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First lady Melania Trump’s wildly expensive (and deeply boring) box office bomb is getting a sequel. During an interview on Real America’s Voice Monday, Marc Beckman, senior adviser to the first lady, announced that Melania was getting her own docuseries with Amazon Prime. The new project would follow up on Melania, the 2026 film that captured just 20 days of the first lady’s life—and still somehow managed to be the most expensive documentary ever made.“We open the window, a little bit, into her private life, her marriage, her family. We open a little deeper into her career, as well as her philanthropy, but with the docuseries, it’s a little bit different,” Beckman said. “It’s shot different. It’s a different story. It’s a full new experience for the viewers.”Sounds “different,” but definitely not different enough. Amazon spent $40 million for the rights to make the film and an additional $35 million for an aggressive marketing blitz—a price tag that has been criticized as a blatant attempt to cozy up to the president. It didn’t matter how much money Amazon poured into Melania; practically nobody went to see it. The project bombed spectacularly at the box office, and nearly a dozen people close to the Trump administration skipped out on the world premiere—even the first lady’s own son. The film was also the subject of serious labor issues behind the scenes, and a whopping two-thirds of the film’s staff requested not to be credited at the end.Melania was produced by the first lady herself and directed by Brett Ratner, the disgraced filmmaker who has been accused of sexual harassment and abuse by six different women. Melania and Ratner both appear in the government’s files on alleged sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The docuseries would premiere “exclusively” on Amazon Prime “this fall,” according to Beckman.

Reviving the hatreds and loyalties of 2020 won’t settle the mysteries around COVID-19 — or help us prevent and prepare for the next pandemic. The post The Fauci Hearings: Fair Questions, Wrong Approach appeared first on Truthdig.

President Trump’s handpicked congressional candidate lost his primary to someone who dropped out weeks ago. Amir Hassan, a veteran and self-proclaimed “America First Patriot,” was touted by Trump as the preferred GOP choice to represent Michigan’s 8th district in the House of Representatives. “Amir Hassan has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Michigan’s 8th Congressional District,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday. “Election Day is Tuesday, August 4th. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR AMIR—HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”Voters didn’t agree, as Hassan lost handily to Thomas Smith by over 10,000 votes, securing just 33.2 percent to Smith’s 50.4 percent. Yet despite his name being on the ballot, Smith had dropped out of the race last month and ceased all campaigning, The Detroit News reported.That makes this loss—and Trump’s endorsement—all the more embarrassing. Hassan may have been doomed from the very start, as MAGA supporters widely criticized his endorsement on the basis of his being Muslim. Hassan identifies as a Christian, claims to have “zero tolerance for extremists who pervert Islam into something evil,” and has touted his belief that “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East.” None of that seemed to matter Tuesday night. Maybe Hassan was a uniquely weak candidate, or maybe Michigan GOP voters saw an Arabic name on their ballots and ran for the hills. Either way, this loss reflects more poorly on Trump than anyone, and suggests that he is not the kingmaker he claims to be. Smith will go on to face Democratic Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet, who ran uncontested in her primary. It’s unclear if he will take on the race, as he previously endorsed Al Lemmo, who secured just 16.4 percent of the vote.

Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens — despite a record-setting $60 million in outside spending in her favor. The post Abdul El-Sayed Beats the Democratic Establishment and AIPAC in Michigan appeared first on The Intercept.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.Sign up and get this newsletter for free. Inside WashingtonHow popular is Hakeem Jeffries among Democrats?House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is struggling among some Democratic voters, a new poll from the progressive A Fight Worth Having, or AFWH, PAC suggests. The poll comes as Democrats are poised to take back the House this November, which would vault Jeffries to the position of speaker of the House.The poll surveyed likely voters in three blue districts: New York’s 15th congressional district, a heavily Hispanic and Black district represented by Representative Ritchie Torres; Arizona’s 4th congressional district, represented by Representative Greg Stanton; and Missouri’s 1st district, a plurality-Black district represented by Representative Wesley Bell. New York’s 15th and Missouri’s 1st are both heavily Democratic districts, and Arizona’s 4th is rated D+4 by the Cook Political Report. Both Stanton and Torres easily defeated progressive challengers in their primaries this year. Bell handily won reelection against progressive Cori Bush on Tuesday.“What we’ve been trying to do with our polling is go into Democratic strongholds where you would think that Hakeem Jeffries would be the strongest,” said Corbin Trent, who runs AFWH. Trent was the national campaign coordinator for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director.The poll found that a plurality of voters in Arizona’s 4th district (45 percent) and Missouri’s 1st district (43 percent) say Democrats in Congress should replace Jeffries as leader if they win back the House in November—with only 34 percent and 37 percent, respectively, thinking he should remain in his position. The rest were “not sure.” Jeffries had more support in New York’s 15th district, where 61 percent of respondents support Jeffries staying on as the leader of the caucus and 31 percent want someone else. After being given a set of strongly worded progressive messaging points against Jeffries, respondents’ support for Jeffries dropped in all three districts.Of course, voters don’t decide who is speaker of the House. Representatives of the majority party vote for their speaker when the new Congress convenes. Still, the findings reflect a broader frustration with how Democratic voters perceive their leaders as having fought back against President Donald Trump. A number of progressive candidates who won their primaries this year have declined to say whether they will support Jeffries as speaker, including Darializa Avila Chevalier, Adam Hamawy, and Claire Valdez. Melat Kiros, who won her primary in Colorado’s 1st congressional district, has pledged not to support any Democrat who takes corporate PAC money for leadership (Jeffries receives such money).AFWH ran the poll through Redbox Research, its polling unit managed by Peter Feld. The poll was fielded by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey.“One should never put much weight on any one poll,” Jeffery Jenkins, provost professor of public policy, political science, and law at the University of Southern California, cautioned in an email. “I think Jeffries maintains a lot of support within the caucus.” While leftist candidates may have criticized Jeffries, he added, “it remains to be seen how they will vote on a speakership contest if the Democrats win a majority.… Comments at this point are cheap talk. Actual votes cast are costly signals.”Jeffries’s team did not comment directly on the poll, but referred The New Republic to a recent speech Jeffries gave outlining Democratic strategy to win the midterms and advance their agenda if they take back the House. In that July 26 speech, Jeffries made the pitch that he and House Democrats were ready to lead if elected to the majority this November. Speaking at the United Steelworkers Union Hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he promised to hold the Trump administration accountable for corruption, “clean up the mess at the United States Supreme Court,” ban the president, vice president, and members of Congress from trading stocks, and make health care affordable for “every single citizen.”Jeffries’s support among Black voters remains strong, particularly in New York’s 15th congressional district, close to his home district, New York’s 8th. Seventy-four percent of Black voters in the 15th district support his leadership, while 20 percent want him to be replaced. In Missouri’s 1st district, a smaller number of Black voters, but still a plurality of 43 percent, support his leadership.Overall, Jeffries maintains good favorability ratings, including among the voters surveyed by A Fight Worth Having’s poll. In New York’s 15th district, he comes away with a 66 percent favorability rating. In Arizona’s 4th district, 53 percent of respondents approve of him, and 50 percent do in Missouri’s 1st district. In a January poll of base Democratic voters conducted by Embold Research for The New Republic, Jeffries received a 60 percent favorability rating. But in both these polls, national progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tended to outperform Jeffries’s favorability ratings. In Missouri’s 1st district, the AFWH poll found Mamdani outperforming both Jeffries and Bell, with a 66 percent favorability rating. Trent didn’t offer a specific name, nor a plan to replace Jeffries as leader of the caucus. “The list of people that could do the job is quite long,” he said. “But there’s also a pretty long list of people that aren’t ready for that job.”Jeffries is all but certain to hold onto his leadership role, even if the midterms usher in a few more progressives skeptical of his leadership. But the AFWH poll, along with recent election results and anti-incumbent attitudes, does point to a challenge for him. Ultimately, the question probably isn’t whether Jeffries will remain at the helm, but rather how he will manage an increasingly progressive caucus and prioritize legislation if he does hold the gavel come January.