Good evening, everyone. Another week in the books, and what a week it has been.
Right now, the story on everyone’s mind is the conditions our troops are facing. This afternoon, Donald Trump dismissed the families’ concerns and dismissed my reporting outright, claiming instead that the deployment should have been even longer and that families aren’t actually worried. I’ve spoken with several of those families since his comments, and they are furious.
This comes as the White House is dealing with its own internal chaos over Karoline Leavitt’s abrupt departure, a move that reportedly caught Trump himself off guard. Meanwhile, bulldozers are tearing through Big Bend National Park, and there’s a lot more happening that we need to talk about.
I am actively in touch with several family members of service members right now, and I will not stop sharing their stories. I’ll be on CNN tonight at 11:15 PM EST discussing this reporting directly.
Some of you have asked how I’m doing all of this on so little sleep, working around the clock. Honestly, it’s exhausting. But these stories are too important, and the passion I have for this work is unmatched. My only backing comes from you, the readers who value independent journalism and choose to support it. If you’re not already a subscriber, I’m asking you to consider becoming one. Every subscription helps keep this work alive, especially at a moment when the stories we cover are under direct attack.
Here’s the news:
Military/Iran:
Trump dismissed families’ concerns about deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, telling reporters at Joint Base Andrews the nearly nine-month deployment was actually “not nearly long enough.” The Lincoln has been at sea more than 250 days without a port call in over 200, a modern-day record, after being redirected to support the war with Iran; the USS George Washington is now headed to relieve it, though an arrival date hasn’t been confirmed.
Trump said the Lincoln would soon be replaced by “another, very similar, ship.” His comments echo Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called reports on the Lincoln’s conditions “completely misrepresented” without specifying what he disputed, instead praising the crew’s resilience “in those high seas in those austere conditions.” Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing for answers after families raised concerns about worsening mental health and living conditions for the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard. Here is what one service member sent me today:
The Pentagon is introducing a new Western Civilization to 1500 course this fall in the roughly 160 schools it runs for military families worldwide, using a textbook developed with Hillsdale College and published by conservative house Encounter Books, part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to reorient military education toward “patriotic values and classical learning.” Historians who reviewed the textbook told the AP it misleadingly conflates Western civilization with Christianity and portrays Islam as inherently more violent, including a section invoking 9/11 and the October 7 Hamas attacks to argue Islam “glorifies violence and war” while framing Christian wars like the Crusades as defensive. Scholars like Matthew Gabriele of Virginia Tech said the book “strips out important details and context” to make “a contemporary political point,” calling it not real scholarly history, while the book’s publisher and a co-author defended it as peer-reviewed and accurate.
Trump said that once Iran is defeated, he plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory.
Trump defended rising gas prices tied to the Iran conflict, saying Americans paying “a tiny little bit more” for gasoline, even up to $4, is worth it to stop “a very evil country” from getting a nuclear weapon, adding he’ll “never apologize” for it.
Karoline Leavitt:
Trump was reportedly caught off guard by Karoline Leavitt’s sudden resignation as press secretary and has no immediate plan to name a replacement when she departs at the end of August, a White House official told the Independent; instead, briefings will continue to rotate among senior officials like JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Scott Bessent, as they did during her maternity leave. Trump announced Leavitt’s exit Wednesday, saying she’d stay on as a top outside advisor and work with the GOP ahead of the midterms, while Leavitt called it a “bittersweet decision” driven by wanting more time with her two young children. At 28 the youngest press secretary ever, Leavitt will have served longer in the role than anyone under Trump besides Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and insiders describe her as uniquely trusted, with one official telling Politico she and chief of staff Susie Wiles are often the ones willing to tell Trump “what he doesn’t want to hear” among a staff of “yes men.”
Her tenure was notably combative, including barring the AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One over its refusal to use Trump’s renamed “Gulf of Mexico,” and principal deputy Anna Kelly, the most senior remaining press official, was notably passed over once before when Leavitt stepped away temporarily. Potential successors floated across outlets and prediction markets range widely, including Alina Habba, Scott Jennings, Kari Lake, Katie Miller, Lockheed Martin’s Jalen Drummond, Stephen Cheung, Matthew Boyle, and Taylor Budowich, though a source noted Trump has generally preferred a woman in the role since Sean Spicer’s rocky early tenure.
Other News:
The BBC is seeking to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner for deposition testimony and documents in connection with Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit over a 2024 BBC documentary that spliced together parts of his January 6, 2021 Ellipse speech in a way he claims falsely made it sound like he was endorsing violence, an edit the BBC has apologized for but says doesn’t amount to defamation. BBC lawyers, drawing on House January 6 Committee testimony, say Trump Jr. and Ivanka were present as Trump revised the speech and were with him at the Ellipse, while Kushner reportedly drafted a proposed statement condemning the violence, giving all three “personal knowledge” relevant to the case. Attempts to serve the subpoenas have repeatedly failed: police blocked service at Kushner and Ivanka’s Miami home in May, the Secret Service said it isn’t authorized to accept subpoenas on the family’s behalf, an attempt to serve Trump Jr. at Trump Tower also failed, and Trump’s own attorneys have refused to accept them. The BBC has now filed a motion in federal court in Miami asking the judge to authorize service by mail or to rule that serving Trump’s attorneys is sufficient. Spokespeople for the Trump family and Trump’s legal team have not responded to requests for comment.
