school code, the school should use their discipline policies” rather than disciplining students through police-issued tickets.

State Sen. Karina Villa, a Democrat from suburban West Chicago and a sponsor of the measure, said in a statement that ticketing students failed to address the reasons for misbehavior. “This bill will once and for all prohibit monetary fines as a form of discipline for Illinois students,” she said.

The legislation also would prevent police from issuing tickets to students for behavior on school transportation or during school-related events or activities.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police opposed the legislation. The group said in a statement that while school-based officers should not be responsible for disciplining students, they should have the option to issue citations for criminal conduct as one of a “variety of resolutions.” The group said it’s concerned that not having the option to issue tickets could lead to students facing arrest and criminal charges instead.

The legislation passed the House 69-44. It passed in the Senate last month 37-17 and now heads to Gov. JB Pritzker, who previously has spoken out against ticketing students at school. A spokesperson said Wednesday night that he “was supportive of this initiative” and plans to review the bill.

The legislation makes clear that police can arrest students for crimes or violence they commit, but that they cannot ticket students for violating local ordinances prohibiting a range of minor infractions.

That distinction was not clear in previous versions of the legislation, which led to concern that schools would not be able to involve police in serious matters — and was a key reason legislation on ticketing foundered in previous legislative sessions. Students also may still be ordered to pay for lost, stolen or damaged property.

“This bill helps create an environment where students can learn from their mistakes without being unnecessarily funneled into the justice system,” said Aimee Galvin, government affairs director with Stand for Children, one of the groups that advocated for banning municipal tickets as school-based discipline.

The news investigation detailed how students were doubly penalized: when they were punished in school, with detention or a suspension, and then when they were ticketed by police for minor misbehavior. The investigation also revealed how, to resolve the tickets, children were thrown into a legal process designed for adults. Illinois law permits fines of up to $750 for municipal ordinance violations; it’s difficult to fight the charges, and students and families can be sent to collections if they don’t pay.

After the investigation was published, some school districts stopped asking police to ticket students. But the practice has continued in many other districts.

The legislation also adds regulations for districts that hire school-based police officers, known as school resource officers. Starting next year, districts with school resource officers must enter into agreements with local police to lay out the roles and responsibilities of officers on campus. The agreements will need to specify that officers are prohibited from issuing citations on school property and that they must be trained in working with students with disabilities. The agreements also must outline a process for data collection and reporting. School personnel also would be prohibited from referring truant students to police to be ticketed as punishment.

Before the new legislation, there had been some piecemeal changes and efforts at reform. A state attorney general investigation into a large suburban Chicago district confirmed that school administrators were exploiting a loophole in state law when they asked police to issue tickets to students. The district denied wrongdoing, but that investigation found the district broke the law and that the practice disproportionately affected Black and Latino students. The state’s top legal authority declared the practice illegal and said it should stop.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this week that the federal government no longer recommends the COVID-19 vaccination for healthy pregnant people and healthy children, a move that immediately raised questions from medical experts. 

“Despite the change in recommendations from HHS, the science has not changed. It is very clear that COVID infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families,” Dr. Steven J. Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement. “The COVID vaccine is safe during pregnancy, and vaccination can protect our patients and their infants.”

Kennedy did not cite any data along with his decision, though he has long questioned the need for frequent COVID-19 boosters for children. 

Removing COVID vaccines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for pregnant people or children could impact the availability of the vaccines or if they are covered by insurance. Dr. Sean T. O’Leary, chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that removing the recommendation “could strip families of choice.”

“Those who want to vaccinate may no longer be able to, as the implications for insurance coverage and access remain unclear. … What is clear is that pregnant women, infants and young children are at higher risk of hospitalization from COVID, and the safety of the COVID vaccine has been widely demonstrated,” he said.

An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to The 19th’s request for comment.  

Here’s what we know about Kennedy’s announcement and how it could impact pregnant people and access to the vaccines. 

Why were COVID-19 vaccines recommended to pregnant people and children to begin with? 

Scientific studies have shown that pregnant people are at higher risk of developing more severe cases of the virus than people who aren’t pregnant. As a result, pregnant people are more likely to end up hospitalized. They are also over 10 times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to the general population. Studies have also shown a link between COVID and an increased risk of stillbirth.  