—Emma JanssenOutside WashingtonGOP attacks on Francesca Hong are getting uglyWisconsin’s primaries will take place next week. But Tom Tiffany, favored to win the Republican gubernatorial primary, has already begun attacking Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist who’s favored to win the Democratic primary, over her old tweets. In 2022, Hong posted to the site then known as Twitter about witnessing “the worst of humanity” emerge on Valentine’s Day when she was working in restaurants. In 2019, she described feeling uncomfortable in the fast food chain Culver’s around “old white people who didn’t think we spoke english.” A third tweet said, “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done that in 1621.” Tiffany has reposted the tweets with statements of support for the holidays in question. “Just so everyone knows where I stand, I won’t cancel Thanksgiving as governor,” read one. Hong told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Molly Beck that the tweets were “jokes,” but took a more nuanced position in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities,” Hong said when asked whether she favored canceling the holiday, adding, “I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve.”  In recent days, Mother Jones’s Julia Métraux recently reported, right-wing media have also attacked Hong over her medical history. Hong has spoken in the past about having been hospitalized during a mental health crisis as a teenager and having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Asked about conservatives’ focus on the issue, Hong told Mother Jones in a statement that her own struggles have increased her “empathy and compassion” and made her a “stronger leader,” adding that “it’s important to talk openly so that others aren’t isolated and can take that first step to get help.”Recent polling showed Tiffany narrowly leading Hong 43 to 40 in a hypothetical matchup. He also heads into the general election with $5 million in his war chest—“10 times as much cash as any Democratic candidate,” Beck reported Tuesday.Elsewhere:Veteran wildfire fighters worry that “aggressive fire suppression tactics ordered by the Trump administration … could put firefighters in danger,” Stateline’s Alex Brown reports.New Jersey’s “assault weapon” ban will remain in effect, a federal appellate judge ordered on Tuesday, until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case.—Heather Souvaine HornThe Ideas FactoryThe Groundwork Collaborative and Ipsos release a new poll that goes beyond the typical finding that workers are worried about AI in the workplace. Turns out some workers are less worried than others. “Nearly half of workers with college degrees believe that AI will improve their own job compared to just 19% of workers with a high school education,” the press release explains. “Sentiment about AI in the workplace diverges along racial lines as well, with Black workers far more likely than their white peers to say that AI will replace them in the workplace outright (12% vs 4%).”On Thursday, the Brookings Institution hosts “Teachers at the Frontlines of Climate Change,” an online event about the challenges facing teachers in eastern and southern Africa as they teach students about the climate change they’re already seeing on a daily basis—without adequate support.The Economic Policy Institute’s Ismael Cid-Martinez writes on the organization’s Working Economics blog that, “while the overall financial well-being of most adults held steady in 2025, the financial well-being of Black adults declined. These individuals were also more likely to experience layoffs, leaving a higher share of Black adults and their families with increased fear of finding or keeping a job in 2025.”—Heather Souvaine Horn  In ClosingBook of the Week: The Rulers: Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud by Cecilia RikapTHE GIST: Based on over 100 interviews with figures at the world’s leading tech and artificial intelligence firms, Rikap argues Microsoft, Amazon, and Google—and relative newcomers like OpenAI and Anthropic—have grown so powerful that they more closely resemble states than traditional corporations, which poses a significant problem for the contemporary anti-monopoly movement. Even other behemoth corporations, she writes, cannot avoid relying on these tech companies.PRAISE: Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, says The Rulers is “an essential read for anyone seeking to understand why governing AI and digital infrastructure in the public interest is one of the defining political challenges of our time.”CRUISING THE INDEX: One of Rikap’s many provocative ideas is that data centers should be public goods, used as counterbalances to the growing power of massive tech corporations.TNR’S QUICK CRITICAL ASSESSMENT: Especially interesting for those well versed in the growing literature around corporate consolidation, The Rulers is troubling and persuasive about the limits of anti-monopoly tactics given the massive size of the current giants. Its argument that these corporations have grown state-like is particularly compelling.—Alex Shephard  Political Trivia Question of the Day  One of Michigan’s greatest senators was a liberal crusader who was a major force behind 1965’s Voting Rights Act (remember the Voting Rights Act? It used to be a thing). Who was he? Possibly too-big hint: One of the Senate office buildings is named for him. (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

