Happy Tuesday! We once wrote to you that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered the third-best response a person running for president can give when asked if he’d spent time on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet—that is, that RFK was on Epstein’s plane not zero times or one time, but two times.
He continued in that tradition this week, when asked whether more women would come forward with sexual assault allegations against him: “I don’t know,” he told the Boston Globe. “We’ll see what happens.”
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Politicians across the political spectrum seem concerned about exacerbating negative political rhetoric following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. In an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt on Monday evening, President Joe Biden said he regrets comments he made last week on a private call with donors when he referred to putting Trump in a “bullseye,” saying it was “a mistake to use the word.” While the Biden campaign also temporarily paused political advertising, the president did defend calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” asking, “Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?” Meanwhile, Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania proposed that both he and his opponent, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., suspended all negative advertisements as a demonstration of unity. A spokesperson for Casey said the campaign had already reached out to TV stations on Saturday night to temporarily pause advertising.
- Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas—head of the department that oversees the Secret Service—said Monday that Donald Trump’s attempted assassination was a “failure” of security. “When I say that something like this cannot happen, we are speaking of a failure,” Mayorkas said on CNN. “We are going to analyze, through an independent review, how that occurred, why it occurred, and make recommendations and findings to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle also said Monday that she is confident in Trump’s security plans for this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. She also announced changes to the former president’s security detail “to ensure his continued protection for the convention and the remainder of the campaign.” Mayorkas also announced Monday that, after months of rebuffing such calls, the president had directed him to provide Secret Service protection to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “in light of this weekend’s events.”
- The FBI on Monday provided an update on its investigation. In addition to announcing that it gained access to the shooter’s smartphone, the FBI also said it completed searches of the shooter’s home and vehicle, where it found “suspicious devices” currently being evaluated but “rendered safe” by bomb technical specialists. The investigative agency also confirmed that they are still exploring the possibility of co-conspirators, though evidence thus far suggests the gunman acted alone. A local Pennsylvania news station reported Monday that local law enforcement saw the shooter on the roof 30 minutes before he opened fire but failed to apprehend him.
- Trump announced on Monday—the first day of the Republican National Convention—that he had selected Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate. Although the author of New York Times bestseller Hillbilly Elegy was a sharp critic of Trump during the 2016 election campaign, Vance has in recent years become a strident defender of the president, economic populism and protectionism, and isolationist foreign policy. “J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond,” Trump said in his Truth Social announcement.
- Judge Aileen Cannon—the federal district judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s case against former President Donald Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents—dismissed federal charges against Trump in the case Monday, ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. While this does not spell the definite end for Trump’s classified documents case—Smith can appeal Cannon’s ruling or the Justice Department can refile the case with a new lead prosecutor—it all but ensures the case will not go to trial before the November election. “The Court has difficulty seeing how a remedy short of dismissal would cure this substantial separation-of-powers violation,” Judge Cannon wrote in her 93-page opinion. “Congress is empowered to decide if it wishes to vest appointment power in a Head of Department, and indeed, Congress has proven itself quite capable of doing so. … But it plainly did not do so here.”
- Multiple wildfires in southern California have burned more than 30,000 acres of land in recent days, forcing 1,000 people to evacuate their homes and briefly closing Interstate 5 over the weekend. According to a statement by the National Weather Service, the fires, which are primarily concentrated in Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, were started by dry lightning strikes in areas with critical fire conditions.
- Members of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab detonated a car bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Sunday night, killing at least five and injuring 20. The explosion occurred at a watch party for the Euro 2024 final near Villa Somalia—the official residence of the nation’s president—with Al-Shabaab claiming to have targeted a meeting place for Somali security and government officials. The bombing is the latest in a string of attacks by Al-Shabaab, a part of the broader Al-Qaeda terrorist organization, on Somalia’s capital. Somali security forces are currently waging a counteroffensive against the terror group, which controls a substantial amount of territory in the country.
- Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández won Major League Baseball’s annual Home Run Derby on Monday, hitting 49 total home runs to outlast Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. in the final round of the contest.
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J.D. Vance Gets the Nod
Editor’s Note: Our Dispatch Politics colleagues are on the ground in Milwaukee this week to cover the Republican National Convention. We’ll be including some of their reporting and analysis in TMD over the next few days, but you can—and should—subscribe to Dispatch Politics to get more of their in-depth reporting on this crucial political moment right to your inbox.
MILWAUKEE—Donald Trump has selected Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, setting up the freshman Republican from Ohio as the future of the party and Trump’s MAGA movement.
“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,” Trump posted Monday afternoon on Truth Social, his social media network.
Within an hour of that announcement, Vance was formally nominated by the Republican National Convention. As he walked onto the floor of the Fiserv Forum with Merle Haggard’s “America First” playing over the speakers, the 39-year-old first-term senator and his wife Usha stood with the Ohio delegation for the vote. The convention voted by acclamation to give Vance the nomination; when the presiding RNC member, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, quickly asked for “nay” votes, there were no audible objections.
