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Inside Washington

Could Black voters change their minds about Abdul El-Sayed?

In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed has consistently polled ahead of his opponent, the establishment-backed Representative Haley Stevens. But there’s one demographic that El-Sayed hasn’t yet won over—a crucial one not just in Tuesday’s election, but for the general election in November: Black voters, who make up roughly a quarter of the state’s Democratic electorate. 

The big question is why that is. 

Some political analysts have suggested that Black voters support Stevens because of her association with the Democratic establishment, and they are wary of progressives like El-Sayed, whose rhetoric can come across as “burn it all down.” But it’s not that simple, said Vincent Hutchings, diversity and social transformation professor at the University of Michigan. “I think the notion that this is somehow indicative of an ideological split is probably overstated,” he said.

Instead, Hutchings said, Black voters are likely following cues from trusted members of the party establishment, like Representative Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus who endorsed Stevens. “I know what it takes to energize Democratic voters. I know she has what it takes to energize Democratic voters, and we need that,” Clyburn said alongside Stevens at a Teamsters hall in Detroit on July 24.

Some Black voters may favor Stevens because of her association with President Barack Obama; though Obama hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the primary, Stevens’s supporters have spent $5 million to air an advertisement nearly 4,000 times where Obama praises her work on the U.S. Auto Rescue Task Force. The ad is funded by United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, which has so far spent $30 million to support Stevens’s campaign.

There’s a “disconnect,” Hutchings said, between the fact that Black voters often embrace the “most leftist racial and economic policies in the party,” yet also often vote for the more moderate, establishment candidate. But his answer to that contradiction is simple: Black voters, like all voters, “are frequently not familiar with the actual platforms of the candidates.” Instead, they pay attention to crucial endorsements.

“That’s why it’s a mistake to think, ‘Oh, well, looks like there’s a divide in the Democratic Party between the quote-unquote ‘progressive forces’ and the quote-unquote ‘establishment forces,’ and it looks like Black voters are on the side of the quote-unquote ‘establishment,’” he said. “That’s an easy story to tell. I get why people tell it. It seems to map onto reality, but only until you scratch a little beneath the surface.”

Some Black voters could also be put off by progressive candidates who speak too adamantly against the Democratic establishment, explained Christopher Towler, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento, and the director of the Black Voter Project. “A lot of progressive candidates who follow the [Senator Bernie] Sanders mold and are trying to break away from the party have to be very careful about alienating Black voters,” he said. “Many Black voters, especially the ones who vote in primaries, associate the Democratic Party with civil rights gains.” Criticizing the party and its establishment too adamantly could backfire, he explained.

Both Towler and Hutchings mentioned Sanders’s 2020 presidential primary run as an example of these same issues playing out. In Michigan, then-candidate Joe Biden walloped Sanders, winning every county in the state. Biden picked up 73 delegates to Sanders’s 52. It was a marked regression from Sanders’s performance in 2016, when he won the majority of Michigan’s counties and beat Hillary Clinton in the state. Biden’s victory in the state is partially attributed to Black voters showing up for him. A similar story played out in the South; in South Carolina, Sanders finished with a measly 17 percent of the Black vote, dealing a death blow to his campaign. In Michigan, Sanders has been a major supporter of El-Sayed’s campaign.

“Black voters are very strategic and practical with their votes, even in primaries,” said Towler. “If there’s not a candidate that they’re not completely in love with … they’re going to vote for who they think will win the election.” It’s a shrewd cost-benefit analysis focused on avoiding a Republican victory at all costs.

Both Stevens and El-Sayed have worked to court Black voters, spending countless Sunday mornings at Black churches across the state and highlighting their respective endorsements from Black leaders. El-Sayed picked up an endorsement from the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity in early July, and has the support of some younger or more progressive members of the Congressional Black Caucus, like Representatives Summer Lee, Maxwell Frost, and Bonnie Watson Coleman (among others). Some observers think El-Sayed has a good chance with these younger Black voters, who might care less about an endorsement from Clyburn or a sound bite featuring Obama. 

Meanwhile, Stevens surrogates have pushed narratives that El-Sayed is at odds with prominent Black political figures like Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris. Another United Democracy Project–funded mailer features a photo of Michelle Obama and quotes El-Sayed calling her work on childhood obesity as “uninspired” and “ineffectual.” Though the ad aimed to paint El-Sayed as a misogynist, Towler said that it could hurt him among Black voters, as well. 

El-Sayed has also needed to emphasize his support of Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign. In February 2024, El-Sayed pledged to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary to protest then-President Biden’s actions in Gaza. When Harris took over the nomination, El-Sayed endorsed her, but Stevens’s campaign continues to emphasize that original “uncommitted” vote.

