Happy Friday! Like U.S. Olympic track star Noah Lyles, one of your Morning Dispatchers was recently afflicted with this summer’s strain of COVID-19. Unlike Noah Lyles, she was not putting in Bronze-medal-worthy work between coughs.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago hotel on Thursday, former President Donald Trump agreed to debate against Vice President Kamala Harris this fall, after previously backing out of a debate that had originally been scheduled with President Joe Biden. ABC News announced yesterday both campaigns had settled on a September 10 debate on the network, which will be moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis. Trump also proposed two additional debates—one on Fox News on September 4 and another on NBC News on September 25. Harris has not yet agreed to either the Fox News or NBC News debate, though NBC News reportedly remains in discussions with the Harris campaign.
- Meanwhile, Vice President Harris, who has not done a sit-down interview since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, said Thursday that she wants to schedule an interview “before the end of the month.”
- Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Russian territory continued Thursday, after Ukrainian troops mounted a surprise attack into Russia’s Kursk oblast on Tuesday. As many as 1,000 Ukrainian troops have reportedly marched nearly 20 miles into Russian territory in what appears to be Ukraine’s most significant cross-border raid since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Despite evidence on Thursday showing a Ukrainian presence in villages deeper into Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have “thwarted” Ukraine’s raid and inflicted hundreds of casualties. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Thursday that Ukraine is hoping the offensive shifts how Russians view the war. “This increases the cost of the war for Russia quantitatively,” he said. “More armored vehicles have been destroyed, the Russian Federation has lost territories, and there have been more casualties. Will this affect how they perceive this war? Undoubtedly.”
- Russian prosecutors on Thursday sought a 15-year prison sentence for Ksenia Khavana, a Russian-American woman accused of treason after donating money to a pro-Ukraine charity. Russian authorities arrested Khavana, a 33-year-old ballerina and naturalized U.S. citizen, in February after she contributed $51.80 to Razom, a U.S.-based non-profit that delivers aid kits to Ukraine. Prosecutors allege Khavana, who pleaded guilty to the charges, committed treason by “proactively” donating money that was “used to purchase tactical medical supplies, equipment, weapons, and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces.”
- The U.S., Qatar, and Egypt issued a joint statement on Thursday calling on Israel and Hamas to join another round of ceasefire-for-hostage deal negotiations on August 15. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a delegation to resume the talks, which seemed likely to stall after the targeted killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh last week. Israel, meanwhile, is awaiting a signaled attack from Iran following the assassination on Iranian territory, for which Israel has not officially taken responsibility.
- The Department of Labor reported Thursday that weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fell during the week ending August 3, calming recessionary fears after last Friday’s lackluster unemployment report. Unemployment benefits claims dropped to 233,000 last week, down 17,000 from the week prior and lower than economists’ estimate of 240,000. U.S. market indices—which crashed on Monday before partially bouncing back on Tuesday—seemingly reacted positively to the news on Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 700 points.
- Tropical Storm Debby made its second U.S. landfall early Thursday morning, battering the Carolinas with 50-mile-per-hour winds and more than a foot of rain as it continues to move up the Atlantic coast. Debby—which struck Florida earlier this week as a Category 1 hurricane—has caused at least seven deaths, including one from a tornado in North Carolina. Areas along the eastern seaboard from Virginia to New England could face flash flooding and other extreme weather in the coming days, though the storm is expected to weaken as it moves northward.
Federal Judge Rules Google is a Monopoly
How does New Zealand Olympic triathlete Ainsley Thorpe recover after swimming in the polluted, bacteria-abundant Seine River in Paris? By downing a Coke. “There’s no harm in drinking a Coke after a race,” Thorpe said. “If you Google it, it says it can help.”
There are lots of ways to find information on the internet. But among the various search engines—Bing, Yahoo, or even DuckDuckGo—only Google has become a verb.
On Monday, a federal district judge ruled that Google, in seeking to maintain its position as internet users’ most sought-after search engine, had violated United States antitrust law. Though the decision is downstream of a growing bipartisan consensus in favor of trust-busting, opponents argue the antitrust frenzy is stifling …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,269-word story on the Google antitrust ruling is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- In The New Yorker, editor David Remnick spoke with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her role in President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race—including a potentially decisive appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last month. “When I pressed Pelosi to talk in greater detail about her language on ‘Morning Joe,’ she looked at me silently, unblinking,” Remnick wrote. “Finally, as the silence expanded past the boundary of awkward, I said, ‘You’re looking at me and waiting for this moment to pass.’ … Then Pelosi dropped her calculated reserve. ‘I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation,’ she admitted. ‘They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with him. I never made one call.’”
- One year after devastating wildfires leveled Lahaina, a waterfront community on the Hawaiian island of Maui, the area is still a shadow of its former self. “In the months since the disaster, work has been done to clear debris, set up temporary housing, and to mourn and remember loved ones who were lost,” Alan Taylor wrote in The Atlantic, introducing a photo essay from Getty photojournalist Mario Tama. “It was recently reported that lawsuits against the government and utilities have reached a $4 billion settlement. As steps toward rebuilding begin, local organizations are also working to battle the invasive grasses that act as fuel for wildfires, and to reintroduce more fire-resistant native plants.”
Presented Without Comment
NBC News: Trump Compares His January 6 Crowd to the Audience for MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech
Trump acknowledged that official estimates put his crowd size as smaller than King’s, but he said he thought he had “more people.”
“But when you look at the exact same picture and everything is the same—because it was the fountains, the whole thing all the way back to go from Lincoln to Washington—and you look at it, and you look at the picture of my crowd … we actually had more people,” he said.
Also Presented Without Comment
NOTUS: Lawmakers Hope China Doesn’t Make a Move on Taiwan During U.S. Election Chaos
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul recently shared a different expletive-laced story with NOTUS. During Trump’s last year in office, McCaul remembered, Trump said he’d delivered stern words to the Chinese president. “He told me he told Chairman Xi—I’m not sure I’ve ever said this publicly—that ‘I’m going to bomb the sh– out of you if you invade Taiwan,’” McCaul said. “He’s got this, like, crazy, unpredictable…” McCaul trailed off. “That’s deterrence.”
Also Also Presented Without Comment
NBA star Kevin Durant, on representing the United States at the Olympics:
A lot of bullsh— happens in our country. But a lot of great things happen, too.
In the (Olympic) Zeitgeist
U.S. track and field athletes continued to clean up on Thursday, helping push the U.S. medal count into triple digits. And we’re pleased to see Ukraine—whose athletes often trained under regular bombardment—collecting some hardware at the games.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Will unpacked the Google antitrust ruling and Nick explored whether it’s good political strategy for Harris to avoid taking questions from the media.
- On the podcasts: Sarah is joined by Jonah and Megan McArdle on The Dispatch Podcast roundtable to discuss the Tim Walz vice presidential pick and the vitality of conservatism at the state level.
- On the site: Kevin dives into the Minneapolis political culture that forged Tim Walz, Robert George warns conservatives against playing identity politics with Kamala Harris’ veep selection, and Charlie Sykes analyzes what Democratic Rep. Cori Bush’s primary defeat in Missouri means for the far-left.
Please note that we at The Dispatch hold ourselves, our work, and our commenters to a higher standard than other places on the internet. We welcome comments that foster genuine debate or discussion—including comments critical of us or our work—but responses that include ad hominem attacks on fellow Dispatch members or are intended to stoke fear and anger may be moderated.
With your membership, you only have the ability to comment on The Morning Dispatch articles. Consider upgrading to join the conversation everywhere.