Happy Monday! There’s never a great time to see your name alongside “profanity-laced rant at staffer” in the Houston Chronicle, but the recording—allegedly of Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee—is particularly problematic if you’re … running to be the mayor of Houston. For all our readers in Houston and Harris County, early voting starts today!
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Clashes continued along the Israel-Lebanon border over the weekend, with the Times of Israel reporting that “six Israeli soldiers, 19 Hezbollah terrorists, and six Palestinian terrorists” have been killed in the exchanges of missiles and artillery fire in recent weeks. Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, said Saturday that the group will escalate its attacks whenever Israel begins a ground operation into Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon against further attacks. “If Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will miss the Second Lebanon War,” he said. “We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state are devastating.”
- United States military officials moved to strengthen American forces in the Middle East over the weekend, shifting an additional carrier strike group—the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower—into the region and deploying additional missile and air defense systems. The Eisenhower was originally set to join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group in the eastern Mediterranean, but will now be deployed to the Central Command area of responsibility, which includes the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. “These steps will bolster regional deterrence efforts, increase force protection for U.S. forces in the region, and assist in the defense of Israel,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a press release on Saturday.
- Hamas on Friday released two U.S. citizens—a mother and her 17-year-old daughter—who were being held hostage in Gaza. The release came amid negotiations between Hamas and Qatar—a nation that maintains both friendly relations with the U.S. and lines of communication with the terror group’s leaders. Israel declared it will destroy Hamas regardless of the hostage situation as the IDF readies a potential ground offensive, but progress in negotiations could delay the start of that operation.
- Rep. Jim Jordan ended his bid to become speaker of the House on Friday after he lost a third consecutive vote on the House floor and a subsequent secret-ballot vote within the GOP conference on whether to keep him as the party’s nominee for the post. Nine candidates announced bids for the position before the conference deadline yesterday, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, and Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy threw his support behind Emmer, the Minnesota Republican, but didn’t rule out his own return to the speaker’s chair. “I’m supporting Tom Emmer,” he said, “but I’m going to tell you: I’m still a member of Congress, and I’m going to lead in any capacity to protect America.” The Republican conference will hold a candidate forum tonight at 6:30 p.m. ahead of an expected conference vote tomorrow.
- The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court’s preliminary injunction that restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies to remove what it considers misinformation from platforms. The court’s ruling temporarily granted the administration’s appeal for a stay, and the court agreed to hear the case in its current term.
- Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty on Friday in the Georgia election interference case concerning his role in creating alternate slates of fake electors. Chesebro cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to file false documents. As part of the plea deal, Chesebro received up to five years of probation and a $5,000 fine, and agreed to testify against his fellow co-defendants in the case, including Trump. Chesebro is the third of nineteen co-defendants to accept a plea deal requiring future testimony—Sidney Powell, a former Trump attorney, made a similar plea deal with prosecutors on Thursday.
- The judge overseeing Trump’s civil fraud case in New York fined the former president $5,000 for flouting a gag order preventing public comments about the court’s staff. Earlier this month, Trump singled out one of Judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerks, Allison Greenfield, posting a picture of her with Sen. Chuck Schumer to his Truth Social account, describing her as “Schumer’s girlfriend.” A spokesperson for Schumer said he does not know Greenfield and takes photos with thousands of constituents. Engoron asked Trump to take the post down—which he did—but the post remained on a Trump campaign website until the court flagged it on Thursday night. Trump’s lawyers said the website posting was an oversight, but Engoron warned that further violations could result in steeper penalties, including holding Trump in contempt of court.
Historic Election in Poland
Polish citizens voted in droves last Sunday, prompting many polling locations to remain open long after their intended closing time. The result was the largest turnout in a Polish election since the end of communist rule in 1989, and a defeat for the Law and Justice party, which had been in power since 2015.
Last week’s election marked a landmark moment for Poland—and indeed much of Europe—as ...