Bulldozers have begun tearing up ground at the mouth of Big Bend National Park’s Santa Elena Canyon as part of the Trump administration’s $46.5 billion “smart wall” border expansion, with CBP initially denying the activity was construction-related before commissioner Rodney Scott acknowledged it was “survey and design work” for planned roads and vehicle barriers, not wall construction itself. Opponents, including former park superintendent Bob Krumenaker and the Center for Biological Diversity’s Laiken Jordahl, say CBP has repeatedly obscured its actual plans and note the agency scaled back an original 30-foot bollard wall proposal to about 200 miles of patrol roads and 17 miles of vehicle barriers only after backlash, using DHS waivers of dozens of environmental and cultural protection laws to speed things along.
The project proceeds despite unlawful crossings in the park numbering only around 100-125 arrests a year even before border crossings plunged nationwide, and despite bipartisan local opposition, though most prominent Texas Republicans, including Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, have stayed largely silent, while outgoing Senator John Cornyn asked DHS to pause construction for more community input. Southwest Valley Contractors holds a $1.7 billion contract for the work, and Jordahl and the Center for Biological Diversity are currently suing DHS over the legality of its law waivers, warning the funding already secured could support a full border wall through the park despite CBP’s insistence that isn’t the current plan.
The Trump administration filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court asking it to stay a lower-court injunction set to block above-ground construction on Trump’s White House ballroom starting August 21, and notably cites the disputed July 8 Iranian missile threat against Air Force One, the episode in which Trump reportedly hid in a catering cart and switched planes, as part of its national-security justification. The filing reframes the project as an “integrated military complex” essential to “continuity of government,” describing five stories of underground bomb shelters, sniper nests, a drone port, and blast-proof infrastructure alongside the ballroom itself, and argues the ballroom and security components are now “inextricably intertwined” and too far along, about 65% complete with a 250-person crew working around the clock, to separate or halt. The dispute stems from a National Trust for Historic Preservation lawsuit; a district court and then a divided D.C. Circuit panel ruled the administration lacked congressional authorization for a project this size, delaying that ruling’s effect two weeks to allow this Supreme Court appeal.
Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday in his federal case over the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, admitting “I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died” and that he knew what he was doing was illegal, though he expressed no regret. The plea covers two federal stalking charges after murder and death-penalty-eligible counts were previously dropped, with prosecutor Jamie McDonald saying the government will still seek life imprisonment and sentencing set for December 18. Mangione’s lawyer immediately filed to dismiss the separate New York state murder case, scheduled to start September 8, citing double jeopardy protections, though state law includes exceptions that could still allow it to proceed. Thompson’s widow and other family members were in court, some crying as Mangione described the shooting, and the family later said the plea “marks an important step toward justice,” while prosecutors stressed that “violence is not a legitimate instrument to promote any political or social message.” The case had drawn global attention both for spotlighting criticism of the US for-profit healthcare system and for Mangione’s rise to folk-hero status among some supporters, though few of his most vocal fans showed up for Friday’s hearing.
People detained at the Adams County detention center, a CoreCivic-run ICE facility in Natchez, Mississippi, allege they were sickened by a mystery gas leak last Saturday and denied medical care after complaining of headaches and other symptoms, according to the Guardian. The facility also lost power in Monday’s storm, leaving it without air conditioning for two days amid near 100F heat, with detainees describing hours spent outside without shade or locked in sweltering cells, rising cramped conditions with people housed three to a two-person cell, and staff allegedly withholding tablet devices to stop them from notifying family. CoreCivic disputed the account, saying no staff detected a gas leak, that the power outage lasted about two hours before generators kicked in, that HVAC was never actually interrupted, and that no one was denied medical treatment. The allegations follow a May ICE oversight inspection that found 23 violations of use-of-force and restraint standards at the facility, downgrading its rating from “superior” to “acceptable/adequate,” as well as a third recent death at a separate ICE facility in New Jersey and a July report of major healthcare gaps at a California detention center.
A woman named Melissa L. Farris was arrested Friday and charged with two federal felonies, Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials, each carrying up to ten years in prison, after the National World War Two Memorial on the National Mall was found graffitied with “Clean hands Dirty $” and its pool filled with soapy bubbles, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced. Pirro called it “a despicable attack on a sacred monument,” noting both her father and grandfather fought in the war, while the interior department, Friends of the National World War II Memorial, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars all condemned the act as disrespectful. In videos posted to her Facebook account, Farris recorded herself spray-painting the memorial and asking why she hadn’t been arrested; the criminal complaint quotes her saying “someone has to make choices that are different and I am accountable for my actions,” and later videos show her disheveled and crying, saying she was trying to get help for herself.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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