| | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco Good Sunday morning. This is Garrett Ross on the keys again. Send me all your feedback, gossip and tips.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Border czar Tom Homan is set to preside over a major expansion of the immigration enforcement apparatus. | Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP | “Tom Homan isn’t shutting up.” That was the bottom-line message of a speech delivered by Homan at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit last night in Tampa, Florida, where he launched an impassioned defense of ICE and President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda. The line above was delivered after a protester interrupted Homan, asking Trump’s border czar if he was “an MS-13 member.” Homan paused briefly as the crowd jeered before taking the shouter to task as they were removed by security. “You want some? Come get some,” Homan said, per the NY Post. “I’m tired of it. For the men and women of ICE, I deserve your respect. They’re the finest 1 percent this country has. And Tom Homan isn’t going anywhere. Tom Homan isn’t shutting up.” It’s just the latest in a barrage of messaging for Homan, a longtime presidential hand who has worked with a handful of administrations. As border czar, Homan is tasked with carrying out the brunt of Trump’s immigration policies and executing his mass deportation agenda. It’s a role that Homan relishes after decades of service — and he is happy to carry Trump’s banner. “The message we need to send to the whole world is: There’s a right way and wrong way to come to the greatest nation on earth. You need to come the right way,” Homan told Playbook’s Dasha Burns in an interview for “The Conversation” this week. He continued on the theme, expanding on the issue of undocumented parents in the U.S. “If you choose to have a U.S. citizen child knowing you’re here illegally, that’s on you. So when that person gets ordered removed, they got a choice to make. Parenting 101. Do you want to take the child with you, or leave the child here with a relative or the other spouse? Up to you. But we’re not going to send the message to the whole world: ‘Have a U.S. citizen child, and you’re immune from our laws.’” Watch the clip … Watch the full episode
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| Over the course of the interview, Homan expounded on a number of topics du jour, providing timely answers and explanations on a range of issues that illuminate how the administration is advancing Trump’s border crackdown. ICE-ING OUT: A new memo from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons says that federal immigration officers “may deport immigrants with as little as six hours’ notice to countries other than their own even if officials have not provided any assurances that the new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture,” WaPo’s Maria Sacchetti and colleagues report. The memo cites the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that it says “cleared the way for officers to ‘immediately’ start sending immigrants to ‘alternative’ countries.” Lawyers indicate that thousands of immigrants with work permits and families in the U.S. could be targeted for such removals. The backdrop: A group of U.N. experts asserts that these deportations may qualify as “enforced disappearances,” which violate international law — though the U.S. is not party to the treaty, NYT’s Mattathias Schwartz writes. What Homan says: “There’s different levels of due process, depending on who the person is and what the situation — the specifics around that case. So I truly believe everybody’s been given a level due process as lined out in the statute by Congress and federal law.” THE BIG PICTURE: NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz dig into the massive $170 billion boost in funding that Trump’s immigration efforts are set to receive from Republicans’ megabill. On the agency scale, ICE’s annual budget alone “will spike from about $8 billion to roughly $28 billion, making it the highest funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.” Zooming out: “The new resources will fuel an intense initiative to recruit as many as 10,000 new agents who will have a presence in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. And the money comes as a windfall for private prison companies, who have already rushed to pitch the administration on new contracts to run detention facilities.” The pushback: “The massive infusion of funds is raising worries that in the rush to make good on Mr. Trump’s pledged immigration crackdown, his administration could cut corners on the careful vetting needed to hire deportation officers. And immigration advocates say they are bracing for more masked agents to descend upon local communities with heavy-handed tactics.” What Homan says: The megabill funding is “going to give us more resources and more boots on the ground, so when we have to go to these sanctuary cities, we want to send in many more agents in sanctuary cities. … It’s going to ramp up deportations, because it’s going to buy us some more beds to hold people. It is going to buy more transportation contracts to remove people more efficiently and quicker. It’s going to give us more immigration judges so hearings are done quicker. It’s also going to hire more ICE attorneys to prosecute these cases quicker.” REALITY CHECK: Despite Trump’s repeated pledges to target “the worst of the worst” in his mass deportation agenda, the latest government data available paints an entirely different story, AP’s Melissa Goldin reports. By the numbers: “The latest ICE statistics show that as of June 29, there were 57,861 people detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% — of whom had no criminal convictions. That includes 14,318 people with pending criminal charges and 27,177 who are subject to immigration enforcement, but have no known criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.” What Homan says: “The aperture has already opened up. But we’re not gonna lose the focus and priority of public safety threats. That will always be a priority. But like I said, I use an analogy: Look, I may prioritize my family life over my work life, but I’m not going to forget about my work life. It’s just what you do first, and we’ll continue that strategy.” Back on the stage in Tampa last night, Homan summarized all of this rather succinctly in his closing remarks: “Tom Homan is going to run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen. Take it to the bank.”
| | | | A message from American Beverage: No spin. No judgments. Just the facts from the experts.
