The Political Markup for July 23, 2026
Politics
New Jersey said 6,600 noncitizens were accidentally registered to vote in 2023 and 2024 due to a software error.
There will be funeral ceremonies for Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Capitol and Washington National Cathedral on July 28. His sister was appointed to complete his current term in the U.S. Senate and, with encouragement from Trump, she also recently announced she would run in the next election for a full term.
A modeling scout who recruited girls for Epstein was found dead at his Paris home.
The Boeing 747 donated by Qatar to serve as a new Air Force One — and to gain favor with Trump — is out of service for presumed security upgrades, after Trump was personally embarrassed for recently not being able to fly it out of Turkey.
Congressional Republicans continue to ignore their responsibility of providing oversight to the Iran war.
Economy
The average price of gas returned to $4.00 a gallon, as Trump resumed attacks on Iran and again created economic uncertainty for the world.
Over 1.5 million children have lost food support due to SNAP cuts.
Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is selling stock trading firms early access to his posts for $100,000 a month.
Donald Trump, Jr.’s investment firm has grown to $3 billion and generates unprecedented returns of 200 percent by making investments aligned with his father’s policy decisions and connections.
During a test to see if they could partner together for a cyberattack, two OpenAI models broke out of the test, got themselves online, and hacked a digital library of other AI models to help them learn to pass the the test.
International
Trump has deployed more troops, medics, and aircraft to the Mideast as he contemplates options for Iran.
The Trump Administration is misleading the public on the Iranian war and withholding information on Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East. The Iranian missile systems that Trump said were destroyed were used in to recently attack a U.S military base in Jordan which resulted in three American casualties.
Trump and Mideast allies are trying to keep Israel out of the latest attacks on Iran, to prevent the war from escalating further.
In a move that calls into question his reason for joining Israel in warring with Iran, Trump is planning to provide nuclear development technologies with Saudi Arabia.
Ukraine destroyed a Russian ship that was providing security near a home of Putin.
The long-standing authoritarian president of Nicaragua says the country will never have elections again.
Minnesota
The Trump Administration is withholding an additional $200 million in Medicaid funding from Minnesota for alleged fraud.
A lawsuit by the Trump Administration against Minnesota for preventing state and local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE was dismissed by a judge.
The request by Republican political donor Tony Lazzaro to have his sex trafficking sentence commuted by Trump was denied.