Whoever wins Tuesday’s primary will need Black voters to propel them to a victory against Republican Mike Rogers in November. “You need to really focus on protecting the Black community from Trump and MAGA Republicans and the GOP’s agenda, which has become more and more anti-Black and focused on rolling back the racial progress that this country has made since the civil rights era,” said Towler, offering advice for whoever wins the primary. Black voters tend to be skeptical of big policy promises, Towler added. He says candidates should focus on stopping the GOP, “and then we can start to talk about what type of policy we can provide.” That contrasts with El-Sayed’s campaign slogan: “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for All.”

If, as polls suggest, El-Sayed is headed to a primary victory, Towler isn’t concerned about how Black voters will respond, and pointed to other examples of progressives who might not have won the Black vote in their primary but still won over the demographic during their general elections. “This again goes back to the practicality of Black voters when choosing candidates. They’re not going to vote for the Republican,” he said. Whether you’re talking about Zohran Mamdani in New York, James Talarico in Texas, or Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan—all of whom have failed to convince Black voters in the primary—the same principle applies, Towler said: When it comes to the general election, “Black voters are going to come home.” 

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

Other (i.e., non-Michigan) stories to watch in Tuesday’s primaries

While the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan has gotten most of the attention, there’s plenty to watch in the four other states with primaries on Tuesday: Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington. In Washington—a top-two primary system—Kshama Sawant and Melissa Chaudhry are challenging incumbent Representative Adam Smith from his left. In Missouri, the headline race is the heated rematch between sitting Representative Wesley Bell and former Representative Cori Bush, the erstwhile Squad member whom Bell, with significant funding from AIPAC, defeated in 2024 by a little under six points. Will the 2026 climate, in which progressives have notched more wins than in past cycles, help Bush prevail this time? There isn’t much polling on this one.

In Virginia, four different Dems—Adam Dunigan, Mo Seifeldein, Michael Duffin, and Lorena Bruner—are challenging incumbent Representative Don Beyer, in another race without much polling. Meanwhile, Democrat Eugene Vindman will find out who his Republican opponent will be in the competitive November race for the 7th congressional district, once represented by Abigail Spanberger. 

In Kansas, Democratic voters will choose between gubernatorial contenders Cindy Holscher and Ethan Corson. There have been some weird side stories in this one involving the fight for term-limited Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s either endorsement or nonintervention, but substantively, data centers are proving to be a big issue. (Holscher backs a temporary pause on construction, while Corson favors more modest policies around energy and water use.) Polling’s pretty limited on this race as well, although Holscher was well ahead in two polls conducted before the campaign really heated up. All that and much more, to be decided Tuesday. 

Elsewhere:

• David Dayen at The American Prospect looks at the private equity firms and life insurance companies whose fortunes are increasingly tied to the AI bubble—with potentially expensive consequences for taxpayers in the event of a bailout. 
• For other reading that will definitely not help your anxiety: Try The Washington Post’s data-filled feature on law enforcement officials using Flock cameras to stalk women. 

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

A coalition of climate advocates, watchdog organizations, and other groups on Monday denounced the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to “rescind its 2024 climate disclosure rule”—a move that would “undermine transparency in capital markets” and help risk-exposed companies avoid important disclosures. 

The Center for American Progress submits a comment letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative arguing that the Trump administration’s “Board of Trade” plan—a bilateral body established “to ensure that trade with China is more balanced and beneficial for Americans,” according to Ambassador Jamieson Greer—does nothing to “address the clear and present danger presented by the growing tide of Chinese industrial overcapacity.” The letter urges the administration to “prioritize working with like-minded partners and allies” rather than slapping tariffs on them.

On Wednesday at 1 p.m., the Roosevelt Institute hosts a Zoom panel on “What Social Security’s Shortfall Is Really Telling Us About the Economy.” Panelists include Kathryn Anne Edwards, Kate Bahn, Bradley Hardy, and Betsey Stevenson.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Four Questions For: Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute

Interview by Indigo Olivier  

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: My primary focus right now is on ending the disastrous Iran war and on preparing the U.S. for a multipolar world, and the world for a non-unipolar America.

Q: You’ve spent years arguing for diplomacy with Iran. What’s the hardest part of doing that in Washington?

A: After decades of animosity and mistrust, it isn’t simply a policy shift that is needed to resolve the tensions, but a paradigm shift. A fundamental rethinking of the U.S.’s own interest, its image of the other side, and its fundamental assumptions about what the other side wants and is willing to give up. At the same time, the enmity essentially runs on autopilot with a path dependency that renders any serious rethinking very difficult.

