Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt with minor injuries while one rallygoer was killed and several others critically wounded. Following a disastrous debate performance, President Biden’s reelection campaign is facing an existential moment—he has pledged to stay in the race, but there are increasing calls from fellow Democrats for him to step aside. Freshman Ohio Senator J.D. Vance has been tapped as Trump’s running mate. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered his semi-annual monetary report to Congress, and the latest Consumer Price Index shows core inflation is the lowest it has been in more than three years. The Supreme Court closed out a historic term with landmark rulings on gun control, government engagement with social media companies, abortion, the administrative state, and many other critical issues. On the two most closely watched cases—relating to presidential immunity and charges for January 6 insurrectionists—the high court ruled in favor of former President Trump’s interests and preferences.
On July 13, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was injured in the shooting that killed one spectator and critically wounded two others. The FBI said that Crooks acted alone and they are still actively investigating his background. In a rare Oval Office address on Sunday, July 14, President Joe Biden condemned the attempted assassination, called on Americans “to lower the temperature in our politics,” and ordered an independent review of security measures at the rally where Trump survived the shooting. The United States Secret Service is now facing serious questions over its security handling around the rally, and there are calls for congressional investigations. The shooting occurred just days before the Republican National Convention, where Trump formally accepted the Republican nomination for President.
Over 50 million viewers tuned in to watch President Biden and former President Trump face off in a CNN-hosted presidential debate in late June. Biden had been trailing Trump in several swing-state polls and hoped that the debate would shake up the election race—Biden got what he wanted, but not in the way he hoped. Over 90 minutes, Biden spoke haltingly, appeared to lose focus, and often was unable to finish sentences, leading many to question whether he has the cognitive health enough to serve. The Biden team gambled on an early debate, having the face-off come before the nominating convention, and now there are existential questions about his candidacy. While Trump’s performance can be categorized as a series of false and misleading claims, the visual of a struggling President Biden was the main takeaway, and it sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.
Now, the Democratic damage control strategy argues that one bad night does not detract from Biden’s past successes. Yet this ignores the critical question that many voters have wrestled with for months: Is Biden too physically and cognitively diminished to serve another four years? Polling conducted after the debate found that nearly half his party doesn’t think Biden should now be the nominee, and nearly three in four voters don’t think he should be running for president in the first place. That’s a higher-percentage sentiment than in February, when almost two-thirds said he should not run. There are also increasing calls from Democratic lawmakers for the President to step aside. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed three senior White House aides, demanding they sit for depositions regarding President Biden’s health. The move demonstrates Republicans’ desire to keep Biden’s cognitive ability in the spotlight, and the probe could drag through the November 5 election.
Could Biden not be on the ticket in November? Yes, but only if he chooses to step aside. The delegates to the Democratic National Convention are bound by party rules to vote for him, and he has the votes he needs to win the nomination. However, the delegates would be freed to vote as they pleased if he withdrew from the race. Nevertheless, following the assassination attempt on former President Trump, the calls from within Biden’s own party for him to abandon his campaign for a second term quieted. While the campaign was working to navigate a moment of intense national shock delicately, some of the President’s allies and aides were expressing hope that the assassination attempt may soften the voices of dissent within the Democratic Party.
Former President Trump has selected freshman Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. In announcing his pick on Truth Social, Trump said, “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio.” Vance gained national attention with his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which shared his account of growing up in a poor rust belt town and traced his journey as former marine and Yale Law School graduate. While Vance was a fierce critic of Trump when he ran for President in 2016, penning an essay in The Atlantic calling him the “opioid of the masses,” he emerged as one of the most visible defenders of the former president in recent months and was the first vice presidential contender to attend Trump’s criminal trial in New York City. Elected to the Senate in 2022, his first run for political office, Vance has quickly emerged as a face of the New Right and the MAGA movement on Capitol Hill. Vance is also a leading voice in the Senate opposing additional U.S. aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was on Capitol Hill July 9 and 10 as part of his twice-yearly report on the state of the economy. In separate testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and House Committee on Financial Services, Powell addressed a number of issues related to inflation, the Fed’s balance sheet, employment, and the broader economic picture. In his opening remarks to the Senate committee, Powell said the risks to the economy have become better balanced, allowing him to broaden his focus beyond getting inflation down. Powell is also closely watching for signs of weakness in the job market and the broader economy. When it comes to potential rate cuts, Powell said that the central bank would make interest rate decisions “when and as” they are needed and pushed back on a suggestion that a September rate cut could be seen as a political act ahead of the fall presidential election. Powell also predicted that interest rates won’t drop back to the historic lows of the near-zero territory they were in for most of the 15 years before the Covid-19 pandemic, stating that “I think we probably won’t go back to that era between the global financial crisis and the pandemic, [when] rates were very low and inflation was very low.”
In recent months, Fed officials have said they want more economic data confirming inflation is receding before lowering interest rates. The most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, released in mid-July, offers some cause for optimism on rate cuts as it showed that consumer prices fell by 0.1%, the first decline in prices since May of 2020 and the second month of flat or declining prices. The Labor Department data also showed that the (CPI) dipped to a 3 percent annual increase in June, down from 3.3 in May. The drop in inflation increases the chances that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at some point this year, a development markets have eagerly awaited as rate cuts are widely viewed as having a stimulative effect on the economy.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ended a historic term in early July–the late closing date was quite unusual but served as an indication of the breadth and depth of the nine Justices’ docket and the volume of cases. The high court is currently divided 6-3, with conservatives enjoying a “supermajority.” The court is also facing a crisis of public confidence; a majority of Americans now holding little faith in the court and increasingly political. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have drawn public scorn over the former’s public display of fealty to far-right causes on his property and the latter’s acceptance of gifts from billionaires.
