Happy Tuesday! Late last month, an Excalibur-like sword went missing from a rock wall in the village of Rocamadour, France, in which it had apparently been lodged for some 1,300 years.
Might we suggest checking for it at the Naval Observatory?
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Joe Biden sent a letter to Democratic lawmakers on Monday morning reaffirming his intention to continue his reelection bid. “I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” the president wrote in his letter. “The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party. Do we now just say this process didn’t matter? That the voters don’t have a say?” Following the letter’s release, Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, reaffirmed his support for Biden in a tweet, even as Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat of Washington state and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, called on Biden to step aside on Monday afternoon. “The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith said, becoming the sixth member of Congress to publicly call for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Monday that he “support[s] President Joe Biden” and that his “position has not changed.”
- As part of a large-scale missile assault across Ukraine on Monday, Russian forces struck Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv—the country’s largest. At least 33 people were killed in the barrage—which also struck a maternity clinic elsewhere in Kyiv and an industrial complex in Kryviy Rih—and more than 100 others were injured. The Ukrainian military said it successfully shot down 30 of the 38 missiles launched by Russia. “[The Russian Kh-101 missile that hit the hospital] contains dozens of microelectronics produced in NATO countries,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak tweeted. “We must stop this and bring it up at the NATO summit. The attack on children must be one of the key topics.”
- Hamas on Monday threatened to sink ongoing ceasefire talks as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued its military operation in Gaza City. The IDF issued evacuation orders for central Gaza City after it said Israeli intelligence services uncovered information that placed Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the area. Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, warned of “catastrophic consequences” if the military operation continued, while a statement from Hamas claimed that Netanyahu and the Israeli army would bear “full responsibility” for the collapse. Meanwhile, protesters in Israel organized a “Day of Disturbance” on Sunday morning to agitate for the return of hostages in Gaza.
- The Republican Party’s platform committee voted 84 to 18 on Monday to adopt an updated party platform that was heavily influenced by Donald Trump and the Trump campaign, and is set to be finalized at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week. As Dispatch Politics reported yesterday, Trump himself called into the committee meeting on Monday and urged delegates to vote yes on the platform, which notably softens the party’s language on abortion restrictions. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights,” the platform reads. “After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).” In 2016, the party’s platform included calls for a federal law that would ban abortion after 20 weeks and the adoption of a human life amendment to the Constitution.
- Tropical storm Beryl made landfall in southeast Texas as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday morning, killing at least three people and knocking out power for 2.7 million homes. The storm brought dangerous storm surges and flooding to the greater Houston area, as well as wind speeds of at least 39 miles per hour that destroyed buildings and infrastructure Monday morning. Beryl is expected to continue to weaken as it moves across the Midwest later this week.
- Boeing pleaded guilty on Monday to a criminal felony charge for conspiring to defraud the federal government related to allegations the aeronautics company had failed to implement sufficient safety procedures following two fatal commercial airline crashes both involving Boeing-designed and manufactured 737 jets—one in Indonesian waters in 2018, and another in a small Ethiopian town in 2019. Boeing had originally agreed in 2021—as part of a deferred prosecution deal—to update safety programs following the two deadly crashes, an agreement prosecutors now say the company violated. The company will pay penalties amounting to nearly $500 million, as well as invest $455 million over the next three years to reinforce its safety and compliance procedures. The company will be placed on probation over that period and monitored by an independent third party.
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Left-Wing Bloc Becomes Largest in French Parliament
There must be something in the waters of the English Channel that makes French and British leaders take insane electoral gambles at the drop of a hat.
As we wrote to you yesterday, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s snap election dice roll didn’t turn out well for his Conservatives. And despite the positive headlines, it’s possible French President Emmanuel Macron stumbled into the same trap.
After the right-wing populist National Rally (NR) party cleaned up in European parliamentary elections at the beginning of June, Macron decided to call voters’ collective bluff. He dissolved parliament—shocking even some of his close allies—and set elections for the last day of the month, with the second round taking place this past Sunday. The centrist technocrat promised the elections would be a “clarification” for the country on the question of whether it really wanted Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party in charge.