A Conversation with McKay Coppins
When McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic, met with Sen. Mitt Romney while preparing his biography of the Republican leader, the onetime presidential candidate took a crowbar to a locked filing cabinet in his personal office to give Coppins its contents. The image is an apt metaphor for the level of access the senator provided as Romney: A Reckoning was being written. Romney sat for some 50 interviews with Coppins and turned over reams of files, emails, and text messages—and the senator did not have a final say about what went in the book and what didn’t. On Friday, Coppins joined Sarah and Steve on the Dispatch Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the process of writing a political biography unlike any other, and the evolution of both Mitt Romney and the Republican Party.
An excerpt of the interview is below, edited for clarity. You can find the rest of the podcast here or in your podcast player of choice, and Dispatch members will be able to hear a few bonus minutes of the conversation on The Skiff (🔒), our new podcast superfeed. Romney: A Reckoning is set to be published tomorrow.
Steve Hayes: At one point you write that Romney took his 2012 [presidential election] loss with a “stiff upper lip,” your words, and then you quote him saying, “My life is not defined in my own mind by political wins and losses.” Then right after that, you jump in as the narrator and you say, “His journal and personal papers told a different story.” How often did that happen in the course of reporting this book out? And how did he respond when you pointed that out to him?
McKay Coppins: So just to give you a sense of how open Mitt Romney was to engaging in this conversation with me: He gave me the first chunk of his journals without reading them. I was sitting in church on a Sunday and I got a text from Mitt Romney, saying ...
Worth Your Time
- More than two months after wildfires devastated Lahaina in Maui, affected residents are still struggling to find stable housing as the island tries to rebuild while facing an affordable housing shortage. “Some are bouncing from hotel room to hotel room, in some cases to make way for the return of tourists who are crucial to the local economy,” Audrey McAvoy wrote for the Associated Press. “Many are struggling to find places to rent amid a housing shortage—and steep prices—that plagued the island even before the fire wiped out an estimated 3,000 homes and apartments in Lahaina. And it’s not feasible for authorities to bring in the mobile homes used to shelter people after natural disasters elsewhere, given Hawaii’s humidity and the difficulty of shipping them from the U.S. mainland.” Charles Nahale, a local singer and guitarist whose home in Lahaina burned down, still lacks permanent housing. “The government, via the Federal Emergency Management Agency, paid for Nahale and some 8,000 other displaced residents to move into hotels, vacation rentals, and other short-term housing after the Aug. 8 fire,” McAvoy writes, noting that about 6,900 people are still in short-term lodging. “It’s hard to begin the healing process when you’re worried about the essentials,” Nahale said.
Presented Without Comment
Axios: Trump Claims Sidney Powell Was “Never” His Attorney After She Takes Plea Deal
Also Presented Without Comment
Mediaite: [GOP Rep.] James Comer Appears as Guest on Fox For Whopping 200th Time This Year
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Haley covered (🔒) the end of Jim Jordan’s bid for the House speakership, the Dispatch Politics crew explained why three Republican candidates aren’t participating in the Nevada caucuses, Jonah argued the Israel-Hamas war has illuminated the left’s illiberal bent, Nick tackled (🔒) the politics of linking aid for Israel with aid for Ukraine, and Chris predicted (🔒) House Republicans may escape consequences for their dysfunction.
- On the podcasts: Jonah ruminated on the Israel-Gaza war from the waters of southern Italy, while Sarah and Steve recorded an update on their High Steaks (🔒) wager from the Dispatch member meetup in D.C., available on The Skiff (🔒).
- As a reminder, The Skiff (🔒) is a one-stop destination for all of our bonus podcast content! Available for paying Dispatch members only, this feed will host audio versions of Dispatch Live, the Dispatch Book Club, High Steaks, Q&As with Jonah, extended debates between hosts, and a whole lot more. Click here for more information—including a how-to video from Jonah, the most tech-savvy person on staff—about how to add The Skiff to your podcast player of choice.
- On the site over the weekend: Patrick T. Brown weighed in on the falling U.S. marriage rate in light of Melissa Kearney’s new book on the subject, and James Barnett reviewed Robert Kaplan’s book, The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China.
- On the site today: Reuel Marc Gerecht argues that, one way or another, the Biden administration’s Iran policy is dead.
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