memeorandum: Durbin regrets calling on Franken to resign amid sexual misconduct allegations (Seung Min Kim/Washington Post)

1:55 PM ET, July 23, 2019

Top Items:

Trump Relies on Populist Language, but He Mostly Sides With Corporate Interests — WASHINGTON — History will record last week as a moment when President Trump turned to raw racial appeals to attack a group of nonwhite lawmakers, but his attacks also underscored a remarkable fact of his first term …

Discussion: Politico

Philip Klein / Washington Examiner:

With budget deal, Trump drains the swamp — of the Tea Party — President Trump once vowed to drain the swamp, but by joining with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the latest budget deal, he has merely drained it of the Tea Party. — There are many ways in which the Trump presidency has been disruptive to the status quo.

Discussion: The Resurgent and Manhattan Institute

Issues & Insights:
A Budget Disaster of Epic Proportions

Discussion: Instapundit

Burgess Everett / Politico:
Deficit Don? Red ink gushes in Trump era

Discussion: Washington Post

New York Times:
Federal Budget Would Raise Spending by $320 Billion

Obed Manuel / Dallas Morning News:

A Dallas-born citizen picked up by the Border Patrol has been detained for three weeks — An 18-year-old Dallas-born U.S. citizen has been in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than three weeks, his attorney says.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Daily Beast, The Independent, Slate, Daily Kos, The Week, Daily Wire, twitchy.com, TheBlaze and Splinter

Meagan Flynn / Washington Post:
A U.S. citizen has been in immigration custody for nearly a month due to a paperwork snafu, attorney says

Discussion: VICE

NBC News: Abner, 17, describes 11 days of hunger and thirst at Yuma's border station

Neal K. Katyal / New York Times:

With Three Simple Answers, Mueller Can Speak Volumes — For those who have read it, the special counsel's report speaks for itself. For those who haven't, he can speak for it in Congress. — Mr. Katyal was an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration.

Discussion: Washington Post and Law & Crime

Eric Felten / RealClearInvestigations:

The Shaky Standing of Mueller's Footnotes — Jule 23, 2019 — The Mueller report. Top photo: Its author, left, with his successor as FBI boss, James Comey, who looms large not just in height but in the report's footnotes. — Who knew that the humble footnote would loom so large …

Discussion: Power Line, The Hill, Real Clear Politics, TheBlaze, PJ Media Home, CNN, The Gateway Pundit and The New Neo

Josh Campbell / CNN:
Robert Mueller will frustrate the hell out of Congress

Discussion: National Review

Carol E. Lee / NBC News: Among the questions for Mueller: Why wasn't Donald Trump Jr. interviewed?

Elie Honig / CNN:
Mueller, drop the Yoda act

Discussion: The Week, more at Mediagazer »

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Fox News helped radicalize domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc, say his lawyers — Cesar Sayoc pleaded guilty in March to mailing improvised explosive devices to 13 people, including many prominent Democratic figures, among them former president Barack Obama, former vice president Joe Biden …

Discussion: Mediaite

Kelly Weill / The Daily Beast:

MAGA Bomber's Lawyers Blame Trump, Sean Hannity for His Radicalization — “In this darkness, Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump,” his legal team wrote in a new filing. — The “MAGA Bomber” who mailed explosives to President Donald Trump's critics turned violent on a steady diet of Fox News …

Ryan J. Reilly / HuffPost:

Lawyers For Trump ‘Super Fan’ Cesar Sayoc Say Trump's Rhetoric Inspired Terrorist Plot On Democrats — “A rational observer may have brushed off Trump's tweets as hyperbole, but Mr. Sayoc took them to heart,” his attorneys wrote. — Cesar Sayoc, the fanatical Donald Trump fan …

Discussion: ThinkProgress and UPI

Maxwell Strachan / HuffPost:

The Fall Of Mic Was A Warning — “I don't need a pair of Nikes. I need a 401(k)” — and other lessons from the death of a venture-backed, Facebook-dependent, millennial-focused news site. — Esther Bergdahl felt invigorated. How could she not? It was 2014, and she had just joined …

more at Mediagazer »

BBC:

Boris Johnson wins race to be Tory leader and PM — Boris Johnson has been elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and will become the next UK prime minister. — He beat Jeremy Hunt comfortably, winning 92,153 votes to his rival's 46,656.

