Morning Report is The Hill’s a.m. newsletter. Subscribe here or using the box below:
In today’s issue:
▪ Epstein furor flares in House
▪ Hunter Biden flames Democrats
▪ US eyes AI contest with China
President Trump wants senators to work through a planned August recess, as lawmakers push to flee Washington to campaign back home.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has so far kept the door open to working through the recess.
“We’re thinking about it. We want to get as many [nominations] through the pipeline as we can,” he said Monday, blaming Democrats for rejecting optional procedural shortcuts that could winnow a pileup of pending confirmation votes for remaining Trump nominees at the six-month mark.
“Trying to get his team in place is something that we’re very committed to and we’re going to be looking at all the options in the next few weeks to try and get as many of those across the finish line as we can,” Thune said.
Over in the House, bipartisan furor over calls on the administration to release Jeffrey Epstein investigatory files flared anew in the Rules Committee Monday night and GOP leaders are considering recessing the chamber as early as Wednesday.
Pressure from Democrats compelled the GOP to scrap plans for this week’s slated sequence of floor votes. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the majority wanted to give the administration “space” to release Epstein materials sought in court by the Justice Department. A House nonbinding resolution calling for administration transparency will not get a floor vote before the August recess, Johnson said Monday.
House lawmakers have been planning to depart Thursday for a summer break that extends through Labor Day.
The Senate’s focus on confirming Trump nominees is intended to heed a Trump request. He was able this year to confirm his Cabinet at the fastest pace seen in two decades, exceeding the tally of confirmations of three of the past four administrations in the first 100 days, including his own first term, according to the Brookings Institution.
In addition to nominations, Thune said government funding and the annual National Defense Authorization Act could top a to-do list if members remain in Washington into August. They are scheduled to recess July 31.
Al Weaver, who covers the upper chamber for The Hill, reminded Morning Report that the Senate in both 2017 and 2018 worked an additional week before summer recesses.
“I don’t know how happy Republicans would be, but let me put it this way, I don’t think they’re losing all of their recess,” Weaver said.
Beyond a week “is kind of a big ask of members,” Weaver noted, because Republicans say they want to get home to sell the newly enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and senators have spent many uninterrupted weeks in Washington wrangling over Trump’s agenda, he added.
Senators “have spent more time here than they have in the past couple of years, and when members are here too long, they get cranky,” he said.
Senate GOP leaders face a tough call on whether to heed Trump’s demand to stay in town.
GOP senators, eyeing midterm contests next year, worry the mammoth “big, beautiful” law that includes Medicaid cuts and extended tax cuts for businesses and wealthy filers is unpopular. A large majority of adults in polls say Trump’s policies have not helped them.
The tax and spending law is also estimated to raise the nation’s debt by $3.4 trillion over a decade and leave 10 million people without health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report Monday.
Republican lawmakers see these data points and are itching to get home to market their work to potential midterm voters, pitching them on what GOP lawmakers view as the bill’s more popular aspects.
Trump’s approval when it comes to the economy, immigration, health care and government spending are underwater, surveys show. Voters recently interviewed by CNN, similar to Congress this month, sounded splintered.
The president, whose strategies this year showcase his executive muscle, faces little GOP opposition on Capitol Hill. Republican lawmakers who buck the White House are swiftly sidelined with biting social media taunts about primary challenges.
“Fear is a powerful motivation,” Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor, told The Hill.
Trump “cut out the intermediaries, the members of Congress, and he exercises his powers through his control of sections of the electorate and has made members of Congress fearful of their constituents,” he added. “That enables Trump to use the weapon of a primary challenge with great power.”
Smart Take with Blake Burman
Get ready for a possible U.S. explosion in political wagering.
The prediction market Polymarket announced Monday it acquired an exchange that will allow it to reenter the United States as a “fully regulated and compliant platform.” They’ll join competitors such as Kalshi in a growing industry, which allows people to trade on their predictions, including the big political talkers of the day.
“Right now, this is everyone’s best guess, right? But as these markets move — and they can move 24 hours a day — we can get some insight into whether or not something’s going to happen,” Scott Tranter, data science director at Decision Desk HQ, told me.
It’s believed that north of $3 billion was wagered on the 2024 presidential race. You can imagine a world that soon exists where the prediction markets are cited as frequently as the polls, following the billions of dollars likely to come.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.