Q: Looking back over the last year or two, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

A: It is difficult to be happy or proud of anything in this current situation. We should not be in this war. People have died needlessly, immense amounts of money have been wasted on another war, and the pathways to a diplomatic breakthrough have become increasingly narrow. Until this war has been ended, it’s premature to talk about accomplishments.

Q: What has it been like to find yourself at the center of a controversy over your work and your immigration status?

A: Given how tense and politically charged this issue is in Washington, it unfortunately comes with the territory that any push for peace will be punished by those who prefer conflict. And on this issue, the gloves have always been off, sadly. Until a resolution to the U.S.-Iran conflict has been found, I don’t expect the political charge of this issue to recede, which means that many of us in this space will pay a personal price for challenging the forces of war. 

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

On the subject of Michigan: Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg coined the term “Reagan Democrat” in 1985 by interviewing and studying the voters of what paradigmatically swingy suburban Detroit county? (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.) 

President Trump has exhausted almost all of the U.S. military’s long-range precision missile supply in the Iran war. 

Reuters reports that key stockpiles of Precision Strike Missiles and Army Tactical Missile Systems have “virtually all” been used up. These are highly accurate, long-range missiles that cost over $1 million each and have been used on targets inside Russia amid the war in Ukraine. The U.S. has also used up nearly half of its Tomahawk missiles, according to sources within the administration. 

The depletion of these missiles means that any escalation in Iran would require piloted bombing missions, which are riskier and put fighter pilots in harm’s way. And it leaves the U.S. unable to deter other major adversaries, such as Russia and China. In a statement, the White House denied the report, saying the U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”

“Our defense companies ​are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said. 

The White House’s statement didn’t specifically mention precision missiles. While Reuters noted that certain types of weapons, such as artillery shells and other missiles, are being produced at record levels, that still may not be enough for a long-term, protracted war.  

Trump’s decision last week not to launch new strikes on Iran was partly due to warnings from military advisers about the depleted missile stockpiles, as well as pressure from U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf. Last week, the Department of Defense circulated a memo asking for ideas on “creative” ways to pressure Iran. Now we know that’s because the conventional way of long-range missile strikes has been exhausted. 

Republican Representative Max Miller—accused of holding a gun to his wife’s head, scalding her with boiling water, and breaking his two-year-old daughter’s collarbone—has now been accused of sharing pictures of that same daughter’s genitals. This would be considered child sex abuse material, adding yet another disturbing allegation to Miller’s plate. 

It seems that Miller inadvertently shared the picture on Sunday while using Dropbox to upload police reports, recorded conversations, medical records, and a 20-minute indignant video denying his ex-wife Emily Moreno’s abuse allegations. 

“The first time Miller shared the folder, it contained private images of Miller and Ms. Moreno’s daughter and left her name unredacted. At least one of those images could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) because the daughter’s genitals appear to be visible,” Moreno’s lawyers wrote in a letter to Miller’s legal team on Monday. 

“We write to demand an explanation about how this occurred,” the letter continued. “Whose idea was it to share this intimate image of the child? Why did your firm share it? Did you or your firm vet the images before sharing them? Did anyone? Who? Who removed the images from the second folder and why? Was it because someone realized that it was ill-advised (and in the case of the potential CSAM image, illegal) to share these images with the world?”

This news is the latest domino to fall for Miller. On Sunday, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, Miller’s ex-father-in-law, finally came out against Miller, saying he needed “serious psychological help” and calling on him to step down from Congress and abandon his current reelection campaign. 

“He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter,” Moreno wrote on X. “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them.”

Then on Monday, Miller received a restraining order from his ex-girlfriend, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. And that same day, President Trump—who was initially supportive of Miller—reportedly called him directly to tell him that “things aren’t looking good” for his campaign. 

Miller continues to deny virtually every accusation his ex-wife has made, even as the Dropbox release that allegedly included his daughter’s genitals also shows him describing throwing boiling water on Emily as a “playful incident” and her alleging that she found needles next to his bed, which he did not deny.

Miller, who worked for the presidential campaigns of both Marco Rubio and Trump in 2016,  remains in office and continues to run for reelection, as the vast majority of his Republican colleagues have displayed extreme cowardice by either ignoring the situation entirely or supporting him. Miller has made it abundantly clear that he has no plans to step down. As of now, he will face off against Democrat Brian Poindexter in the general election for his House seat. The GOP has until Wednesday to replace him on the ballot.

Here is the full video from Congressman Max Miller's live this morning—in the event he decides to delete it.

Watch it. Share it. Help make sure as many people as possible see him expose himself with his own words. pic.twitter.com/aEn7SLHOFJ

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) August 2, 2026

Apple says its trade secrets investigation into OpenAI has widened. In a new court filing, Apple claims additional former staff may have retained or accessed confidential information.