Though weeks of polls—and, indeed, the first round of voting on June 30—seemed to suggest that the French people’s answer to that question was, “yes, actually,” a stunning result in the second round of elections on Sunday saw …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,626-word story on the French election results is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Keir Starmer, the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, has already made arguably the most significant decision of his young premiership: providing orders to the commanders of the country’s four nuclear-armed submarines. “Starmer will be given a pen and four pieces of paper” upon taking office, Brian Klaas wrote for The Atlantic. “On each paper, he must handwrite identical top-secret orders that—hopefully—no other human being will ever see. … Each handwritten letter is placed inside a safe, which is housed inside another safe, on board the nuclear-armed submarine. … If the submarine captain has reason to believe that London has been destroyed in a nuclear blast (one of the cues is said to be that the BBC has stopped broadcasting), then the captain is to make every attempt to verify that the British government no longer exists. Once satisfied that the worst has indeed taken place, only then may the captain open the two safes, unseal the letters, read their contents, and execute the order from the now-deceased prime minister. Should the United Kingdom release its nuclear arsenal and retaliate—or not?”
- In belated Independence Day reflections, Jesse Singal offers praise for the incredible place that is the United States—in all its imperfections. “So the United States is a lot of things: it’s a big, beautiful, free-as-hell place, it is beset by political dysfunction while being pretty stable, it seems to lift a lot of people out of poverty, and its formerly strict racial caste system is rapidly on its way to a welcome and overdue destruction,” he wrote for his Singal-Minded Substack. “It is a historically unusual example of people coming from everywhere in the world to join a diverse but unified whole. It is awesome and beautiful that someone can scrape and claw to get here, not speak the language, and then a few years later their kid is a bilingual American, full stop, who views this place as home, and who is, thanks to the wisdom of our Founders, just as American as any of his neighbors. It’s important to acknowledge this to fend off certain naysayers and would-be revolutionaries who, if they got their way, would choose destruction over reform. It’s also important not to get too starry-eyed, to slide into weird forms of hyper-nationalism or jingoism deaf to the many ways life here still is unfair, and to the ways we could do much better.”
Presented Without Comment
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, July 8, 2024: “This week, President Biden will speak to national labor leaders of AFL-CIO, host the NATO summit to show the unprecedented strength of our alliance, hold a press conference—a ‘Big Boy Press Conference,’ according to Justin Sink from Bloomberg.”
White House spokesman John Kirby, July 8, 2024: “After that, the president will hold a press conference—I guess a ‘Big Boy Press Conference,’ is what we’re calling it?”
Also Presented Without Comment
Mediaite: Kanye West’s Ex is Speaking at the RNC Next Week
In the Zeitgeist
The trailer for the latest Hollywood racecar movie dropped over the weekend. The film stars Brad Pitt in a role that sounds a little familiar—but we’re not mad about it: We can’t replace Moneyball, but maybe we can recreate it in the aggregate.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Kevin explained (🔒) the real problem with free trade, the Dispatch Politics team checked in on the ongoing meltdown in the Democratic Party, and Nick argued that Joe Biden has gone full MAGA.
- On the podcasts: Sarah and David are joined by Kannon Shanmugam and his summer associates on today’s episode of Advisory Opinions to look back on this SCOTUS term and discuss “text, history, and tradition,” and Steve is joined by The Bulwark’s Tim Miller for a special interview edition of The Dispatch Podcast to discuss the political fallout of Biden’s disastrous debate performance and revisit an earlier conversation about The Dispatch and The Bulwark’s differing approaches to the election.
- On the site today: Charlotte explores how world leaders view Biden as the NATO summit kicks off, Arthur Herman offers a better way to ensure all NATO members are contributing to the military alliance, and Kevin reports from the National Conservatism Conference on the former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director pitching himself for a comeback.
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