3 Things to Know Today
- Thousands of files on Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination were released by the government this week.
- Late night host Stephen Colbert slammed CBS on Monday night over a decision to end “The Late Show.”
- Trump enacted the first major cryptocurrency legislation by signing the GENIUS Act into law. Here’s what to know about the bill.
Leading the Day
THE BIDENS ARE BACK: Hunter Biden is once again in the spotlight due to a media blitz in which he aggressively defended his father and reignited a long-simmering feud between the Biden family and members of the Democratic Party who pushed for former President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race.
Hunter Biden took aim at actor George Clooney, multiple Obama White House officials and Trump in a pair of fiery and profanity-laced interviews that were released on the anniversary of the former president’s decision to end his candidacy.
Republicans viewed Hunter Biden’s reemergence as a gift, as they have tried to keep the former president and his mental acuity in the headlines. Democrats, meanwhile, were left shaking their heads at yet another self-inflicted controversy sparked by a Biden family member.
“It’s good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward, and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with,” Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House official, posted on the social platform X.
Some of Hunter Biden’s more incendiary comments came during a sit-down with Andrew Callaghan, who hosts the YouTube series Channel 5. Biden teed off on Clooney, whose New York Times op-ed last summer added fuel to calls for then-President Biden to step down after his disastrous debate performance.
“F‑‑‑ you, what do you have to do with f‑‑‑ing anything?” Hunter Biden said of Clooney. “Why do I have to f‑‑‑ing listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f‑‑‑ing life to the service of this country?”
▪ The Hill: Hunter Biden suggests Ambien contributed to his father’s poor debate performance.
▪ The Hill: Hunter Biden: Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele are both dictators.
▪ The Hill: Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons on Wednesday slammed Hunter Biden over recent comments he made about immigration.
TRUMP VS. THE MEDIA: The White House on Monday escalated its battle against The Wall Street Journal, banning the outlet from traveling with Trump during an upcoming trip to Scotland over the newspaper’s reporting on the president’s alleged past relationship with Epstein.
The ban comes just days after Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the Journal claiming defamation after it published a story detailing an alleged “bawdy” letter Trump sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump has denied writing the letter.
CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, issued a statement criticizing the move.
“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” Jiang said. “Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media.”
▪ The Atlantic: The president has launched a frontal assault on the journalism business. So far, he’s winning.
Beyond the Epstein saga, Trump disputed the newspaper’s coverage on a separate topic after the Journal published an article that alleged Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent told the president that “firing” Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, “was unnecessary because the economy is doing well and markets have responded positively to the president’s policies.”
Trump denied the reporting. Bessent, speaking to CNBC on Monday, defended Trump and said the Journal’s source had “partial information.”
“The problem with leakers is they only have partial information, and I think the other problem too is that newspapers like The Wall Street Journal are not used to a high-functioning executive president,” Bessent said. “President Trump solicits a whole range of opinions and then makes a decision. So he takes a lot of inputs, and at the end of the day it’s his decision.”
▪ Bloomberg News: Trump ally Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) referred Powell to the Justice Department for criminal charges, accusing him of two specific instances of lying under oath.
POLITICS: Texas Republicans are using this month’s special session to attempt to lock in the party’s majority in Congress by means of weakening or eliminating Democratic districts in the state. The president has called on the Texas GOP to give him five more seats in a nearly deadlocked House — forcing Democrats into a fight over redistricting they had hoped would happen in 2030, after they had several more years to make gains in the state.
Here are five things to know about the session.
▪ The Hill: Five things Democrats could learn from New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (D).
▪ The Hill: The National Republican Congressional Committee outraised its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in the second quarter of 2025.
Where and When
- The House meets at 10 a.m.
- The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.
- The president will host Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. at the White House beginning at 11 a.m. Trump and Marcos will meet at 11:15 a.m., followed by a working bilateral lunch at 11:45 a.m. The president will host an East Room reception at 7 p.m. for GOP members of Congress.
Zoom In
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Trump is all in on artificial intelligence (AI), heralding the booming technology in a series of events even as he comes under fire for apparently using AI in social media posts attacking foes.
As Trump touts AI, White House officials are preparing an executive order targeting tech companies with what they see as “woke” AI models. The order would dictate that AI companies who receive federal contracts be politically neutral and unbiased in their models, in an effort to combat diversity, equity and inclusion practices. The executive order would be one of several expected to be released outlining Trump’s vision for winning the AI race with China.