⚡ Quick Take

• Batman: Caped Crusader is one of the best animated versions of the character in years, and we got to chat with the show’s creators on this neo-noir detective.

Batman: Caped Crusader was Bruce Timm’s grand return to the character he reenergized for animation almost 35 years ago, only with a film noir flavor. The Prime Video series takes place vaguely in the late ’40s or early ’50s, and imagines a Dark Knight in the era of his origin. Only much darker than the comics allowed back then, aside from that first year of stories. But as much as Timm’s fingerprints are all over this series, the true heavy lifting comes from showrunners James Tucker (Batman: Brave and the Bold, Justice League) and Geoffrey Thorne (Eyes of Wakanda). At San Diego Comic-Con, Nerdist sat down with the showrunners, along with other journalists, and discussed what makes Caped Crusader so special.

Prime Video

To start, we asked both executive producers about one relationship on the series that has really changed the most from the traditional lore. And that’s regarding Batman’s loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth. In Caped Crusader, Batman has a very different relationship with his Alfred, who he just calls by his last name, Pennyworth. It’s not a warm relationship at all, but rather icy. 
What made them decide to do such a different iteration of such an iconic relationship?

Prime Video/Warner Bros. Animation

James Tucker answered, saying, “Well, here’s the deal. Bruce Timm told me how he was going to have the Batman origin shown in episode three [of season one], the Catwoman episode, where we see that Bruce sees the gunman, and he purposely doesn’t tell the cops. He’s absorbed all the pain, and he’s in a bad way. 
Alfred, at that point, is like the chauffeur. He’s not the man servant yet. So if Bruce Wayne is 10, Alfred is maybe 21 or 22. 
He is a young guy. So he can’t be that father figure. And so, all young Bruce has ever known of Alfred is as a servant. 
And so the trajectory of the show after that is, how does Batman show more humanity as a character growing? He’s going to grow into calling him Alfred. He’s going to grow into confiding in him like a peer. 


Prime Video

But right now, he’s in a messed-up place. And so he has closed himself off to all humanity. And like Bruce Timm said in the first season, everyone in his world is a tool to him. 
He doesn’t see people yet. He sees everyone around him as, “How can I use that person to help me on my mission?” And that’s his journey. Again, if this were a screwball comedy, or a movie set in the ’30s, they always called their servants by their last name. And so, you know, I mean, Bruce was probably 20 before he realized Alfred was a person. He’s just “Pennyworth.” And the thing is, Pennyworth doesn’t take offense to this. But we’re so used to them being a father and son surrogate that it’s like, “Oh, why is he so mean and dismissive to him?” But just wait. Just wait.

So why the darker Bruce? Tucker said, “His roots were in noir, but as the character got more popular, they wanted it to appeal to kids. So that’s where Robin enters, and the stories became lighter. But if you look at the first two years of the comics, they were pretty dark.” Thorne added, “Batman was rough back then! 
He threw bad guys out of a moving car in front of the police station! He shot people, and he hanged people!” Tucker reiterated, “We were taking our series and jumping off those first few issues where he was more violent. Before Robin. But all of our influences come from what’s going on at that time, the gangster movies, and film noir was beginning. 
Universal Monsters movies, all those were things we thought we could pull in now to this Batman, that the comic book had a little bit of.

Prime Video/Warner Bros. Animation

Thorn reminded us, “He also didn’t have all the gadgets that he has now, because even with a super genius, most of it wasn’t invented yet. 
So there’s no ‘Oh, quickly, send me my robot car, and it will do this for me. No, ‘I have infrared goggles, and I can look through walls.’ None of that. 
He’s just a guy in a suit with some stuff. And weirdly, it makes him tougher, and it forces you to remember he has a brain in there. Like, he actually has to figure things out.” Tucker added
”He doesn’t have a computer. Unlike B:TAS, where they needed certain things to move the story along. We thought, ‘Let’s really challenge ourselves; this is a world where there are no computers, there’s no software. He’s not “Bat God” in this, right? He has not anticipated everything. 
Yeah, he gets shot and hurt. Makes mistakes.”

Almost inarguably, Batman has the best villains in all of comics. So when it came to new takes on old favorites, the creators viewed this as a delightful challenge. James Tucker had no problem not leaning on older iterations. He said, “You know, it was easy not to do what we had already done. We just were like, ‘We already did that.’ It was like that Simpsons joke [on South Park]. Simpsons already did it. 
B:TAS has already done that. And I’ve done every kind of Batman, from Adam West, to Brave and the Bold, I did the movies, the DTVs, and they all have different tones. There was more of a challenge, but it was also more fun.”