Vaccinating pregnant people has not only been shown to lower these risks, but also offers some protection to newborns. Antibodies from a parent who received the vaccine while pregnant can provide some immunity to infants in the weeks and months after birth, according to Charlotte Moser, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “[It] is the safest way to protect those babies,” she said in an email.  

Studies have shown that COVID-19 may be less severe in healthy children. But Moser said children who become infected with COVID-19 are at risk of being hospitalized, developing long COVID or dying from the virus. COVID-19 vaccines decrease those risks.

Will my health insurance still cover a COVID-19 vaccine if I’m pregnant? What about for my children? 

“It is not totally clear yet,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a public health professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was also a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official under the Obama administration.  

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance providers are required to cover vaccines recommended by the CDC, but some experts, including Sharfstein, are concerned that this announcement could mean insurance companies are no longer mandated to cover the COVID-19 vaccine for “healthy” pregnant people and children. 

It’s still too early to know whether private insurance companies will remove vaccines from their coverage. It may still be more cost effective for companies to pay for the vaccine, versus paying for severe illnesses that might result from being unvaccinated, experts said.

Sharfstein said private insurance is still clearly required to cover a COVID-19 vaccine for a pregnant person or child who has a medical condition that meets the criteria for a higher risk of severe COVID.

But it’s unclear who falls under these categories, said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a longtime expert in infectious diseases. She noted that the health secretary is contradicting an FDA announcement last week that listed pregnant people as a high risk category that makes them eligible for the vaccine.

“They need to get their message straight,” she said in an email.   

How will this affect access to COVID-19 vaccines? 

That’s also unclear. Richard Hughes, an attorney at the law firm Epstein Becker Green, who previously served as vice president of public policy for a major vaccine manufacturer during the COVID pandemic, said manufacturers could eventually reduce their supply as they determine their bottom lines. That could shake up overall product availability at doctors’ offices and pharmacies.

In addition, if private insurance companies stop covering the vaccine, it could be a barrier for those with low incomes. 

“We know that any amount of out-of-pocket [cost] for a vaccine is going to discourage a patient from getting vaccinated,” he said. “The more that increases, the less likely they are to get it.”

This announcement does not immediately impact the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program, a federally-funded initiative that aims to vaccinate children whose parents or caregivers might not be able to afford them. However, given how the health secretary has sidestepped protocol to remove this recommendation for pregnant people, some experts worry that Kennedy may similarly make decisions for the VFC program.

Wait, so can Kennedy do this? 

Medical experts say Kennedy’s announcement — which came via a one-minute video posted on X — appeared unilateral, since a key vaccine panel that would typically make such recommendations did not appear to vote on the matter. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which is housed under the CDC, isn’t scheduled to meet again until June.

Kennedy, as HHS secretary, does have legal authority to modify recommendations made by an advisory committee, according to Hughes. 

But experts say this decision is highly unusual. This is the first time a health secretary has circumvented the typical review process for vaccination recommendations, and experts stressed that making these kinds of decisions — which they described as not using the science-based procedures that are in place — puts lives at risk.

Several also noted Kennedy’s lack of medical expertise and his long history of vaccine skepticism.  

“This signals that health advice for all Americans is now subject to the whim of the secretary of HHS who has no relevant expertise and a long track record of misleading people about vaccines. This should be of concern to everyone,” said Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s school of public health, in an email.

Will this decision face legal challenges? 

“I expect there will be lawsuits and I expect the administration is not in a good position for those lawsuits,” said Dorit Rubenstein Reiss, a professor of law at the University of California College of Law, San Francisco.

Reiss predicted the decision will be challenged in court by patients who could file a lawsuit if they are denied coverage for the vaccine from insurance companies. Cities and states who buy the vaccination could also sue, she said.

Both the lack of evidence presented by the health secretary and what appeared to be procedural irregularities in making this decision could bolster these court challenges, she said. Not only did Kennedy appear to sidestep the committee that makes these decisions, but he appears in the announcement alongside Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Marty Makary, the commissioner of the FDA. Those men have an anti-COVID vaccine bias, and neither role is typically involved in vaccine recommendations.