The Court ruled on major cases involving the opioid epidemic, abortion, government regulation of or consultation with social media platforms, gun rights, and the administrative state. There were also two cases directly related to former President Donald Trump and the January 6th insurrection (see next section).
In a 5-4 ruling in Harrington v Purdue Pharma, the court rejected painkiller maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan that included an extraordinary measure to protect its Sackler family owners from further liability over the American opioid epidemic. The company wanted to use the bankruptcy agreement to resolve thousands of lawsuits alleging that the company knowingly fueled a public health crisis that has killed approximately half a million Americans by claiming its drug was non-addictive while incentivizing massive over-prescribing. In a 6-3 ruling in Moyle v United States, which saw the liberal block joining Chief Justice Robers and fellow conservatives Amy Conney-Barret and Brett Cavanaugh, the Justices dismissed a case over whether emergency room doctors can perform abortions to save a woman’s health, returning the case to a lower court. In the case of Murthy v Missouri, the court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down a lower court ruling related to the government’s communications with social media platforms about COVID-19 misinformation. The decision permits the government to call on tech companies to remove falsehoods, a key concern as misinformation spreads around this year’s presidential election. Several cases related to gun rights were decided by the Court this term, with Justices upholding a federal ban preventing anyone placed under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a gun and striking down a federal ban on “bump stocks.”
In considering the “administrative state,” the court overturned one of its most important precedents, the so-called “Chevron doctrine.” For the past 40 years, this principle has guided the work of the federal government in critical areas of public life, from food and drug safety to environmental protection. In overturning their landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which Chief Justice John Roberts called “fundamentally misguided,” the Court cut back sharply on the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer and ruled that courts should rely on their interpretation of ambiguous laws. The decision will likely have far-reaching effects across the country, from environmental regulation to healthcare costs.
Of the 59 cases decided this year, 11 were decided 6-to-3 along ideological lines, and nearly half were unanimous rulings. For the remaining cases, there were some interesting occasions of Conservative Justices joining Liberals or a Liberal Justice joining a Conservative majority.
The Supreme Court issued two different rulings favorable to former President Donald Trump regarding the insurrection on January 6 and questions over presidential immunity.
In Fischer v. United States, in a 6-3 vote on nonideological lines, the Court ruled in favor of a former police officer who is seeking to throw out an obstruction charge for joining the Capitol riot. On the charge of obstructing an official proceeding related to the effort to prevent Congress’ certification of President Biden’s election victory, the court concluded that the law, enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act after the Enron accounting scandal, was only intended to apply to more limited circumstances involving forms of evidence tampering. This ruling will have far-reaching impact on efforts to prosecute January 6 rioters, as more than 350 individuals accused of interrupting Congress’s certification of the 2020 electoral vote were charged with obstruction of an official proceeding. Trump himself faces two charges stemming from the provision in his federal election subversion case, though it’s unclear whether the ruling will have any notable impact on the case, and Special Counsel Jack Smith has argued that Trump’s obstruction charge stemmed from different actions than those who attacked the Capitol.
On the question of presidential immunity, in the case of Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court found former presidents enjoy at least presumptive criminal immunity for all official acts, handing Trump one of his biggest legal victories yet. While the Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that Trump and others are absolutely immune to prosecution for actions taken while exercising their “core constitutional powers” and are, therefore, entitled to the presumption of immunity, it does not provide a shield for private or unofficial acts. The Court specified that official conduct for which Trump is immune from prosecution includes his discussions with Justice Department officials in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. The case now pending in the DC district court, in which Trump faces four charges related to conspiring to overturn the election, has been significantly impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision and will now be delayed as the judge determines which acts he took were “official” and which were “unofficial.” In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor listed out a few doomsday scenarios that could emerge from this ruling, including assassinating a political rival, organizing a military coup to hold on to power, and taking a bribe in exchange for a pardon. Sotomayor called the ruling “deeply wrong,” saying it “reshapes the institution of the Presidency” and “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
Department of Agriculture – Eric Deeble is the Deputy Under Secretary at Office of the Under Secretary, Marketing and Regulatory Programs.
Department of Commerce – Saraswati “Sara” Shah is now the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the Under Secretary for Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).
Department of Defense – Derek H. Chollet is now the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense.
Department of Homeland Security – Adam Hunter is the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. Royce Bernstein Murray is now the acting Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy. Alexandra “Alex” Schmitt is the Counselor to the Secretary.
Department of Justice – John W. Elias is now the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division.
Department of Housing and Urban Development – Gina Metrakas is now Chief of Staff in the Office of the Secretary.
Department of State – Tom Sullivan has been named Counselor to the Secretary. Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Jessica Lewis has stepped down; Stan Brown is the acting Assistant Secretary.
Department of the Treasury – Addar Levi is now the General Counsel. Alice Lin is now the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax and Budget. Kristin N. Johnson has been nominated as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions.
White House – Dr. Lael Brainard has a new position as Co-Chair at White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience. Reta Jo Lewis, Maj Gen Paul A. Friedrichs, USAF, PhD, USAID Administrator Sam Power, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson have been named as members of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience. Carole N. House is now the Special Advisor for Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Policy on the National Security Council (NSC) staff. Alex C. Engler is now Director for Technology and Democracy on the NSC staff. Jake Braun has left his post as Principal Deputy National Cyber Director.
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