Prime Video/Warner Bros. Animation

When it comes to Batman villains, the subject of the Joker had to come up. In season two, he’s gone back to his roots, in a version voiced by House of the Dragon’s Matthew Needham. Tucker reminded us that this Joker goes back to his roots, saying, “The comic book Joker that first appeared was influenced by German expressionism, silent movies, Conrad Veidt. He was a direct descendant of that. And we went further. 
What if he was slightly European? What if he’s almost a silent character in that he doesn’t talk a lot, because he’s not Mark Hamill’s Joker. And we make him scarier by making him talk less. 
And so that’s an instance of reimagining the character with the DNA that they started out with, but not where they ended up, but where they could have gone in another direction.”

Prime Video/Warner Bros. Animation

Speaking of changes to Batman rogues, one of the big changes was Caped Crusader’s iteration of the Riddler. Instead of a criminal who trades in riddles, he’s a gangster who “riddles his enemies with bullets.” James Tucker revealed that they were inspired by the actor Richard Widmark, as the gangster Udo in the 1947 film Kiss of Death. “You may have seen a guy pushing an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs. Anyway… 
That’s the guy. Frank Gorshin based his Riddler [in Batman ’66] on Richard Widmark, his character in that movie. So we were like, “Oh, let’s make Riddler like that character in that movie. That’s the origin.” There are still a metric ton of Bat-baddies that could be reinvented for Caped Crusader. As Geoffrey Thorne said, “We could literally kill every villain, every episode, every season, and have 10 seasons of Good Batman to tell.”

Batman: Caped Crusader seasons one and two are currently streaming on Prime Video.

The post BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER Creators on Making a New (Old) Dark Knight appeared first on Nerdist.

Notably, the company saw its subscriber base swell by 9% in the second quarter despite raising prices in several regions this year.

This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 6:31 a.m.

Here’s what’s happening on Santa Cruz County roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 6:30 a.m. on August 4

• Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in the San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic due to ongoing work. The closure is expected to end on Aug. 31.
   
• Alternating lanes are closed on Highway 9 at Riverdale Park in the San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closure is expected to last until April 30, 2027.
   
• A lane on west Highway 129 at Harvest Drive in Watsonville is closed for utility work. The closure is expected to end at 3:01 p.m. today.

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Tuesday morning traffic: Lane closures on Highway 9, Highway 129 appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

The legislation lays the groundwork for a potential overhaul of India's zero-merchant-discount-rate regime, under which businesses have not paid fees to accept UPI payments since 2020.

On Aug. 4, 1961, former President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, making today his 65th birthday. Here’s a look back at his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009. “I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you’ve bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors,” Obama opened his inaugural address. “In the year of America’s birth…

Source

CBS’s 60 Minutes had the scoop on Jeffrey Epstein’s sketchy financials—before the Bari Weiss–run network fired the reporter fronting the investigation.

A new report by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden revealed that Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America enabled Epstein by permitting millions in suspicious transactions over the course of the sex offender’s criminal career.

Deutsche Bank AG failed to promptly notify authorities of more than $250 million in questionable transfers tied to Epstein, according to Wyden’s report. Those included cash amounts to pay women in Russia and Eastern Europe—of which the bank retroactively informed U.S. officials after Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges in July 2019.

Bank of America Corp. reported $170 million in Epstein-related transactions tied to billionaire Leon Black. The bank, according to Wyden’s report, noted years later that the transactions had “no apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose.”

JPMorgan Chase, as previously reported, processed more than $1 billion for Epstein, despite internal concerns at the bank.

Yet former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had the story months ago, having interviewed Wyden in March about her own investigation into Wall Street banks’ and the U.S. Virgin Islands government’s relationship with Epstein, according to Bloomberg.

But the report, and Wyden’s interview, would never air: Alfonsi was fired by CBS News leadership in the midst of a major network shakeup two months later, in May, when she publicly criticized Weiss’s editorial grip on the storied news magazine. Weiss had blocked a segment Alfonsi previously reported on Donald Trump’s deportation program and El Salvador’s notoriously lethal CECOT prison.

A spokesperson for CBS News confirmed to Bloomberg that Alfonsi had interviewed Wyden earlier this year, but said the story had not been finished by the end of the last 60 Minutes season. The spokesperson did not elaborate on whether the show intended to air the segment during next season.

President Donald Trump reached out to Ohio Representative Max Miller, who is facing allegations that he assaulted his ex-wife and child, to warn him that his candidacy is in jeopardy. 

In a phone call, Trump told Miller that “things aren’t looking good” for the November midterms, Axios reported Monday night. 

While Trump may be delivering—or simply hoping to give the impression of—tough love behind closed doors, the president defended Miller while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office earlier Monday. 