When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you decide. That's why America's beverage companies have launched GoodToKnowFacts.org – a new website that puts easy-to-understand details about the ingredients in our beverages right in your hands, all in one place. For over 140 ingredients, you can find common uses, alternative names and ongoing safety assessments from food safety authorities at GoodToKnowFacts.org. | | | | BUTLER, ONE YEAR LATER: Today marks a year since the failed assassination attempt on Trump’s life during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left one dead and multiple people injured, including Trump. In the months since, Trump dramatically returned to the Oval Office and has been charging ahead to enact the policies that he promised on the campaign trail with a vigor that isn’t generally characteristic of a second-term president. AP’s Jill Colvin writes about the shift in Trump: “One year after coming millimeters from a very different outcome, Trump, according to friends and aides, is still the same Trump. But they see signs, beyond being on higher alert on stage, that his brush with death did change him in some ways: He is more attentive and more grateful, they say, and speaks openly about how he believes he was saved by God to save the country and serve a second term, making him even more dug in on achieving his far-reaching agenda.” And it’s not just Trump: WaPo’s Isaac Arnsdorf reports from Butler County on how the assassination attempt supercharged the belief among Trump’s base. “There were already whispers of messianism among some of Trump’s supporters, such as the QAnon offshoot called Negative 48 whose members frequented his rallies in 2022. Trump has long claimed that God was on his movement’s side, and attendees at Trump rallies have routinely described the events in spiritual terms. But after the assassination attempt, many of his followers — and most notably Trump himself — more explicitly cast him as a divine instrument.” WHO WAS THOMAS CROOKS? A team of six reporters for CBS have compiled what is likely the most comprehensive look at the life of shooter Thomas Crooks, drawing on “interviews with more than two dozen friends, professors, law enforcement officials and others, as well as open records requests to half a dozen agencies and a review of thousands of documents.” The account provides chilling details about Crooks’ life and the lead-up to his assassination attempt against Trump that killed Corey Comperatore and injured others. The summary: “The young man who died in the assassination attempt crafted a furtive double life in the months leading up to the attack, unbeknownst to the people closest to him.” WHAT WAS BEHIND THE ATTACK? In the hours after the attempt on Trump’s life, then-President Joe Biden asked top officials in the Situation Room whether Iran could have been behind it. Merrick Garland, the AG, and Christopher Wray, the FBI chief, “told Biden they were indeed concerned Iran might have recruited” Crooks, WaPo’s Carol Leonnig reports. “Hours earlier, in fact, FBI agents had rushed to Texas in the middle of the night to interview an alleged Iranian operative the bureau had arrested Friday on suspicion of recruiting hit men to kill U.S. politicians,” but Wray indicated that there was no clear connection. Despite a concerted effort to determine if Iran was actually behind the attack, one year on, “largely by process of elimination, investigators have concluded that Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, acted alone. Crooks left no writings explaining his actions, but officials said he fit a profile of assassins the bureau has studied: socially isolated, educated but friendless, motived not by politics or ideology but by a sense of insignificance and a desire to become known.” The general feeling captured by Leonnig is one of reserved acceptance that a clear motive may never be known. “The most frustrating thing in the world for law enforcement is not getting an answer on what caused this,” a former FBI official told Leonnig. “We just can’t quite say for certain, but that’s where all the evidence points to.” While the case is technically still classified as open, a senior FBI official told WaPo that “no new leads are being actively mined.” WHY DID CROOKS STOP SHOOTING? The story of what happened in Butler on that fateful day has been detailed extensively. But in the year since, one account that the public has heard seldom about is the officer who fired the so-called ninth shot — immediately following Crook’s initial eight rounds — that halted the would-be assassin’s assault. The man behind the ninth shot was Aaron