Top Items:
Shero and a Scholar:
Breakdown of Trump's 4th of July Failures — A lot of people decided to ignore Trump's planned “festivities” yesterday in protest of him commandeering the holiday for his own campaign and ego purposes. I was planning on ignoring everything, too, but so many ridiculous and concerning things happened …
Discussion:
Washington Press and Political Flare
RELATED:
Gillian Brockell / Washington Post:
Trump's Fourth of July history speech: Turns out there weren't airports back then — President Trump broke with decades of tradition Thursday by not only attending the Independence Day celebration on the Mall in Washington but making a speech as part of his ‘Salute to America.’
Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:
Trump tried to make Independence Day all about him. He ended up looking small. — President Trump chose the wrong backdrop for his attempt to make Independence Day all about himself. Standing beneath the majestic statue of Abraham Lincoln, occupying a space where great orators have stood, Trump looked and sounded quite small.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, Popular Mechanics, Political Flare, Breitbart and Al Jazeera
The Hill:
Trump avoids politics — but not the rain — at ‘Salute to America’ event
Trump avoids politics — but not the rain — at ‘Salute to America’ event
Discussion:
PJ Media Home
Morgan Gstalter / The Hill:
Trump mistakenly claims Revolutionary War soldiers ‘took over airports’ in ‘Salute to America’ speech
Trump mistakenly claims Revolutionary War soldiers ‘took over airports’ in ‘Salute to America’ speech
Discussion:
Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, Rolling Stone and Deadline
Michael D. Shear / New York Times:
With Flyovers and Flags, Trump Plays M.C. for the Fourth
With Flyovers and Flags, Trump Plays M.C. for the Fourth
Discussion:
The Resurgent
Elizabeth Williamson / New York Times:
Two Americas, Celebrating Separately in One Place
Kathryn Watson / CBS News:
Trump emphasizes U.S. military might at “Salute to America”
Trump emphasizes U.S. military might at “Salute to America”
Discussion:
The Wrap and Boston Herald
Dan Merica / CNN:
CNN Exclusive: Joe Biden says he wasn't prepared for Kamala Harris to confront him the way she did — Des Moines, Iowa (CNN)Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an exclusive interview with CNN airing Friday that he wasn't prepared for California Sen. Kamala Harris to confront him on issues …
Discussion:
CBS News, New York Times, New York Post, Observer, Liberty Unyielding, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Axios and PJ Media Home
RELATED:
John Wagner / Washington Post:
'I'd smack him in the mouth': Biden seeks to dispel concerns about his ability to take on Trump after shaky debate performance — Joe Biden compared President Trump to the kind of bully that he would “smack"in the mouth as a child during an interview broadcast Friday in which the former vice president sought …
Dan Merica / CNN:
CNN Exclusive: Biden expresses skepticism of Democrats' leftward tilt and AOC's mass appeal
CNN Exclusive: Biden expresses skepticism of Democrats' leftward tilt and AOC's mass appeal
Discussion:
Fox News, Lawyers, Guns & Money, New York Post, The Daily Caller and Mediaite
Marc A. Thiessen / Washington Post:
Trump made his critics look small during his ‘Salute to America’ — The “Resistance” warned us that if we elected an authoritarian such as Donald Trump, eventually there would be tanks in the streets of our nation's capital. Well, on Thursday, their predictions finally came true.
Discussion:
Common Dreams, PJ Media Home and Associated Press
RELATED:
Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Trump calls bluff of critics in July 4th speech — (CNN)President Donald Trump was as good as his word Thursday: He saluted America. — In one of the least polarizing speeches of his presidency, Trump paid tribute to America's armed forces at a July Fourth appearance before the Lincoln Memorial …
Discussion:
FOX59, Power Line, KTLA, myfox8.com and 6abc
David Jackson / USA Today:
Donald Trump trips up on history in 4th of July speech, mentions airports during Revolutionary War — President Donald Trump celebrated America as “the most exceptional nation in the history of the world” in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy, cheering crowd of spectators.
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway
Peter Wehner / The Atlantic:
The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity — Last week, Ralph Reed, the Faith and Freedom Coalition's founder and chairman, told the group, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!”
Washington Post:
Trump administration scrambles to save citizenship question on census — Spurred on by President Trump, government lawyers scrambled Thursday to find a legal path to add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 Census, despite their conclusions in recent days that no such avenue exists.
Discussion:
Slate, The Economist, Talking Points Memo, electionlawblog.org, American Greatness and SCOTUSblog
RELATED:
Heather Long / Washington Post:
'This doesn't look like the best economy ever': 40% of Americans say they still struggle to pay bills — Sommer Johnson thought everything was finally coming together for her last year. She was engaged, working full time and doing well in online college classes when her fiance's mother died …
Discussion:
Hullabaloo and Daily Kos
Sam Baker / Axios:
How the Supreme Court will upend 2020 — The Supreme Court is already poised to drop some big political bombshells right into the heat of the 2020 campaign. And there are even more waiting in the wings. — Why it matters: The court will likely hand down rulings on some of the most contentious issues …
Discussion:
Political Wire
Molly Jong-Fast / The Daily Beast:
Trump's Not-Crazy Speech Just Highlighted Norms He's Crushed — It was a speech that had all the excitement of an excerpt from one of Bill O'Reilly's YA history books. — It was a triumph of low expectations. — Donald Trump's “Salute to America” speech could have easily devolved into chants of …
New York Times:
It's Not Just the White House in 2020. The Power to Draw Maps Is Also at Stake. — DALLAS — Only hours after the United States Supreme Court said it could do nothing to stop partisan gerrymandering of the nation's political maps, Eric H. Holder Jr. had a message for his fellow Democrats in downtown Dallas.
RELATED:
Thomas Wright / The Atlantic:
Trump Couldn't Ignore the Contradictions of His Foreign Policy Any Longer — Vyacheslav Molotov served in senior positions in the Soviet Union for over a quarter century, including ten years as Stalin's foreign minister. He was dismissed in 1949 when he fell out of favor with Stalin …
Discussion:
The American Conservative, ThinkProgress, Washington Post and Axios
Tom Nichols / New York Daily News:
Trump's sad, strange, somewhat Soviet Fourth of July spectacle — Let's get an obvious point about President Trump's Independence Day speech out of the way right at the top. It was a bad speech. — It wasn't bad in the way most of Donald Trump's speeches are bad, in that it was not overtly objectionable.
New York Times:
How to Straighten Out the Medicare Maze — Expanding insurance coverage isn't the only task ahead. — The authors are professors of public policy at Georgetown. — “Medicare for all” was a central theme in the initial Democratic debates and promises to be a defining issue in the primaries.
RELATED:
Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:
The Most Critical Argument Democrats Will Have in 2020
RealClearInvestigations:
CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims — At a May press conference capping his tenure as special counsel, Robert Mueller emphasized what he called “the central allegation” of the two-year Russia probe. The Russian government, Mueller sternly declared …
Discussion:
Real Clear Politics
Jeff Cox / CNBC:
Strong job growth is back: Payrolls jump in June well above expectations — KEY POINTS — Nonfarm payrolls rose 224,000 in June, well above market expectations of 165,000, according to the Labor Department. — US adds 224,000 jobs in June, vs 165,000 expected
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Outside the Beltway and twitchy.com