“It’s a very sad thing. I know Max. He’s a good person. I mean, I’ve always thought he was a very good person, and I’m gonna let the families figure that out,” Trump told the press.

The president alluded to knowing the family very well. Before running for office, Miller was a Trump White House aide. Miller married Emily Moreno, his now ex-wife, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2022, and received the president’s official endorsement for Congress that same year.  

Moreno has accused Miller of assaulting her, throwing a pot of boiling water on her, holding a gun to her head, and breaking their two-year-old daughter’s collarbone. Last week, Moreno filed for a new restraining order against her ex-husband, alleging that he’d physically grabbed one of her attorneys and used a profane slur. 

In a statement Sunday, Senator Bernie Moreno, Emily’s father, said that Miller should “not serve in the House of Representatives.” 

“As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter,” Moreno wrote on X. 

Miller responded saying that Moreno’s statement was “all political.”

Miller was dealt another blow Monday night when his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a temporary restraining order against him.

AI has turbocharged an already expanding cloud services market as organizations pour billions into online platforms offering the compute needed to train and run models, swelling the coffers of the established giants. Their latest results show revenue surging alongside capital spending as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft race to add capacity – at least until the AI bubble eventually bursts, of course. Biggest of them all, Amazon disclosed that its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division took in $42.2 billion during its second quarter, ended June 30, 2026. This was an increase of 36.7 percent year-on-year and its fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating growth. It seems like even CEO Andy Jassy could scarcely believe the cloud operator's fortunes, boasting that "AWS is now a $169 billion annualized revenue run rate business, which, for perspective, would place it 24th on the Fortune 500 list if it was a standalone company." Amazon is now upping its forecast for how much capex it will spend this year on expanding its infrastructure, including that needed for those AI workloads. "Earlier this year, we said we plan to invest approximately $200 billion in cash capex in 2026, the majority of which to support AI and AWS," Jassy told analysts on a conference call about its financials. "We now believe we will spend approximately $220 billion in cash capex in 2026, with the higher cost of memory pushing this number up from our prior estimate of about $200 billion. But even at that amount, we will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026, and I believe this dynamic will also be true in 2027 too." "We've done this before in the first era of cloud computing, just over a longer time horizon, where demand built more gradually than it has with AI. But we see the margins and returns in AI tracking what we saw with core at the same point of evolution," Jassy claimed. Google is likewise upping its capex estimates for this year, coming close to Amazon's own massive investments. "We are updating our full year 2026 capex guidance range to $195 to 205 billion, up from our previous estimate of $180 billion to $190 billion. The increase in the range is primarily due to an acceleration in the delivery of capacity to meet growing demand," said Google and Alphabet's chief financial officer, Anat Ashkenazi, during its Q2 earnings call. The company expects this figure to rise significantly again next year, although it declined to be more specific at this stage. "In terms of expenses, the significant increase in our investments and technical infrastructure will continue to put pressure on profit and loss in the form of higher depreciation expense and related datacenter operations costs, such as energy. We also expect to continue hiring in key investment areas such as AI and cloud, and we are investing in marketing to support our AI products," Ashkenazi added. Cloud revenues at the Chocolate Factory were up 82 percent to $24.8 billion for the quarter, driven primarily by GCP, which grew faster than cloud overall, with Core GCP, AI solutions, and AI infrastructure all proving important drivers of growth, according to Ashkenazi. Despite the massive sums involved, she claimed in response to a question that Google just cannot add capacity fast enough. "While we have increased our capacity quite significantly over the past three years, the demand still outpaces that investment. And we are, just like the rest of the industry, working in a supply‑constrained environment, so we're working hard to do this." Microsoft reported commercial cloud revenue of $59.3 billion for the quarter ended June 30 (Q4 FY26), an increase of 27 percent over the same period last year, while revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 43 percent. Microsoft put its expected calendar 2026 capex at approximately $175 billion, about $15 billion below the earlier figure. The change does not reflect a reduction in its planned infrastructure build-out, however, but a shift in accounting treatment as more future datacenter leases are classified as operating rather than finance leases. "Effective at the start of FY27, we are extending the estimated useful lives of our datacenters and office buildings, from 15 to 25 years, reflecting our operating history and expected use of these assets," explained EVP and CFO Amy Hood. "Outside of this useful life impact, our calendar year 2026 capex investment expectations remain unchanged. However, the shift from finance to operating leases adjusts our expectation to approximately $175 billion." More of Redmond's future datacenter leases will shift from finance leases to operating leases as a result of this update. Hood said Microsoft expects capex during the next quarter, Q1 FY27, to exceed $50 billion, including that lease reclassification impact from the useful life update. On paper, those forecasts add up to roughly $595 billion. They are not directly comparable, however: Amazon cites cash capex across several businesses, Alphabet's guidance covers the whole company, and Microsoft's figure reflects its treatment of leases as well as direct expenditure. Even with those caveats, the figures illustrate the extraordinary sums being committed to infrastructure as the cloud giants chase AI demand. Memory, GPUs, and even hard disks are all in short supply because of it, with shipments of PCs and smartphones falling because in many cases the makers simply cannot secure adequate supplies of memory to meet customer demand. It could be argued that one factor in cloud services growth is that enterprises are struggling to get the hardware they need to build out their own infrastructure, so are forced to turn to the cloud. AWS chief Andy Jassy made the same claim earlier this year, saying that shortages are "a further impetus pushing companies who have on-premises infrastructure into the cloud" as "suppliers are prioritizing their very largest customers, which cloud providers are." As Synergy Research revealed last week, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services passed $143 billion a quarter in Q2 of this year, a 43 percent increase on last year, and added up to $500 billion for the last 12 months. The question is, how long can it keep expanding at this rate? ®