“It’s ignoring our usual process that involves expert deliberation and examination of the decision and making what looks like a political decision without a lot of consideration of the effects,” she said. 

The fact that Kennedy did not provide evidence for the change is also problematic, Reiss said. 

“If you look at the recommendation for pregnant women, it’s a lengthy document by ACIP setting up why they think pregnant women should get the vaccine [which includes] data,” she said. That decision can’t be reversed with a one-minute video on social media, she said. “Under administrative law, an agency is expected to explain its actions.”

To protect millions from devastating cuts, we must make our voices impossible to ignore.

House Republicans just passed a “big, beautiful” budget bill that would devastate basic needs programs for the most vulnerable Americans in order to pay for tax breaks for the rich. It now heads to the Senate, where Republicans aim to pass a final version by July 4.

They continue to claim their proposed Medicaid and SNAP cuts are necessary to “fix” broken systems. They argue that these cuts won’t affect vulnerable families—that the people who rely on these programs won’t be harmed. But that claim is dangerously misleading. 

In reality, these cuts will devastate the lives of millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid and SNAP for basic survival. These programs provide vital care, food and service to disabled adults, seniors, children, working families and rural communities. The cuts proposed by Republicans in Congress would slash life-saving benefits and rip away basic services from the people who rely on them most. 

During a recent committee markup on the Hill, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) read aloud from the letter of Taylor Johnson, a Michigan mother whose 6-year-old son has Down syndrome and relies on Medicaid for speech and physical therapy. As Johnson and her son stood in the committee room, their presence brought powerful emotional weight to the hearing.

In response, Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas dismissed concerns that families like hers would be impacted by the proposed Medicaid cuts. The moment generated national media attention, exposing the deep disconnect between lawmakers and the families their decisions affect. 

But Crenshaw’s claims simply aren’t true.

Medicaid cuts would force states to eliminate services like those Taylor Johnson’s son relies on, leading to over 10 million people losing coverage—including 3.5 million children, 1.6 million seniors and 2.3 million adults with disabilities. These cuts would result in more than 34,000 avoidable deaths per year, with disproportionate impacts in rural and low-income communities across the country.

Meanwhile, cuts to the largest federal food assistance program, SNAP, would jeopardize the health of over 42 million Americans who rely on it.  

The real power in Johnson’s story and stories like hers is that they humanize the impact of these policies. Thanks to voices like hers, we can understand that these aren’t just numbers being debated on Capitol Hill—these politicians’ decisions could upend the lives of millions of families, children and seniors. In this way, strategic storytelling can show lawmakers what their decisions truly mean for the Americans they’re paid to represent. 

As everyday Americans concerned about how these drastic cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP will impact our families, we should be elevating more stories like Taylor Johnson’s—stories from the communities who stand to lose the most if these budget cuts are rammed through Congress. 

For example, single mothers who rely on SNAP to keep food on the table are at grave risk. Angelica Garcia is a single mom from Tucson, Ariz., raising three kids on her own. Her family relies on both Medicaid and food stamps to get by. Because the cost of basic living—rent, food, gas—is so steep, she said if she loses access to these programs, she doesn’t know if her kids would survive.

Disabled adults who rely on home- and community-based services also have much to lose from these budget cuts.

When a horrific swimming accident left him quadriplegic during his freshman year in college, Alex Watters from Sioux City, Iowa, said his life changed permanently. Right now, Medicaid pays for his home care and therapy. If these cuts are passed, his only alternative will be to move into a nursing home at 38 years old. 

The American Stories We Need to Tell

To make an impact, we must find effective, unique ways to share stories like Taylor Johnson’s, Alex Watters’ and Angelica Garcia’s.

Presenting stories in government hearing rooms is one powerful way to break through political noise. Whether it’s Rep. Dingell reading Johnson’s letter aloud while she and her son stood in the room, or Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) phoning a constituent and letting them share their story live during that same committee hearing, these moments can grab lawmakers’ attention, invite responses and generate media coverage well beyond D.C. First-person narratives instill emotional depth and authenticity into otherwise stuffy meetings, moving politicians and the public alike.

Participating in interviews with local media is another powerful storytelling tool in legislative fights like these, enabling everyday Americans to publicly name their members of Congress—creating impactful clips that amplify pressure from local constituents.