The White House is also set to use its upcoming AI Action Plan to take aim at state and federal regulations while cutting back environmental restrictions, Politico reports.
Trump is not the first to innovate with new technology while in the White House. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made waves in 1939 when he became the first president to appear on television. Obama was the first president to use a secure cell phone and establish official White House social media accounts.
The focus on AI comes as Trump faces scrutiny after posting a fake video to Truth Social on Sunday night showing former President Obama being arrested in the Oval Office with the song “Y.M.C.A.” playing in the background.
The post came two days after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a report alleging Obama-era officials manipulated intelligence related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
HARVARD VS. TRUMP: Harvard University and the Trump administration clashed during a key court hearing on Monday. The university sparred with a government lawyer in a legal fight that could determine whether the White House’s attempts to cut billions of dollars in research funding are legal.
Harvard asked U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs to make a decision by early September, before a deadline given to Harvard by the federal government to fully close out the canceled research projects.
Burroughs appeared deeply skeptical of the Trump administration’s efforts to strip Harvard of billions of dollars in research funding, suggesting the university might prevail in its legal battle against the government.
Steven P. Lehotsky, who argued for Harvard, called the government’s actions a violation of the First Amendment, touching a “constitutional third rail” that threatened the academic freedom of private universities.
▪ CNN: Harvard argues the government is in violation of the First Amendment. Trump’s team frames the lawsuit as a contract dispute.
RE-UP?: Top Justice Department officials are reportedly pressing to extend the term of Alina Habba, currently serving as acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.
Habba, who began her tenure on March 24, can only serve for 120 days without Senate confirmation unless the state’s district court judges vote to extend that deadline, which expires today. Habba faces an uphill battle in a state represented by two Democratic senators adamantly opposed to her holding the office.
▪ The New York Times: Habba has pursued investigations against Democrats. Her tenure has damaged morale inside the office.
CONFRONTATION: A Washington Post examination of 337 lawsuits filed against the administration since January showed that as of mid-July, courts had ruled against the Trump White House in 165 of those lawsuits. The Post found that the administration is accused of defying or frustrating court oversight in 57 of those cases — almost 35 percent. Legal experts said the pattern is unprecedented and threatens to undermine the judiciary.
Elsewhere
ISRAEL: The United Nations food agency accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, in what the territory’s health ministry has called one of the deadliest days for aid-seekers in more than 21 months of war.
In response, 28 nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, issued a joint statement on Monday with “a simple, urgent message: the war in Gaza must end now.”
The statement by the U.S. allies and partners across the globe condemned Israel’s tightly-controlled aid distribution method, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s U.S.-backed government of the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children.”
“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the statement said. “The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”
▪ The New York Times: Over the weekend, Israeli soldiers shot Palestinians near an Israeli-backed aid site and a U.N. convoy. Both episodes pointed to Israel’s refusal to allow new governance structures to emerge.
▪ The Guardian: The World Health Organization said the Israeli military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Gaza on Monday.
UKRAINE: Russia and Ukraine will hold a new round of peace talks in Istanbul on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed. Zelensky proposed a new round of talks over the weekend, days Trump threatened Russia with “severe” sanctions if there was no ceasefire within 50 days.
Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least two people and injured 15 others in Kyiv just hours before Britain and Germany led a meeting to discuss Trump’s plan for NATO allies to provide weapons for Ukraine. Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal urged allies to speed up deliveries of American air defense systems under the plan put forward by Trump.
Opinion
- The Fed must be independent, former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen write in The New York Times.
- Here’s the most baffling part of the Republican budget bill, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) writes in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
The Closer
And finally… 🦕 What do you hear when you imagine dinosaur noises? A roar? A screech? A growl? In reality, they might have been closer to a chirp, scientists have found.
Researchers are heralding the discovery of Pulaousaurus, a fossilized herbivorous dinosaur from China that has a surprisingly birdlike throat. Its anatomy provides a clue that the origins of birdsong could go as far back as the beginning of dinosaurs themselves.
But what did Pulaousaurus sound like?
“We don’t know,” Xing Xu, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and an author of the paper, told The New York Times. “It could be some strange noise. It’s hard to predict.”
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