Pelosi Fills Gop Leadership Vacuum

“The United States last week secretly shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces immediately used the weapons to attack a Russian military airfield in Crimea last Wednesday and Russian troops in the country’s southeast overnight on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports.

Brian Beutler: “Ahead of Thursday’s Supreme Court argument over Donald Trump’s claim to immunity for everything he did while president, the New York Times published a stirring call for the Supreme Court to rule against Trump with haste and in no uncertain terms—so that Trump can’t tee up a new series of dilatory appeals, and the case can go to trial before the election…” “The author was Liz Cheney.” “I’m obviously glad Cheney’s out there making this case.

Theodore Schleifer reports Elon Musk “has made it known that he is considering either endorsing Trump after the summer — or at least making some kind of formal statement opposing Joe Biden — beyond his hourly diatribes on X.”

Lara Trump told Fox News that the RNC will have poll watchers who can actually touch ballots at polling places on election day. Said Trump: “We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers – people standing in polling locations – but people who can physically handle the ballots.” She added: “So, there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations and the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in.

Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-NJ), who represented New Jersey in the House for more than a decade, has died at the age of 65, The Hill reports.

“For the third week in a row, lawmakers return to the Arizona Capitol on Wednesday with abortion dominating their agendas. Even when it’s not on the agenda,” the Arizona Republic reports. “Democrats say they will try again to move for a repeal of the 1864 near-total abortion ban that was revived earlier this month by the state Supreme Court.” New York Times: “The previous attempts to undo the Civil War-era ban ended in chaotic failure after Republican leaders beat back efforts by Democrats and a handful of members of their own party.”