Ohio Representative Max Miller crashed and burned while attempting to downplay releasing a nude image of his young daughter as part of his crusade to deny domestic abuse allegations.During an interview on CNN Tuesday evening, Miller defended sharing a Dropbox folder over the weekend that contained a nude image of his two-year-old daughter that could qualify as child sexual abuse material. Anchor Jake Tapper asked Miller to explain the “shockingly reckless behavior” as the lawmaker challenged horrific abuse allegations brought by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. “I wouldn’t say that it’s shockingly reckless,” Miller said, claiming that the photograph was already available to the public because it was part of an investigation by Child Protective Services. “This is being taken very much out of context,” Miller said. “There is no genitalia of my daughter that was exposed. And this is once again a very salacious headline.” “We called the court today, it’s not publicly available,” Tapper said, noting that Miller’s attorney, Aaron Minc, had publicly apologized for releasing the photo. “I’m not defending it, it’s awful,” Miller said. “You just defended it. You said it’s taken out of context,” Tapper said. “‘Cus it is taken out of context, in terms of how the articles have been written about it. I didn’t do this. My attorney took full responsibility. I believe that it’s awful. There was never any intent to do that,” Miller said. 🤯 Rep. Max Miller's interview with Jake Tapper is an utter trainwreck 🤯Miller went on CNN to try to push back against credible accusations that he abused his ex-wife and child, but he only made things worse for himself. He threatened his ex-wife's father (Sen. Bernie Moreno)… pic.twitter.com/BGOIcKIdKx— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 4, 2026An analysis conducted by Politico’s Playbook of metadata of four documents in Miller’s Dropbox folder revealed that the authorship was “Office of Rep. Max Miller—Legal Counsel.” After Playbook asked if congressional resources were used to create them, Minc said he would alter the metadata, which now reads: “Minc Law LLC.” Minc also said the error may have been the result of AI use.Phil Poe, Miller’s chief of staff, told Playbook that Miller had been the only one to handle the Dropbox documents, and insisted that Miller’s office doesn’t employ anyone with the title of “legal counsel.”This news is the latest domino to fall for Miller. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, Miller’s ex-father-in-law, finally came out against the lawmaker on Sunday, saying he needed “serious psychological help” and calling on him to step down from Congress and abandon his current reelection campaign. Moreno has since accused Miller of holding his daughter’s favorite stuffed animal hostage, and of putting Moreno’s family through “the seventh level of hell.”On Monday night, Miller reportedly received a call from President Donald Trump—who has publicly said he feels “badly” for the Republican congressman—to tell him that “things aren’t looking good” for his campaign. Miller was dealt another blow that same night when his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a temporary restraining order against him.

Abdul El-Sayed has won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Michigan, narrowly defeating Representative Haley Stevens in a close contest.Decision Desk called the race for El-Sayed Tuesday morning, projecting him as the winner with 48.52 percent of the vote to Stevens’s 47.47 percent.El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and the former Wayne County health director, edged out Stevens despite her receiving heavy financial backing from groups aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. El-Sayed now moves on to the general election, where he’ll face Republican Representative Mike Rogers in November and have a shot at becoming the first Muslim U.S. senator. Stevens received $62 million in advertising from outside groups, with $31.9 million of that coming from the United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC. It wasn’t enough to help her in the end, and El-Sayed called out the massive spending in their final debate last week, pointing out that Stevens had just voted for a pro-Israel resolution. “That is the pro quo that comes with the quid,” El-Sayed said in the beginning of the debate. “It really comes down to how you are funded.”On the campaign trail, El-Sayed emphasized a message of supporting affordability and opposing inequality (issues that he has written about for The New Republic), touting his support for Medicare for All and even offering a comprehensive AI regulation plan.  Down the stretch, Stevens was accused of Islamophobia for some of her campaign ads, including those paid for by the United Democracy Project, and insinuating that El-Sayed was an antisemite.President Trump went further on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social that El-Sayed’s win was “Great News for the Republican Party” and calling him a “Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel.” This story has been updated.

Media Manipulation, Institutional Decay, and the Strategy Behind Trump’s Grip on Power Nolan Higdon Substack “I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think Minnesota ought to get its act together” exclaimed President Donald Trump at a July 31, 2026, Cabinet meeting. Trump was responding to reports that numerous United States (U.S.) water systems, including one […]