The immigration law named after a murdered Georgia college student boosted the administration’s immigration powers. Eighteen months later, some Democrats are answering for it. By Mel Leonor Barclay for The 19th In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s second election, voting for legislation to boost immigration enforcement could have seemed like a safe choice to some Democrats…

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On Tuesday, AI infrastructure company Runware announced the launch of its own modular data center called Sonic Inference Pod.

A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Related | Why the GOP loves to use ‘communism’ as an attack…

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An independent congressional candidate in Tennessee faces four felony vandalism charges after allegedly shooting four automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras between July 14 and 22. According to the Blount County Sheriff's Office (site geo-restricted), Adam Lee Heimerman, 37, is accused of targeting three cameras in Blount County and one in Maryville. Local news reports citing an affidavit say at least one was manufactured by Flock. Police said Heimerman allegedly reached one of the cameras through the grounds of a place of worship while a service was under way. Heimerman is running for election [PDF] to represent Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 3, 2026. One of Heimerman's opponents in the 2nd Congressional District, Republican incumbent Tim Burchett, has also tried to tackle the Flock cameras across the state, albeit through less drastic means. Last week, Burchett introduced a bill that would prevent federal agencies from buying or accessing automated surveillance systems and bar state and local agencies from using federal funds to purchase them, citing Fourth Amendment abuses. The bill would allow individual counties to secure contracts with Flock and install its cameras, but if passed, the proposal would see that the county bears all the costs of doing so. Flock told local news that it welcomed legislation that both increased the guardrails around its tech and retained individual authorities' power to deploy cameras to support law enforcement. The case joins a series of attacks on ALPR cameras across the US amid growing opposition to the technology. From allegations of police officers using the cameras to stalk ex-partners, to controversial ties with ICE and CBP immigration investigations, Flock, the best-known brand of ALPRs in the US, has struggled with continued stories of its tech being abused. Georgia police arrested and fired five officers on suspicion of misusing ALPR cameras "for non-law enforcement purposes" just last month. One Milwaukee police officer was also allegedly caught searching the details of his ex-partner more than 100 times using Flock camera tech. Later, one of the detectives assigned to the investigation was also allegedly caught misusing ALPR data, and had allegedly unlawfully placed a GPS tracker on one of the victims' cars years earlier. The controversies coincide with a spate of physical attacks on ALPR hardware across the US, some carried out by people who regard the technology as unlawful or unconstitutional surveillance. An unidentified arsonist set two Flock cameras on fire in Georgia last month, weeks before a 40-year-old man was caught by regular CCTV cameras destroying ALPRs in California. Steve Eimers, a prominent campaigner for road infrastructure safety, was also recently forced to desist from his efforts to highlight potential legal issues with the poles Flock uses to erect its cameras after supporters started identifying the cameras used in his videos and destroying them. These vandalism cases have barely made a dent in the overall number of Flock cameras that operate across the US. The company does not specify the exact number that are up and running, but estimates range between 80,000 and 120,000 or more. Many police departments claim the technology makes policing crimes ranging from vehicle thefts to murders much easier, as it allows them to track the movements of vehicles with ease. Flock says its technology is used in roughly 5,000 communities across 49 states, although not all of them are sticking by the company amid the many controversies. Los Angeles Police Department, for example, said recently that it would let its Flock contract expire, while others such as Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, canceled their contracts in December. ®

Endeavour Optical Networks is planning to launch the fastest space laser communications system yet built.

At a Tuesday meeting, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will weigh whether to put a half-cent sales tax increase on the November ballot to help weather ongoing financial challenges.

At its peak in 2021, Airtable was valued at over $11 billion, but earlier this year, its shares were said to be trading on the secondary markets at a valuation of $4 billion.