Discussion: Reason and PJ Media Home

Heather Stewart / The Guardian:
Boris Johnson elected new Tory leader

Discussion: Slate, Financial Times, Agence France-Presse and New York Times

Politico:
Boris Johnson elected Tory leader, set to become UK PM

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Week, Washington Post, Breitbart and One America News Network

Stephen Castle / New York Times:
Boris Johnson to Be U.K. Prime Minister After Winning Party Vote

Discussion: Politico, ABC, Talking Points Memo, Breitbart, Washington Post and Outside the Beltway

Hugo Gye / The Sun:
BOJO BLOWS IN Boris anoints himself ‘The Dude’ …

Discussion: Politico, Bloomberg, Deadline and New York Post

Tom Polansek / Reuters:

Trump administration pursues rule that would remove 3.1 million people from food stamps — CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday will propose a rule to tighten food stamp restrictions that would cut about 3.1 million people from the program, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Axios, Progress Pond and Fox News

Mike Dorning / Bloomberg:
Trump Administration Moves to End Food Stamps for 3 Million People

Discussion: Reuters, POLITICUSUSA, Fortune, Eduwonk, Law & Crime and The Root

CNN:

Warplanes from four countries face off in Asian confrontation — Seoul (CNN)Warplanes from four countries faced off Tuesday in a chaotic and unprecedented confrontation above a small, disputed island off the coast of South Korea and Japan. — South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff issued …

Discussion: Associated Press, The Daily Caller and The Week

Morgan Phillips / Mediaite:

MSNBC Guests Keep Repeating False Claim That Fox News Isn't Covering the Mueller Hearings — Former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards, appearing on MSNBC Tuesday morning, repeated the false claim that Fox News will not be airing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's hearing before Congress this week.

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, NB Blog and Deadline

The Daily Beast:
Can Mueller Cut Through Barr's ‘Fog of Propaganda’?

Discussion: Washington Post

Chris Kahn / Reuters:
Most Republicans plan to tune out Mueller probe: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Discussion: Political Wire

Jeffrey Cimmino / Washington Free Beacon:

Gabbard: ‘Kamala Harris is Not Qualified to Serve as Commander in Chief’ — 'She's got no background or experience in foreign policy' — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) argued Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) is not qualified to serve as commander in chief during an appearance on Outkick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Tuesday.

Ben Terris / Washington Post: Who is Kamala Harris, really? Ask her sister Maya.

Kera Bolonik / The Cut:

The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn't seem like an obvious mark, would he? — It was just supposed to have been a quick Saturday-morning errand to buy picture hooks. On March 7, 2015, Harvard Law professor Bruce Hay, then 52 …

Nancy A. Youssef / Wall Street Journal:

Senate Votes to Confirm Mark Esper as Defense Secretary — Confirmation ends longest period in Pentagon history without a congressionally approved leader — The Senate voted to confirm former Raytheon Co. executive Mark Esper as U.S. defense secretary, ending the longest period …

Rashaan Ayesh / Axios:
Senate confirms Mark Esper as new defense secretary

Discussion: Politico

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:

Sherrod Brown Is the Only Democrat in America Not Running for President — EL PASO, Tex. — As 20 Democrats debated on national television, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, texted each other a running critique of the candidates.

Miriam Jordan / New York Times:

More Than 2,000 Migrants Were Targeted in Raids. 35 Were Arrested. — More than 2,000 migrants who were in the United States illegally were targeted in widely publicized raids that unfolded across the country last week. But figures the government provided to The New York Times on Monday show …

Discussion: National Review, Outside the Beltway, Daily Wire, CNN and The Crime Report

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

US attorney general William Barr says Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors — U.S. attorney general William Barr has said consumers should accept the risks that encryption backdoors pose to their personal cybersecurity to ensure law enforcement can access encrypted communications.

Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:

Heritage Blasts ‘Vengeful’ Conservative Critics—Including Its Former President — In a lengthy internal memo, Kay Coles James hammered reporting in the new book “American Carnage” and accused her predecessor of leaking unflattering details about the think tank.

Walter Shapiro / Roll Call:

Moderation in the Trump era? Democrats, it's futile — OPINION — The tone of the letter from the Columnists' Guild I'm expecting any minute now will be as stiff as the old-fashioned stationery it's printed on. It will note that I am “derelict in your duties” and “an embarrassment …

Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:

Biden announces criminal justice policy sharply at odds with his '94 crime law — Former vice president Joe Biden, who has faced criticism from liberals for spearheading a 1994 law when he was a senator that cracked down on criminals, announced a proposal Tuesday that would eliminate …

Discussion: Joe Biden for President, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, The Crime Report and Axios

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Mentions of Immigration as Top Problem Surpass Record High — WASHINGTON, D.C. — After hitting a new high last month, mentions of immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. increased further to 27% in July. Since Gallup began regularly recording mentions of the issue in 1993 …

Discussion: Townhall and RedState

NBC News:

Human rights groups lead chorus of alarm over new Trump administration commission — A trio of letters sent Tuesday voice concern over the administration's new “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” — WASHINGTON — Hundreds of prominent human rights organizations, presidential candidates …

Discussion: Politico

CNN:

ICE officers came for a Tennessee man. His neighbors stepped in to stop them — (CNN)When US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers tried to take a Tennessee man into custody early Monday morning, the man's neighbors stepped up to stop them, CNN affiliates WTVF and WZTV reported.

Discussion: Washington Post, Common Dreams and Daily Kos