Writing letters to the editor and op-eds offer another effective way to call out representatives by name and shape public discourse.

Digital content, such as interviews with creators or selfie videos, helps inform wider audiences across the country—an especially crucial tactic as this fight gains momentum both locally and nationally.

Additionally, repurposing tweets as screenshot graphics performs particularly well on social media, offering a persuasive and highly shareable format to spread key messages. 

We have around two months to stop this bill from becoming law. As it moves to the Senate, we must continue building and amplifying platforms that let constituent voices permeate government decision-making—whether that takes place in the halls of Congress, via news feeds or in the inboxes of their representatives. Stories alone won’t stop bad policy. But they can challenge indifference, mobilize public pressure and drive home the real cost of cutting life-saving programs for American families.

Editor’s note: Have a story to tell about how cuts to healthcare or food aid would affect you or your community? We want to hear from you. Pitch your story to Ms. as an op-ed; learn more at msmagazine.com/submissions.

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Please do your part today.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the threat of famine in Gaza, minimal progress for Russia-Ukraine peace efforts, and a car ramming in the United Kingdom.

Widespread Hunger

Chaos erupted at an aid distribution site in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday, when thousands of Palestinians stormed a facility where the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was handing out food.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the threat of famine in Gaza, minimal progress for Russia-Ukraine peace efforts, and a car ramming in the United Kingdom.

Widespread Hunger

Chaos erupted at an aid distribution site in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday, when thousands of Palestinians stormed a facility where the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was handing out food.

According to locals, the volume of people seeking aid became so great that the Israel Defense Forces opened fire from a helicopter to dispel the crowds. The Israeli military denied doing so, though it did admit to firing warning shots outside of the compound. And the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that its team had to pull back to allow people to “take aid safely and dissipate” to avoid casualties.

At the same time—and without evidence—Israel and the GHF accused Hamas of trying to block civilians from reaching the aid distribution site. Hamas has denied the allegations.

“The real cause of the delay and collapse in the aid distribution process is the tragic chaos caused by the mismanagement of the same company operating under the Israeli occupation’s administration in those buffer zones,” said Ismail al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday. “This has led to thousands of starving people, under the pressure of siege and hunger, storming distribution centres and seizing food, during which Israeli forces opened fire.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a controversial new Israel- and U.S.-backed group—composed of American private security contractors, former military officials, and humanitarian aid officials—that has been tasked with distributing food since Israel lifted its almost three-month blockade on aid entering the territory. By late afternoon on Tuesday, the GHF said it had provided around 462,000 meals to Palestinians.

However, the United Nations and international aid agencies have boycotted the foundation for its apparent close ties to the Israeli government and reported plans to use facial recognition technology to track who accesses its aid. Israeli officials maintain that such measures are necessary to prevent anyone connected to Hamas from receiving the assistance. However, many Palestinians and rights activists fear that such information could allow the Israeli government to track and potentially target Gaza residents.

“Humanitarian assistance must not be politicized or militarized,” said International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson Christian Cardon, with Norwegian Refugee Council chief Jan Egeland adding that “[w]e cannot have a party to the conflict decide where, how, and who will get the aid.”

The foundation received further criticism from its own head, Jake Wood, after he unexpectedly resigned on Sunday, shortly before the group was set to begin operating, saying it was unable to operate independently. “It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon,” Wood said in a statement distributed by the GHF.

Widespread hunger remains a major concern in Gaza, where the 19-month war and weekslong aid blockade have caused significant food shortages and skyrocketing prices. Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lifted the blockade this month, Israeli officials said they have allowed at least 665 truckloads of aid, including food and medical supplies, into Gaza. However, the U.N. World Food Program warned on Sunday that this assistance is but a “drop in the bucket” for what is needed to reverse the threat of famine in the territory.

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Stalled peace efforts. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss ongoing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Fidan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and lead Moscow negotiator Vladimir Medinsky the day before. Following largely failed direct talks in Istanbul earlier this month, though, peace efforts in the conflict have stalled, and many foreign powers are losing their patience.

