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Trump Signs Tax and Spending Bill

The president’s victory lap followed a week of vote-wrangling in Congress.

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Happy Monday! Following a very public (and at times, very messy) falling out with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk on Saturday announced plans to form his own political party. Surely this is exactly what the 60 percent of Americans who are dissatisfied with both the Democratic and Republican parties had in mind.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on Friday, marking the first major legislative action of his second term. The sweeping package includes tax cuts, increased funding for border security and immigration enforcement, and $150 billion in additional defense spending. It also introduces work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), reduces federal spending on social safety net programs such as Medicaid, eliminates clean energy tax credits and electric vehicle subsidies, and raises the debt ceiling by an estimated $5 trillion. The House approved the bill by a vote of 218-214 on Thursday, after GOP leadership and Trump lobbied Republican holdouts to flip their votes ahead of the president’s July 4 deadline to pass the measure.
  • Flash flooding battered central Texas on Friday and into the weekend, killing at least 82 people, including 28 children, with dozens still missing as of Monday morning. Among the confirmed deaths are 10 young girls and one counselor at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River. According to local officials, the river surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes on Friday morning, catching residents and campers off guard while they were asleep. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned Texans during a Sunday afternoon press briefing that more flash floods could hit affected areas in the coming days. 
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with President Trump at the White House today, marking his third visit to Washington, D.C., since Trump’s inauguration. The summit comes amid Trump’s recent push for a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, with the president telling reporters Sunday that there is a “good chance” the two sides will reach an agreement this week. Meanwhile, Netanyahu reiterated his desire to bring Israeli hostages home but noted that Hamas cannot remain in power in any forthcoming deal. The terrorist group’s future role in governing Gaza has long been a key sticking point in ceasefire negotiations. Also on Sunday, Israel dispatched a high-level delegation to Qatar for the latest round of talks with Hamas. 
  • Israeli fighter jets struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday night and into Monday morning, amid the Iranian-backed group’s continuing ballistic missile attacks on Israel. The airstrikes, deemed “Operation Black Flag” by the Israeli military, hit three ports used by the Houthis to transfer weapons. The bombing campaign also targeted the Galaxy Leader, a Bahamas-flagged cargo ship seized by the Houthis in November 2023. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the Houthis used the hijacked vessel to facilitate their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.
  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that countries that fail to make a trade deal with the United States by August 1 will face the steep tariff rates announced by President Trump in early April. Bessent downplayed the announcement as a shift away from Trump’s original July 9 deadline for such deals, essentially telling CNN’s Dana Bash that countries should view the month of July as a window to work toward a deal. “If you want to speed things up, have at it,” Bessent said. “If you want to go back to the old rate, that’s your choice.” Speaking to reporters Sunday evening, however, Trump said tariff letters would begin going out this week. “We’ll have most countries done by July 9—either a letter or a deal.”

When ‘OBBBA’ Becomes Reality

President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act into law during an Independence Day military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 04, 2025. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act into law during an Independence Day military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 04, 2025. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump signed his “big beautiful bill” into law during an Independence Day ceremony at the White House, concluding the most important legislative saga of his second term thus far. “Our country has had so much to celebrate this Independence Day as we enter our 249th year,” the president said before signing the legislation, flanked by members of Congress. “America’s winning, winning, winning like never before.”

The sweeping law allows Trump to realize many of his key campaign priorities, including increased funding for immigration enforcement and the extension of the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, as well as temporary tax exemptions for tips and overtime and a tax write-off for seniors. But getting the bill to Trump’s desk was no easy task. The signing ceremony Friday capped off a week filled with all-nighters on Capitol Hill, as congressional leaders lobbied holdouts in an effort to meet the president’s July 4 deadline.

The Next 250

The American Revolution Was a Really Big Deal

The birth of the United States of America was not merely the most important geopolitical event since the fall of Rome, or the most important intentional political event ever (Rome’s fall wasn’t exactly a planned-out exercise). It was the signature catalyst for the real-world realization of various Enlightenment principles like democracy, human rights, free speech, and representative government. The unfolding success of that experiment over the subsequent two-and-a-half centuries—with America becoming the single most influential and powerful country in the world—lends even more weight to the momentousness of the American Founding. And it certainly ranks among the most consequential events in all of human history, political and non-political alike.

Toeing the Company Line

Charles Hilu is a reporter for The Dispatch based in Washington, D.C. Before joining the company in 2024, he was the Collegiate Network Fellow at the Washington Free Beacon and interned at both National Review and the Washington Examiner. When he is not chasing down lawmakers on Capitol Hill, he is probably listening to show tunes or following the premier sports teams of the University of Michigan and city of Detroit.

Charlotte Lawson is the editor of The Morning Dispatch, currently based in southern Florida. Prior to joining the company in 2020, she studied history and global security at the University of Virginia. When Charlotte is not keeping up with foreign policy and world affairs, she is probably trying to hone her photography skills.

Wilson Bailey is an intern at The Dispatch and a rising junior at Colby College. When he's not reading about the history of political philosophy or out on a long-distance run, he likes to listen to red-dirt country music and trudge through Maine's backcountry.

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