I’ve written before about how US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has ties to an ascendant Christian nationalist movement. Specifically, he attends a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a denomination founded by Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, who has said that women’s suffrage was “a mistake” and suggested that homosexuality should be considered a crime. Hegseth invited Wilson to preach at the Pentagon earlier this year, where he exhorted the troops to renew their focus on Christ.

A senior defense official in Hegseth’s department appears to share these ties—and has expressed Christian nationalist and far-right views on social media. Justin Overbaugh, a retired US Army colonel, currently serves as Deputy Under Secretary of War for Intelligence and Security. According to Overbaugh’s Department of War profile, he is responsible for “overseeing defense intelligence and security agencies and shaping policy to advance national security and military operations.” In other words, the role comes with considerable responsibility and visibility. After being hand-picked by Hegseth, Overbaugh was confirmed with little controversy last September.

Overbaugh is a decorated veteran who led intelligence operations in the Middle East as well as in the United States and Europe for 25 years. Yet despite this extensive experience in sensitive communications, his social media presence has a freewheeling quality about it. Machismo is a central theme: On his personal X account, he frequently posts a black-and-white image of an AK-47, accompanied by the text “Come and Take It.” Another favorite refrain is the phrase, “Weak men create hard times.” In response to a tweet showing a child’s drawing of a soldier killing someone along with the words “I hope you kill a lot of people in the war,” Overbaugh asked in a reply if the child was “old enough to join the Army? If so, have we got an opportunity for him!” He has advocated for people to carry weapons to attend church and referred to lax immigration policies as “suicidal empathy.”

He has advocated for people to carry weapons to attend church and referred to lax immigration policies as “suicidal empathy.”

Overbaugh rails frequently against immigration, sometimes veering into unapologetic extreme nationalism. In February 2025, Overbaugh tweeted, “I love Germany and Germans. I hope Germany remains German.” He included a link to the website of the far-right populist political party in Germany, Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), some factions of which have ties to neo-Nazi movements. He has also tweeted in support of Tommy Robinson, the British far-right, anti-Islam activist who has crusaded against Muslim immigrants in England.

Overbaugh regularly hypes Wilson’s CREC denomination and posts about going to Christ Church DC, which Wilson planted last year in the nation’s capital. He has tweeted links to sermons given by leaders at Wilson’s church in Moscow, Idaho. In keeping with Wilson’s CREC ethos, Overbaugh sometimes advocates for government-endorsed Christianity. In response to a tweet about Texas’ new law that requires Bible stories and verses in public schools, for instance, he tweeted a quote from the Old Testament book of Proverbs: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

Overbaugh’s enthusiasm for Christian nationalist ideals is also apparent in his endorsement of Stephen Wolfe, author of the 2022 book The Case for Christian Nationalism, published by Canon Press, which Wilson founded in the 1980s. In this book, Wolfe argued in favor of  a “civil magistrate” to govern the United States, who “must restrain and punish the public expression of false religion, blasphemy, and heresy.” At a conference a few years back, he argued, “If we say that America is a Judeo-Christian country, then it can’t be a Christian country, okay?”

Last week, Wolfe announced a new project called The Institute of Christian Politics, a training program based in North Carolina “to help lay the intellectual foundation for a renewal of serious Protestant leadership and to prepare gifted young men for responsible service in American institutions and public life,” according to its website. In a video announcing the project, Wolfe tells viewers that Christians “are making real progress in electoral politics and the practical work of government. We have office holders, staffers, organizers, writers, and institutions that train people in the practical art of politics.” But, he says, there is more to be done in connecting “talented young Christians” to “the institutions that shape public thought and national leadership.” That, he says, is where his new project comes in. In response to Wolfe’s tweet announcing the project, Overbaugh replied, “How can I help?”

Outside of social media, Overbaugh has been busy at the Pentagon. In a February hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he vowed to transform the agency “from a cumbersome bureaucracy to an agile organization that can serve as a model for the rest of the government.” A major focus has been a modernization of the National Background Investigation Services, including an expansion of a program that allows agencies to onboard employees “with an interim clearance while awaiting a full investigation.”  

Jacob Bliss, a Pentagon deputy press secretary, did not answer any of the questions Mother Jones emailed for this story; instead, he called Overbaugh “a qualified, patriotic professional” and said the agency was “proud to have him as a political appointee at the Department of War.” In June, the Pentagon declined to comment on my colleague Anna Merlan’s reporting on the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering posting references to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Last year, the department also didn’t respond to Merlan’s request for comment on the hiring of deputy press secretary Kingsley Wilson, who has also expressed extremist beliefs, including support for Germany’s AFD party.