Zaliponi, a Butler County SWAT team operator, who was “standing in an open field between the gunman and the rally stage, snapped up his rifle, aligned the red dot of its scope with the shooter’s chin and fired a single shot,” WaPo’s Shawn Boburg reports from Adams, Pennsylvania. Crooks reacted to the shot, jerking to his right and slumping back from the roof’s edge. “‘I just got you,’ Zaliponi recalled thinking.” The 46-year-old Army combat vet is convinced that his shot “struck Crooks’s rifle and forced him to stop shooting.” It’s a belief backed up by the Butler County DA, the local SWAT commander and a congressional investigator. “Yet one year later, the significance of Zaliponi’s shot is still unresolved. The FBI has said it found no forensic evidence that the ninth shot hit Crooks or his rifle.” WHERE DOES IT END? Though the attempt on Trump’s life was perhaps the most-covered instance of recent political violence, it was just a drop in the bucket. In Minnesota earlier this year, an assailant gunned down state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home and attempted to murder a list of others. The reports from the last year alone are dizzying. “Since last July, two people have tried to assassinate Donald J. Trump, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while the family slept, an assailant fatally shot a couple leaving the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington and a man was charged with attempting to kidnap the mayor of Memphis,” NYT’s Shaila Dewan writes. “The result is a troubling sense that political violence has become more brazen, and its motives more difficult to comprehend. The increase is not just public perception; experts agree that attacks on political figures have been increasing.” In a harrowing read on the history of political violence in the U.S., The Atlantic’s Adrienne LaFrance writes that it “is deeply, inescapably American.” But the hope for a better reality remains. “Our nation was born in a swirl of revolution and musket smoke, and episodes of political violence can be found in every decade since we declared our independence. Yet for us to build the country we have promised ourselves, and that we have promised our children — for the guarantee of the very freedoms our fellow citizens have fought and died for — we must find a way for America to be America without killing one another over what we want this nation to be.”
| | | | A message from American Beverage:  
America's beverage companies are making it easier than ever to find transparent information about the ingredients in your favorite beverages. Learn more at GoodToKnowFacts.org. | | | | SUNDAY BEST … — DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on reporting that FEMA didn’t answer thousands of calls after the Texas floods because she’d failed to renew contracts and fired hundreds of contractors, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Absolute lie, and that’s what I think is so disingenuous and horrible about the situation. Nobody was fired, no contracts were ended, everybody was there answering calls and doing all they could to help the people of Texas.” — Homan on whether the administration will comply with a federal judge’s order blocking some of its immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “We’re gonna litigate that order because I think the order is wrong. I mean, she’s assuming that the officers don’t have reasonable suspicion. They don’t need probable cause to briefly detain, incarcerate somebody — they just need reasonable suspicion. … I don’t think any federal judge can dictate immigration policy.” — National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on whether the administration is using concerns about the Fed headquarters renovation to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, on ABC’s “This Week”: “I think that whether the president decides to push down that road or not is going to depend a lot on the answers that we get to the questions that Russ Vought sent to the Fed.” Jon Karl: “Yes or no answer. Does the president, in your view, have the authority to fire the Fed chair?” Hassett: “That’s a thing that’s being looked into. But certainly, if there’s cause, he does.” — Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on whether he still has faith in AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel amid the Jeffrey Epstein controversy, on “Meet the Press”: “I do. We ran to make this country safer and more prosperous. Pam Bondi and her team are getting hardened criminals off the streets. America is safer with Pam Bondi as attorney general.” TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.
