YES: Court HALTS Trump's ballroom

Happy Sunday! A federal appeals court has ordered construction halted on Trump’s ballroom. We’ll get into why, plus:

And we’ve rounded up some other headlines you might have missed. Let’s get into it.

The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general early Saturday morning by a vote of 50-49, with Bill Cassidy of Louisiana providing the deciding vote.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only Republicans to cross over — every Democrat voted no.

Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense attorney through his criminal trials, will now oversee the Justice Department that once prosecuted his client. Trump marked the occasion not with magnanimity but with a public attack on Murkowski, calling her a "traitor.”

Chuck Schumer delivered his signature strongly worded letter.

The $1.8 billion slush fund that drew outcry during Blanche's confirmation process went unaddressed. Expect that to pop up again soon.

A D.C. Circuit panel ruled 2-1 Friday that Trump must halt construction on his $400 million White House ballroom — the one that required demolishing the East Wing.

The court's language was pointed enough to qualify as performance art: "Each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House," the majority wrote, comparing his vision to the Palace of Versailles and noting that even after the British burned the building in 1812, Congress still had to authorize repairs.

Trump responded with a nearly 500-word meltdown on his failing social media platform, declared it a national security threat, and announced he'd appeal to the Supreme Court. The ruling is on hold for 14 days to allow that appeal.

The July jobs report landed like a brick: the U.S. shed 23,000 jobs against economist predictions of an 83,000-job gain — a swing of more than 100,000 in the wrong direction.

The Labor Department also revised May and June figures down by a combined 103,000, meaning the economy was already worse than advertised.

Women bore the entire weight of it: female workers lost 32,000 jobs while men gained 9,000, and 165,000 women exited the labor force entirely. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett went on Fox News and blamed severe winter weather — in July.

Fox’s own anchors couldn't quite sell it.

Trump, for his part, told Punchbowl News that voters are "angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me” — a sentence that will age like milk between now and November 3.

McConnell was reportedly discharged from a rehabilitation facility Thursday after nearly two months of hospitalization — although no one saw him leave or enter his home.

A reporter who showed up outside his Washington home found a healthcare worker on site, a chief of staff earning $226,850 a year who wouldn't answer questions, and an operations director who also declined to explain why the senator hasn't released a video in nearly 60 days.

He holds a Senate seat. His constituents and colleagues are entitled to know whether he is capable of performing his duties — and his $226K gatekeeper's job, apparently, is to make sure they don't find out.

Trump called Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed "full of sh*t" at a Las Vegas rally this week — and El-Sayed did not let that slide. Asked about it on SkyNews Friday, he replied: "At least I don't let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office."

It was a reference to the persistent, well-circulated jokes about Trump's personal hygiene and health as he ages.

Trump also called El-Sayed a "communist," which is the GOP's current all-purpose label for any Democrat who wants working people to have a decent life. El-Sayed's response: he's a gift to Michigan, not the Republican Party.

The ruling class really did not expect the left to start punching back this hard. This comes after El-Sayed flipped the script on Mike Rogers, mocking Rogers’ name right back to him on video.

El-Sayed is running in a state Trump won, against a candidate Trump is personally boosting, and he's not triangulating or softening. He's meeting the attack with the kind of bluntness that base Democratic voters have been begging for since at least 2016.

The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the clearest tests of whether a progressive candidate who fights back can win in a purple state — and El-Sayed is not waiting to find out what happens if you play it safe.

ICE agents parked outside Gerson Turcios's house in Rhinebeck, New York looking for someone else entirely — a man named Jimmy who hadn't lived there in months.

When Turcios, a 23-year-old Honduran immigrant who had been mowing lawns in the Hudson Valley for years, approached the dark SUVs to ask if they needed help, agents noted his accent, snapped his photo, and put him in handcuffs.

Turcios had fled gang violence in Honduras at 17. Six years later, he was seized off a residential street and processed through a detention center in Newburgh — not because he'd done anything wrong, but because he had an accent and was standing in front of his own home.

"They kidnapped a hard-working kid off our streets," one resident said.

Friends, neighbors, and local celebrities have mobilized to try to stop his deportation.

Hunter Biden revealed in a BBC interview that his father Joe Biden's prostate cancer has metastasized into his bones and beyond, calling the situation "very painful" and "very debilitating." Despite the progression, Hunter said the former president continues to speak out publicly on issues he cares about, remaining "out there" and engaged.

Biden, 83, disclosed his prostate cancer diagnosis in May 2025, just months after leaving office — a Gleason score of 9, placing him in the most severe grading category. He's since undergone skin cancer surgery and radiation treatment for the prostate cancer. Jill Biden said in a May interview that the diagnosis blindsided the family, noting that standard screening guidelines for men over 70 may have contributed to it being missed during his presidency.

Biden is set to publish a memoir, "Promise Me, America," after the midterm elections.

What the algorithm buried:

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Sunday’s edition is for paid members. Todd Blanche’s confirmation. El-Sayed’s clapback. McConnell’s disappearing act. Join now to read it all.