Putin has gone “absolutely CRAZY!” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, adding that the Russian leader is “needlessly killing a lot of people.” On Tuesday, Trump reiterated this concern by posting that Putin is “playing with fire!” The Trump administration has previously championed its close relationship with Moscow and even parroted Kremlin talking points, such as the false claim that Ukraine started the war.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on Monday that Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States would lift its restrictions on the range of weapons being sent to Ukraine for use against Russian forces. And on Tuesday, media reported that Trump is considering imposing additional sanctions on Moscow in the coming days in the aftermath of another deadly Russian drone and missile attack, which Ukrainian officials have called the largest such assault yet.

Car ramming in Liverpool. Four people remained in critical condition on Tuesday after a car plowed into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans in the United Kingdom on Monday, injuring more than 50 attendees. British police believe that the incident was isolated and not an act of terrorism. It is unclear how the car gained access to the street where the Premier League was holding its 10-mile parade, of which around 1 million people attended.

The suspect is a 53-year-old white British man from the city of Liverpool. He has since been taken into custody.

The Liverpool area has been the site of several deadly incidents in recent years. Most notably, 97 Liverpool fans were killed during a crowd crush at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989. In 2021, a man detonated an explosive device outside of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. And last July, three young girls were stabbed at a dance studio just north of the city.

A Maduro victory. Venezuela’s ruling party claimed late Sunday to have won nearly 83 percent of the vote in this weekend’s legislative and regional elections. Among the biggest wins for President Nicolás Maduro’s United Socialist Party was securing control of the governor’s seat of Zulia; Zulia is the country’s most populous state, the center of its oil wealth, and one of the last opposition strongholds.

Maduro called the results a “victory of peace and stability,” as the opposition maintained control of the governorship of only one state, Cojedes. However, rights activists were quick to denounce the election, saying that it lacked the minimum requirements needed to be considered democratic.

Many opposition leaders—including exiled figure María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, the winner of last July’s disputed presidential election—urged their supporters to boycott the vote as a way to signify their distrust in the system. Evidence of voter fraud marred Venezuela’s presidential election last year, during which Maduro claimed victory to secure greater control of the country and crack down on political dissidents.

Odds and Ends

French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off his weeklong tour of Southeast Asia on Sunday with a bang—er, slap. Moments before disembarking from his plane in Vietnam, video footage caught Macron’s wife, Brigitte, pushing her husband in the face. While the French president has tried to laugh it off as the couple “joking around,” the look of annoyance on Macron’s face post-shove says it all.

Elon Musk’s political play didn’t go as planned. Rep. Ro Khanna joins Sam Stein to talk about what Musk got wrong, why grades matter, and how Democrats should push back on both extremes.

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RAHM EMANUEL FAMOUSLY said that one should “never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Now his party is facing a crisis—and Democratic consultants are keen on not letting it be wasted.

Over the past few months, the party’s consultant class has been pitching new ideas to help Democrats repair their damaged brand. They’re rubbing elbows with deep-pocketed donors at five-star hotels and pitching them on eight-figure strategies to reverse the party’s steady loss of support with working-class voters and to deal with a base increasingly made up of wealthy college-educated elites.

The efforts have caused a mini-uproar among professional Democrats, some of whom worry that the party will actually worsen the problem it’s trying to solve: looking painfully robotic as they outsource their efforts to come across as authentic.

“The people who are pitching clients on their solution to talk to working-class voters or young men—they’re looking at them like it’s a zoo and they’re just like, ‘Can you believe these people exist?,’” said Ammar Moussa, the director of rapid response for the Biden-turned-Harris campaign.

The dominance and ubiquity of the consultant class has been a longstanding problem for Democrats. In his 2006 book Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized By People Who Think You’re Stupid, longtime Time magazine columnist Joe Klein argued that the political consultants had run amuck, sucking the life out of politicians with their message-tested speeches and leading to the decline of relatability in American politics.

Klein gave the example of a Jimmy Carter aide who one month after the 1976 election delivered the president-elect a 10,000-word memorandum on political strategies for incumbents, arguing that he needed a continuous polling operation and offering detailed suggestions, including that wearing cardigan sweaters would somehow help him remain popular. During the Clinton era, the consultant Dick Morris commissioned a 259-question survey to help inform Clinton on how to approach a State of the Union address.

