THE BIG PICTURE
Happy Tuesday and happy primary day! Here’s what on tap today:
Democrats haven't polled this well in Texas in decades — and James Talarico is why
NYC just posted its safest seven months ever — and Mamdani built the infrastructure to do it
Hasan Piker hits the campaign trail with a simple demand: prosecute Trump and ICE
ICE is building a DNA database of nearly a million immigrants — most of them have no criminal record
Trump’s latest lie on Iran: the Strait of Hormuz will be "completely open, literally by tomorrow"
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS
1. Democrats haven't polled this well in Texas in decades — and James Talarico is why
CNN analyst Harry Enten said Monday that Democrats have their "best looking" polling in decades for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, pointing specifically to James Talarico's race as the reason.
Talarico — the former Texas state rep who built a national following by taking on the Texas GOP on the floor with the kind of directness most Democrats reserve for fundraising emails — is running against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, who just spent the last week being publicly humiliated by Trump over the slush fund fight.
And new polling this morning shows Talarico with a slim lead.
Cornyn is now heading into a general election having angered both Trump's base and the Democrats he was supposedly standing up to. Talarico doesn't need Texas to be blue — he needs the environment to be right, and between Cornyn's bad week and the first pro-Democrat economic polling in ten years, it's getting there.
2. NYC just posted its safest seven months ever — and Mamdani built the infrastructure to do it
New York City recorded its fewest shootings, shooting victims, and murders in the first seven months of any year on record. Major crime is down 12.7% citywide in July alone, with declines across every category and every borough.
Crime had been trending down in NYC, but it accelerated after Mamdani created the city’s first-ever Office of Community Safety. He appointed a Deputy Mayor to unify violence prevention, mental health response, hate crime prevention, and victim services — programs that previously operated in silos under every prior administration.
Mental health calls now go to trained clinicians, not armed officers.
The Bronx saw a 12.5% drop. Public housing had its safest seven-month stretch on record. Retail theft fell 9.2%.
Yes, the downward trend started before Mamdani. The permanent infrastructure to sustain it didn't exist until he built it.
3. Hasan Piker hits the campaign trail with a simple demand: prosecute Trump and ICE
Streaming star Hasan Piker stepped off Twitch and onto the campaign trail in Michigan this spring, and when reporters asked what he wanted in the Democratic platform, he didn't hedge: arrest and prosecute every corrupt Trump official, and every ICE agent who broke the law on the job.
Piker has been campaigning alongside progressive Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, drawing block-long lines at Michigan State and the University of Michigan — and immediate condemnation from establishment Dems like Reps. Mallory McMorrow and Hillary Scholten, who cited Piker's past inflammatory remarks.
El-Sayed's response was to keep him on stage anyway, betting that Piker's grip on disengaged young voters is worth the party infighting.
The backlash from inside the Democratic tent tells you everything you need to know.
4. ICE is building a DNA database of nearly a million immigrants — most of them have no criminal record
ICE added roughly 920,000 DNA profiles into the FBI's criminal investigation database in 2025 alone — more than 2,700 profiles every day — and most of those people have never been charged with a crime.
The profiles went into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, a database built for criminal investigations. CBP collected DNA from at least 1.36 million people between October 2020 and December 2024 — and ICE has now blown past even that rate.
Among those in the database: 492 children under age 14, including 21 five-year-olds. "None of the families at Dilley have been convicted of a crime," Representatives Castro, Stanton, and Barragán said in a joint statement. "They do not belong in a database meant for violent criminals, especially children."
ICE has also begun prosecuting immigrants who refuse to submit a DNA sample.
5. Trump claims the Strait of Hormuz will be "completely open, literally by tomorrow" — Iran says they're not even talking to him
Trump stood at a press conference Monday and promised the Strait of Hormuz would be open "literally by tomorrow" — a claim Iran's foreign ministry immediately shot down, saying they're not currently in talks with the U.S. at all.
Iran's spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran is in final discussions with Oman, not Washington, to open the strait. Trump's response: call Iran's leadership "unbelievably duplicitous" and promise progress anyway.
This is not a one-off. Trump has teased an imminent Iran deal more than three dozen times since the war began six months ago. Every single one went nowhere.
"We're gonna find out today or tomorrow. I mean, they're gonna go quickly, one way or another," Trump said — which is what a person says when they have no idea what's happening.
KEPT OUT OF YOUR FEED
What the algorithm buried:
Yesterday’s link was broken on this one — fixed here: Mary Trump says her uncle has lost one of his core political superpowers
The Pentagon is crowdsourcing ideas over email for how to fight Trump's Iran war
Tomi Lahren is siding with Andy Beshear over Mitch McConnell's disappearance
The National Park Service's own review found Trump's "triumphal arch" will adversely affect 37 historic landmarks
A federal judge blocked Trump's policy barring nonpartisan groups from helping new citizens register to vote
BP posted blockbuster profits this quarter while wildfires burned through Spain and France and heat domes pushed U.S. temperatures over the brink
At World Pride in Amsterdam, a Trump-and-Putin float became the talking point of the weekend
An ex-Trump aide told HuffPost the White House is "gaslighting" its own supporters right now
Missouri Republicans put a sneaky ballot measure on Tuesday's primary that would let a single rural district veto the entire state's will
For the first time since 2017, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on the economy — and the poll numbers are brutal
Lindsey Graham's sister just told Fox News her top Senate priority is the one thing Trump can't stand to talk about
The water inside an ICE facility looked like it had something alive swimming in it — and a detainee caught it on video
Mamdani just announced a plan to turn 30% of NYC into a forest — and it's actually kind of genius
Turns out the Lincoln Memorial pool was always peeling — and now Trump wants to fire the woman who admitted it
House Ethics just released a 25-page report on what Rep. Chuck Edwards did to his young female staffers — and the Ed Sheeran part alone is a lot
And here's what happens when you declare yourself the champion of a golf tournament —at your own golf course
And if you feel like fighting in the Facebook comments this morning, we could use some backup on these posts:
Dana Bash’s brutal comeback to RFK Jr. was too good to ignore
NOTICE POLLING
Yesterday we asked, Why does someone need 300 bank accounts — money laundering, or something else?
A FULL 100% OF YOU SAID MONEY LAUNDERING:
“I believe the bank. I'm sure this allegation wasn't made lightly. There must be something suspicious going on in and between those accounts for the bank to make this move.”
- lamakul
“Anyone else would be prosecuted! Why do these grifters have a permanent Get Out of Jail Free card??????”
- ewodar
“Trump's many criminal activities are being exposed for all to see, and (if he lives long enough), he may finally be sent to prison, where he belongs!”
- cdmalin
That’s all for today — we will see you tomorrow!
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