- “Whistleblower Emails Expose Fresh Trump Abuses in Abrego Garcia Case,” by The New Republic’s Greg Sargent
- “What a $178 billion gift means for the immigration police state,” by WaPo’s Catherine Rampell
- “Annoying People to Death,” by The Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey
- “The Chart That Convinced Me Our Debt Is a Serious Problem,” by Jared Bernstein in the NYT
- “How Republicans can defy history and survive the midterms,” by Curt Anderson in WaPo
- “Dems Must Really Fix Medicaid, Not Just Undo Trump’s Damage to It,” by Ezekiel Emanuel in The Bulwark
- “President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Opens Frontier For Innovation, Now Congress Needs To Finish The Job,” by David Casem in the Daily Caller News Foundation
- “Democrats Need to Understand That Opinions on Israel Are Changing Fast,” by NYT’s Peter Beinart
- “What Elon Musk Gets Wrong About Our Broken Political System,” by Lee Drutman in POLITICO Magazine
- “A band of innovators reimagines the spy game for a world with no cover,” by WaPo’s David Ignatius
- “The CIA Director Didn’t Read His Own Report,” by John Sipher in The Bulwark
- “Decapitating the National Security Council leads to foreign policy chaos,” by WaPo’s Max Boot
- “What Flint Teaches About the Chances of Rust Belt Renewal in Trump 2.0,” by Jerel Ezell in POLITICO Magazine
| | | | Playbook, the unofficial guide to official Washington, isn’t just a newsletter — it’s a podcast, too. With new co-hosts who bring unmatched Trump world reporting and analysis, The Playbook Podcast dives deeper into the power plays shaping Washington. Get the insider edge—start listening now. | | | | | 9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. MAGA MELTDOWN: Trump scrambled to defend Bondi against an intense backlash from his base over the Epstein files. In a lengthy Truth Social post — “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’” — the president defended Bondi and claimed without evidence that the Epstein files had been written by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other political enemies. Trump continued to lie about election fraud, and concluded by saying that Epstein is “somebody that nobody cares about.” Well, not quite: Many of Trump’s MAGA supporters have been focused on Epstein conspiracy theories for years, and they’re not letting this go so easily. In the administration, Bondi’s allies were glad for the public support from Trump, and they think FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino “needs to leave,” NYT’s Glenn Thrush and Shawn McCreesh report. But Trump’s post did little to quiet the maelstrom, which Democrats have also seized on. At the Turning Point USA student conference, the Epstein files — and anger at Bondi — were “all they wanted to talk about,” NBC’s Matt Dixon and Brennan Leach report. Wrote Ramesh Ponnuru: “Institutions and norms are easier to tear down than build. Conspiracy theories, the other way around.” 2. THE REVENGE PRESIDENCY: More lawyers and even non-attorney support staffers who worked on the federal criminal prosecutions of Trump have been fired at the Justice Department, AP’s Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer report. Meanwhile, local Republican groups around the country are increasingly hosting former Jan. 6 defendants as special guests, part of an effort to rewrite the history of the violent insurrection, WSJ’s James Fanelli reports. 3. 2026 WATCH: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) is going hard at Trump as he gears up for a difficult reelection fight, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Adam Van Brimmer and Greg Bluestein report from his rally yesterday in Savannah, Georgia. Ossoff called the president a “depraved man” and said America had to fight against “deeply entrenched corruption and greed.” He decried the megabill’s social safety net cuts, making clear that he wants the midterms to be a referendum on Trump and Republicans’ signature legislation. And he hit Trump over Epstein, too. 4. COLLATERAL DAMAGE: “They Fled War in Ethiopia. Then American Bombs Found Them,” by NYT’s Shuaib Almosawa and Vivian Nereim: “More than two months after the attack [in Yemen], which killed at least 60 people and injured 65 more, according to health authorities in the Houthi-led government, few answers have emerged. The Houthis blamed the United States, and an investigation by The New York Times found that at least three U.S.-made GBU-39 bombs … had been used … U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region, has not claimed responsibility.” 5. ON THE FORECAST: Economists’ latest predictions are something of a mixed bag as the fallout from Trump’s tariffs in hard economic data continues to be less damaging than expected. The WSJ’s quarterly survey shows expectations improving, per Paul Kiernan and Anthony DeBarros. A recession looks less likely, inflation looks lighter, and the economy and labor market look stronger than economists thought three months ago. Improving, yes, but still not good: The overall outlook remains “relatively downbeat — most likely because of the persistence of trade uncertainty and muted growth to date.” Inflation nation: Ahead of Tuesday’s consumer price index report, economists think June prices likely picked up more as the impact of tariffs started to bite, Bloomberg’s Vince Golle and Craig Stirling report. On average, the survey predicts core inflation rising from 0.1 percent monthly to 0.3 percent, and annual inflation increasing to 2.9 percent.
