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Plus: Trade deal with Vietnam, Romanian right-wing presidential candidate sent to trial, and more...
President Donald Trump's domestic policy agenda advances: At 3:30 a.m., House Republicans advanced the policy bill. "After a day and night of paralysis on the House floor, and haggling and uncertainty in the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson scored a preliminary victory in his bid to overcome resistance within his party when the House voted to allow the bill to come up for debate," reports The New York Times. The vote, 219–213, makes it look like Johnson has possibly won over some Republicans who had been putting up a fight. There's still one final vote left, and it's possible it will sink things, but the fact that the bill has advanced is huge for Johnson (and Trump).
Around 5 a.m. this morning, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) started deploying all tools in his arsenal to delay the vote, calling the bill a "disgusting abomination" that would harm poor Americans. He's read accounts from people who say drastic cuts to Medicaid would destroy their lives. But Jeffries—and the Democrats overall—have very little power to actually stave off a vote. The bill looks likely to pass if Republican holdouts continue to be pacified and fall in line.
"FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE," wrote the president on Truth Social a little past midnight, as the bill was still in limbo. "RIDICULOUS!!!"
"I do so deeply desire to have just [a] normal Congress, but it doesn't happen anymore," Johnson told reporters right after Trump's post, sounding a little emo. "I don't want to make history, but we're forced into these situations." Well, that's what happens when a party that was historically in favor of reining in government spending gets co-opted by a sort of big-government populist fervor. Of course there's no consensus! It's a party riven by huge shifts in ideology.
Anyway, the bill is unfortunately likely to pass some time this morning, contra the objections of folks like Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), who are worried about how this will add to the deficit.
Happy Fourth of July! Republicans' patriotism appears to be growing as Democrats' appears to be shrinking. I wish all people—but perhaps especially those who are down on America—some cold beers, beautiful fireworks, time in nature, and maybe even some reading on our nearly 250 years of experimentation in federalism, in the presumption of innocence, in assimilating immigrants, in free markets, in pluralism, and in unalienable rights.
Gallup poll results that will surprise absolutely no one. While Republicans overwhelmingly are proud to be American, Democrats are not - and the number keeps falling. pic.twitter.com/5H9cvRVBKb
— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) June 30, 2025
Scenes from New York: New, absurd artificial intelligence application: Mapping the hotness of restaurants' crowds.
QUICK HITS
- Trade deal reached with Vietnam! "A 20% tariff will be placed on Vietnamese exports to the US," reports Bloomberg, "with a 40% levy on any goods deemed to be transshipped through the country, Trump said in a social-media post on Wednesday. Trump said that Vietnam had agreed to drop all levies on US imports."
- "Net immigration—inflows of people minus outflows—is running at an annualized rate of 600,000, down about a third from where it was in the last three months of 2024, per the analysis by Oxford Economics, which looks at several sources of public data," reports Axios. "The decline is almost entirely due to a sharp drop in unauthorized immigration. Border crossings are stalled, and deportations are up."
- "Tehran has suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian announced Wednesday, according to state media reports," reports Politico. "State media said IAEA inspectors will need permission from Iran's Supreme National Security Council to visit Iran's nuclear facilities which will be dependent on 'the security of the country's nuclear facilities and that of peaceful nuclear activities' being guaranteed."
- Good video on the housing crisis by Reason's Emma Camp:
Right now, the median first-time home buyer is 38 years old. Fifteen years ago, it was more like 30. Reason's @emmma_camp_ shares what's happening here. pic.twitter.com/tbxRqDMo1S
— reason (@reason) July 2, 2025
- This is insane and messed up: "Romania's far-right former presidential frontrunner Calin Georgescu, whose shock victory in last year's first-found ballot triggered a months-long political crisis, was sent to trial by prosecutors," reports Bloomberg. "Georgescu is accused of promoting fascist and xenophobic views over the past five years, according to a statement on the prosecutor general's website on Wednesday. If found guilty by the court, he may be stripped of the right to run for public office and face a prison sentence." We talked about Georgescu a bit on this episode of Just Asking Questions with Matt Taibbi:
- "Calling yourself passionate is what someone says when they haven't found something they actually feel passionate about. It's what someone does when they're writing 7 paragraphs of IG-caption hogwash about a 'new chapter' in the 'rollercoaster' that is their 'journey.' It's what someone says when they're fundraising, when they're dissociating in a job interview—when their mouths are moving, but their brains and their hearts are somewhere else," writes Blackbird Spyplane's Jonah Weiner.
