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THE BIG PICTURE
Happy Thursday! The GOP is eating itself alive this week…
Fauci turns the tables on Rand Paul and leaves Republicans empty-handed
Trump's own AG pick got torpedoed by his own party
Ken Paxton is so toxic that Republican money won't touch him
Record-low approval numbers from Trump's own base just dropped
And Mamdani just clawed back $104 million that delivery apps had been stealing from workers
BEFORE WE DIVE IN: Notice News is 100% independent — no billionaire owner, no algorithm deciding what you see. That only works because readers fund it directly. Become a paid subscriber to keep it that way.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS
1. Fauci pleads the Fifth — and makes Rand Paul look like a fool
Dr. Anthony Fauci, 85, showed up to Rand Paul's Senate hearing Wednesday, called Paul's obsession with him "unhinged," an "obvious obsession," and accused him of trying to intimidate and embarrass him.
He then invoked the Fifth Amendment for the rest of the session.
Paul, who subpoenaed Fauci and has spent years publicly demanding his arrest, got nothing.
Senator Bernie Moreno screamed "who the fuck do you think you were" at an 85-year-old immunologist — the same Moreno who has said nothing about his daughter's alleged abuse by Republican Rep. Max Miller. Senator Josh Hawley, attempting to score points on Fauci's Fifth Amendment invocation, accidentally reminded everyone that Trump himself has spent years pleading the Fifth.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear noted that Rand Paul wants to force an 85-year-old Fauci to speak publicly while refusing to ask the same of 84-year-old Mitch McConnell, who has been hospitalized for six weeks with no public accounting.
The hearing produced zero new information about COVID and approximately four new reasons to be embarrassed for the Republican Party. Andy Cohen said it best…
2. Trump humiliated as Republicans torpedo his personal lawyer’s AG confirmation — and Epstein survivors show up to finish the job
The Senate Judiciary Committee vote to advance Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination was postponed at the eleventh hour after GOP Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis — both lame ducks, both done playing nice — refused to back him without written proof that Trump's $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" is dead.
Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer turned acting AG, has verbally said the fund is dead but refused to put it in writing — and admitted under questioning that it could be resurrected.
Cornyn's morning meeting with Blanche was canceled; when cornered in the hallway, he told CNN he was "not prepared to vote yes."
Meanwhile, Epstein survivors delivered bound copies of 3.5 million Epstein files directly to Judiciary Committee offices, launching what they're calling the "Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile."
Blanche, who told survivors to "get to the point" during a meeting this month, is now the man Trump can't get confirmed, can't defend, and apparently can't even get a meeting with his own party's senators.
3. Ken Paxton is broke, radioactive, and polling behind a Democrat in Texas for the first time in a generation
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — the GOP's Senate nominee — is hemorrhaging donor support as major Republican money committees, including the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc., have refused to spend a dollar on his campaign.
The donors who backed his primary opponents haven't changed their minds since Paxton narrowly survived a runoff — not after the extramarital affair, not after the criminal charges for alleged state securities fraud, and not after he was accused of committing voter fraud.
Paxton is now polling behind James Talarico, the progressive Democratic candidate who could become the first Democrat Texas sends to the U.S. Senate since 1993. The Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc. are sitting on their hands.
4. Trump's own party is turning on him, and the numbers are brutal — record-low brutal
A new CNN poll shows Trump's support among Republicans has dropped to 78 percent — his lowest on record — as his own base sours over the economy and the Iran war.
Republican enthusiasm for the next two years of his term has collapsed even harder: just 19 percent say they're enthusiastic, down from 38 percent last spring.
The party is watching its own president crater in real time.
5. Mamdani’s crackdown on delivery apps just handed $104 MILLION back to delivery workers
Mamdani just recovered $104 million in stolen tips for delivery workers.
For years, DoorDash and Uber Eats buried the tip button on their app. It wasn't an accident — it was a design trick to pad their own profits while delivery workers ate the cost.
That changed in January, when Mamdani's administration required every delivery app in NYC to show a clear tip option at checkout, no exceptions.
The results: tips per delivery jumped from $1.18 to $2.29.
New York City's DCWP estimates it cost workers $550 million in stolen tips since 2023. Workers are now on pace to earn $184 million more a year in tips alone — about $2,287 extra per worker, annually.
Big Tech spent years engineering ways to quietly take money out of working people's pockets. New York just made them give it back.
KEPT OUT OF YOUR FEED
What the algorithm buried:
Elon Musk is suing Minnesota to protect his right to make fake nudes of real people
The Democratic establishment is lining up against Wisconsin's Francesca Hong and Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, with centrists insisting progressives can't win swing states. The New Republic has receipts that say otherwise
Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist running for Wisconsin governor, is making free childcare the centerpiece of a primary campaign that's turning heads
Lindsey Graham, in newly unearthed documentary footage, told Netanyahu he should "pay me tons of shekels" for helping him fight ICC war crimes charges — CNN's Kaitlan Collins could not hide her face
A right-wing UFC fighter compared the vibe at a Trump rally to Hitler — and added "I'm not even f*cking joking"
Ted Cruz went on Fox News to dunk on socialists and accidentally described Trump perfectly
When the guy who thought Sandy Hook was fake wants Trump impeached, maybe Congress should start paying attention
Here's one where Trump really outdid himself at Lindsey Graham's funeral — and not in a good way
Kash Patel's $10 million lawsuit against a blogger who called him a "googly-eyed Kremlin b*tch" was thrown out by a federal judge — and the blogger said it again
The Trump administration is asking Congress for $10 million more to cover the disaster that was his ‘Great American State Fair’ — on top of the $150 million already allocated
A Wisconsin brewery had its liquor license revoked by state officials months after it promised free beer the day Trump dies — the owner says he's not cutting off the kegs
Sam Forstag — smoke jumper, union organizer, Democratic candidate — is polling in a dead heat against a Republican incumbent in MONTANA
The deadline passed for Trump to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its birthright citizenship ruling — he didn't file
The DNC was scammed out of $28,860 by someone impersonating Chair Ken Martin — in February 2025, while the party was already hemorrhaging funds and credibility
NOTICE POLLING
Yesterday we asked, Should Mitch McConnell be forced to resign if he doesn't publicly address his health by August 3?
98% OF YOU SAID YES:
“He should be fired. He has been a no show for over a month, still collecting his pay from the tax payers. ”
- twoasps
“Absolutely. This entire administration has turned into a clown show. Even this baby step would be in the right direction. ”
- callajr.jc
“He is incapable of doing his job. He will never return to work, whether it is because of health-related issues or the fact that he is actually dead. This is deceitful, and just one more example of how Republicans are unfit for leadership and only fit for evil and greed.”
- helenaklm
“This guy has happily made it possible for maga to rise to power and maga is using him as a foil to opposition and re stack the deck …once again cementing his legacy”
- cdmalin
That’s all for today — we will see you tomorrow!
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