At Axios, Donica Phifer reports that President Donald Trump dismissed reports of poor conditions and mental health concerns aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that the aircraft carrier has not been deployed "nearly long enough.” Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) have both publicly called for investigations into conditions on the carrier, which has now been deployed for nine months and has not made a port call in at least 200 days. PRRI finds that 67% of Republicans have favorable views of how Trump is handling the war in Iran, compared with 21% of independents and just 4% of Democrats.
For NPR, Hansi Lo Wang covers the rise of legislation banning registered voters from using a student ID to verify their identity at polls. New Hampshire is the latest state to take part in the charge, joining Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a similar ban, and Indiana, where a law has been put back into effect after a U.S. District Judge deemed it likely unconstitutional in April. According to the 2025 PRRI American Values Survey, most Americans (69%) disagree with the statement “If states cannot get voter fraud under control, President Trump should postpone the 2026 midterm elections for Congress,” compared with 26% who agree. Voter advocacy groups are concerned that these laws will trip up the country’s least experienced voters while proponents of the bans emphasize election security, despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud involving student IDs.
Annie Ma and Konstantin Toropin at the Associated Press write that the Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning. The course planned for this fall will use a textbook published by a conservative publishing house, which historians and educators say depicts points throughout history in misleading ways, representing Western civilization and Christianity as one and the same and casting Islam as a threat to both. PRRI finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) would prefer “the U.S. to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religions,” compared with 32% who prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith.”
For Newsweek, Mandy Taheri reports that a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can continue its effort to expand its southern border wall, rejecting a request from the Tohono O’odham Nation to halt construction on a 62-mile stretch of the tribe’s reservation along the Arizona-Mexico border. The Tohono O’odham Nation argues the project would damage sacred and culturally significant sites, interfere with religious practices, and further separate tribal communities that have long existed on both sides of the international border. The 2018 PRRI American Values Survey finds that among all Americans, 58% opposed building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, compared with 41% who favored the policy. By 2024, however, a slight majority of Americans approved of building a wall (51% favor, 46% oppose).
Learn more in the Survey Report: Challenges to Democracy: The 2024 Election in Focus
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