As our own John McCormack reported in a profile of Vance on the site last week, the unanimous display of approval at the convention is much different than the reception he might have received in 2016. Back then, he was a media darling; the bestselling author of a memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his hardscrabble life in rural Appalachia; the arch-Trump critic from Trump country. Vance called the former president “cultural heroin” in the pages of The Atlantic, “America’s Hitler” in a text to a friend, and wondered in a since-deleted tweet, “What percentage of the American population has @RealDonaldTrump sexually assaulted?”
The intervening years have seen the populist try to rehab his image with the MAGA crowd. “I ask folks not to judge me based on …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,404-word story on Donald Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Cannon’s Shot
Our own Nick Catoggio has a useful heuristic for thinking about the various cases against former President Donald Trump: parents’ secret “pecking order” for their children.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents was the case Nick called “the dependable child,” in a piece last year. “It’s no-nonsense, straightforward, and rock solid, the child you leave in charge when you have to run errands. If anyone’s going to deliver a conviction, it’s this kid.”
But apparently, even the dependable child isn’t perfect.
On Monday, District Judge Aileen Cannon—a Trump appointee overseeing the federal documents case in Florida—dismissed the case on grounds that Smith doesn’t have the authority to prosecute it. Cannon’s decision will likely be appealed, but it’s not clear whether this legal cul-de-sac will be much more than another delay in a case that was already unlikely to be resolved before the November elections.
The prospect of the indictment burst onto the scene nearly two years ago, when federal authorities performed a search at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort and home in Florida. It was many months later before we knew exactly what they’d found there: classified documents, allegedly illegally removed from the White House and likewise withheld from the National Archives and Records Administration. Pictures in the 7-count indictment against Trump—unsealed in June of last year—showed piles of boxes of classified documents in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago and on the ballroom stage. Text messages revealed that Trump instructed his bodyman, Walt Nauta—who was also indicted—to hide documents from a lawyer who came to search his Florida residence.
But the case was bedeviled by delays. Some were expected: A case that hinges on classified evidence was bound to …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,423-word story on Judge Aileen Cannon’s recent decision is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Trump’s running mate pick is in: Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. But where does Vance—a junior senator first elected to public office in 2022, best-selling author, and now-vice presidential candidate—stand on key issues facing voters? Last month, Vance sat down for an extensive interview with Ross Douthat of the New York Times to break down his vision for the country, including how he feels about the 2020 election. “I never could get fired up about this,” he said of accusations that baselessly questioning the election betrayed bedrock values. “I think the election in 1960 was stolen. The election of 2000 had some issues. I think that challenging elections and questioning the legitimacy of elections is actually part of the democratic process. When Trump says the election was stolen, and people say he was wrong, I say, ‘Fine, we can argue about that.’ When they say, ‘He’s threatening the foundation of American society,’ I can’t help but roll my eyes.” What would he have done? “I think the entire post-2020 thing would have gone a lot better if there had actually been an effort to provide alternative slates of electors and to force us to have that debate. I think it would’ve been a much better thing for the country. Do I think Joe Biden would still be president right now? Yeah, probably. But at least we would have had a debate.”
In The Zeitgeist
Grammy-nominated country singer Ingrid Andress’ rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” before last night’s Home Run Derby in Texas is perfectly representative of the past few weeks we’ve lived through as a country.
Presented Without Comment
NBC News: Read the Full Biden Interview With Lester Holt on NBC News
LESTER HOLT: Is it acceptable that you have still not heard, at least publicly, from the Secret Service director?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Oh, I’ve heard from him. I—I’ve—
LESTER HOLT: But have you heard from her publicly?
Also Presented Without Comment
Axios: [Mitch] McConnell Drowned Out by Boos During RNC Roll Call
Also Also Presented Without Comment
New York Times: Why Everything Bagel Seasoning Was Banned in South Korea
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Kevin drew parallels between the assassination attempt against Trump and the French Revolution’s Thermidorian Reaction, the Dispatch Politics team reported on Day One of the RNC and its “unity” message, and Nick made the case for continuing to call Trump a threat to democracy after the attempt on his life—because “it’s as true today as it was last week.”
- On the podcasts: Sarah and David break down Judge Aileen Cannon’s “bonkers-adjacent” decision to dismiss Trump’s classified documents case on Advisory Opinions.
- On the site: Chris argues Trump’s VP pick should make clear to the GOP that Reaganite conservatism is done for, Paul Matzko explores the historical parallels between the assassination attempt against Trump and Lee Harvey Oswald’s attempted assassination of Edwin Walker months before he killed JFK, Phillip Wallach argues that Trump has a real opportunity to become a unity candidate, and Dalibor Rohac explores the significance of the recent British and French elections.
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.