| | | 6. TRADING PLACES: After Trump’s intense new tariff threats against Mexico and the EU, Mexico City is at least publicly still calm, indicating that it expects to strike a deal with the U.S., Bloomberg’s Michael O’Boyle and Kevin Whitelaw report. On the other side of the world, “Tokyo is learning that being one of Washington’s best friends doesn’t carry much sway in Trump’s second term,” WaPo’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Chie Tanaka report. Not so worried: the pharmaceutical industry. Trump’s decision to delay 200 percent tariffs on the sector for a year and more could give companies enough time to stockpile drugs and shift production stateside, WSJ’s David Wainer reports. Of course, that would also be a successful outcome for Trump, who wants to use his trade threats to bolster domestic manufacturing. 7. MEGABILL FALLOUT: “A red state reckons with Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’” by NBC’s Peter Nicholas, Shannon Pettypiece and Margaret Faust in Walker, Louisiana: “With more poverty and disease than most of the country, Louisiana relies heavily on Medicaid benefits going to people who lack the means to cover a doctor’s visit on their own. That fragile lifeline is now in jeopardy. … [But i]nterviews with a dozen Louisianans, most of whom supported Trump, suggest that many in the state have absorbed the arguments that Trump and his congressional allies used to sell the bill.” Another example: A health clinic in Nebraska has become one of the first to announce it’ll shut down in part due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s looming Medicaid cuts — but many patients in this heavily Republican area don’t accept that explanation, WaPo’s Hannah Knowles reports from Curtis. 8. DEVASTATION ABROAD: “Hospitals struggle, hunger surges in Afghanistan amid U.S. aid cuts,” by WaPo’s Rick Noack in Hatam Khail: “Some [Taliban] officials have insisted the country no longer needs Western aid, but they are now struggling to stock hospitals and keep a collapsing economy afloat, fueling quiet but growing public anger, Afghans said. … [Medical professionals] described deteriorating conditions across the country’s battered health care system. And a new threat looms. Aid workers fear medical facilities could soon be overwhelmed by cases of malnutrition and other related ailments.” 9. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Tehran is seeing a growing consensus emerge that Iran has to try again for negotiations to strike a nuclear deal with the U.S., WaPo’s Yeganeh Torbati reports. Iranian leaders have lately sought to differentiate the U.S. from Israel, as moderates gain the upper hand in internal debates. It’s a striking openness to engagement after Trump bombed multiple Iranian nuclear sites. The step back: “Why Trump’s Abraham Accords Have Not Meant Mideast Peace,” by NYT’s Vivian Nereim: “In effect, the deals bypassed the central conflict, between Israel and the Palestinians, declaring harmony between parties that were not fighting.”
| | | | Curious how policy pros are staying ahead? Meet our Policy Intelligence Assistant—only available with a POLITICO Pro subscription. It combines POLITICO’s trusted reporting with advanced AI to deliver sharper insights, faster answers, and two powerful new report builders that help you turn intelligence into action. Ready to experience it for yourself? Sign up for a demo and get 30 days free—no strings attached. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | AS MAGA WORLD TURNS — Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy that lobbies the Hill founded by billionaires John and Laura Arnold, has tried to cultivate a bipartisan brand in this new era of Washington. But a recent spat over Republicans’ megabill illustrates how quickly firms can land in the MAGA crosshairs, Dasha reports. Arnold Ventures’ lead lobbyist George Callas, a Republican and former aide to Paul Ryan, attacked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and the Senate GOP Conference over the megabill in a since-deleted post on X. “In which Tom Cotton’s Senate GOP conference account switches back to using a current law baseline after spending months viciously attacking as dishonest anyone using a current law baseline,” Callas wrote in the post. The @SenateGOP account responded, labeling Arnold Ventures as “far-left.” And the flak is coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. “The White House was shocked to learn that Arnold Ventures, a group that claims to be bipartisan, is taking positions and attacking Trump’s landmark legislation,” said a person close to the White House, who reached out to Playbook about the post. “Arnold Ventures pretends to be bipartisan, but they tried to kill OBBB and launched a vicious, cruel attack on @SenateGOP,” a senior Senate staffer tells Playbook. A spokesperson for Arnold Ventures did not respond to a request for comment. TRANSITION — Brittney May is joining Ameren Corp. as a federal government relations representative. She most recently was senior legislative affairs manager at the National Hydropower Association and is a State Department and House Ways & Means alum. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) … WSJ’s Josh Dawsey … NYT’s Devlin Barrett … WaPo’s Natalie Allison and Michelle Gaps … José Andrés … Punchbowl’s Max Cohen … Elizabeth Bagley … POLITICO’s Hassan Ali Kanu, Rachel Coe, Uyen Hoang and Hannah Ahmad … Zaina Javaid … Results for America’s Adam Peck … Joe Lockhart … Tim Phillips … Will Dempster … Microsoft’s Kate Frischmann … Todd Zwillich … Jen Howard … Alex Vogel … Julie Eddy Rokala of Cassidy & Associates … Casey Katims … Celia Fischer … former Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) … Heather Larrison … Kevin Norton of CGCN Group … Chris Peters of U.S. European Command … Prime Policy Group’s Karen Antebi … Anne Schroeder … Amanda Hunter Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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