“Democrats have always been this way, but it’s become even more so,” said James Carville, the lead strategist on Clinton’s successful 1992 campaign, in an interview with The Bulwark.

“People lose sight of the fact that politics is by and large a candidate-driven enterprise. But it is a Democratic article of faith that enough expertise and enough dollars can solve any problem, up to and including authenticity,” Carville added. Reflecting on the new projects that Democrats are now cooking up to combat Trump, he said: “They are just so reflective of the way that the institutional Democratic mind thinks.”

One of those new projects, as the New York Times reported, is code-named SAM—an acronym for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan.” The proposal is geared toward reversing Democrats’ declining appeal with young men, especially online, by studying “the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.”

But that’s far from the only consultant-driven initiative that has some Democrats wondering just how much money the party intends to light on fire before the next election.

AND Media—another acronymized project that stands for Achieve Narrative Dominance—is hoping to raise $45 million to fund influencer content that moves away from “the current didactic, hall monitor style of Democratic politics that turns off younger audiences.” As the party continues its myopic search for the Joe Rogan of the left, Project Bullhorn, another new initiative aimed at boosting influencers, is asking for $35 million to fund left-leaning creators on YouTube.

The vast array of white papers and astroturfed podcast ideas betray the fact that Democrats still have little idea of how to talk to or connect with a significant segment of the country. And it suggests that the party is not grappling with the fundamental reason it’s not resonating with voters—not the methods by which its positions are communicated, but that the positions themselves are unpopular.

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NOT EVERY DEMOCRAT was willing to disregard the wave of consultant proposals as money sucks. Some even held out hope that they would prompt new, creative thinking; that the party needed to try out different ways of reaching people. However mockable their acronymized names might be, some strategists said that the projects being proposed are actually quite nuanced.

“Many, if not most, of the people who pitch this stuff are very smart and thoughtful and have identified real shit that needs doing,” said Pat Dennis, the president of the Democratic-led opposition research group American Bridge 21st Century, which has been involved in some of the ideas being pitched to donors. “Just like how Democrats in government always regulate every dollar we spend until we can’t do anything. . . . We do the same thing with campaign spending. We scrutinize every dime for if the Twitter cool kids like it.”

But others in the party, and those who recently left it, couldn’t help but contrast the consultant-driven approach to the one adopted by Donald Trump. Although some political consulting firms have emerged out of the Trump era, the president has largely relied on a tight-knit group of advisers and his own gut instincts. It has certainly been unconventional, a sewer of scandal, and driven our politics to a dangerous place. But the results have been two successful elections and a realignment of national politics.

“The Democrats don’t have a messaging problem so much as a leadership problem. Who speaks for the Democratic party? No one knows. They can’t resolve that, so they do what they know how to do—spend money on consultants,” said Andrew Yang, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic primary nomination, before becoming an independent. “The longer the party resembles a corporate bureaucracy, the longer it will remain in the wilderness.”

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— Sen. Cory Booker has a new book deal following his record-setting Senate floor speech last month. Stand will be published November 11, perfect timing for the New Jersey senator to make some book-tour stops in Philadelphia and Atlanta and other cities that happen to be important for 2028 presidential hopefuls (just taking a guess here).

— House Democrats are planning on a June 24 caucus election to fill the party’s top job on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee following the death of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Politico’s Nick Wu reports. A caucus election might sound like a total snoozer. But as Nick writes, the contest is “shaping up to be a competitive four-way race that could test Democrats’ adherence to their seniority system for committee leadership and appetite to elevate younger members.”

Just a few months ago New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost her bid for the position against Connolly, which frustrated some members of the party who felt like it was time to pass the torch to a younger leadership (and given Connolly’s death, they had a good point). Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, and Robert Garcia of California are all expected to run for the position this time around.

— Adam Friedland Could Be the Millennial Jon Stewart. But Does He Want That?

— Fame and Frustration on the New Media Circuit

— They’re 15. Wait Until You Read Their Newspaper.

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Tim Miller joins Katie Couric to discuss possible 2028 candidates, Trump-era corruption, media accountability int he changing tone of American politics, and Donald and Melania Trump’s boring wedding.

Watch Live with Katie Couric on Substack

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