The Daily Brief — July 28, 2026
Trump demands SAVE Act passage, Fauci’s diary, McConnell’s illness
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Trump Demands GOP Pass Voting Bill
President Trump has asked Senate Majority Leader John Thune to cancel the chamber’s August recess until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act.
The voting bill, passed by the House in February, would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and a photo ID to cast a ballot. Trump says it’s needed to keep noncitizens from voting, even though federal law already prohibits that. Democrats say it would make registering harder for eligible citizens who lack easy access to documents proving they are US citizens.
Trump also renewed his call to scrap the Senate’s filibuster, which effectively requires 60 votes for most legislation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly said Republicans lack the votes to pass the bill and to eliminate the filibuster.
Fauci’s Diary
The diary of former top federal health official Dr. Anthony Fauci has been released ahead of his testimony tomorrow. He’s scheduled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as part of its investigation into the origins of Covid-19. The committee subpoenaed Fauci after he declined to appear voluntarily.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) released a 1,141-page collection of Fauci’s diary entries. The senator reportedly received the diary from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who obtained it from government servers. The entries show Fauci initially expressed uncertainty about the virus’s origin. In January 2020, he wrote that a market in Wuhan, China, was “not the source” but an “amplifier.” On a February 2020 call, only two of about a dozen scientists discussing the virus’s genome said they believed it had a natural origin; the rest were uncertain, according to the diary.
Paul and Fauci have feuded for years over the pandemic’s origins. Paul has long claimed that the virus leaked from a lab in China, while Fauci has maintained that natural spillover from an animal is the more likely explanation.
Paul has repeatedly referred Fauci to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for allegedly lying under oath to Congress, while Fauci has accused the senator of misrepresenting his statements. A day before he left office, President Biden granted the doctor a pre-emptive pardon to protect him from “unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
Judge Blocks Prediction Markets Ban
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Minnesota from enforcing a new law that would have made it a felony to operate or advertise prediction markets in the state.
The law, passed in May, was set to take effect later this week. But Judge Katherine Menendez’s temporary injunction allows prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket — where users wager money on future events, including elections, weather, and sports — to continue to operate in the state while the litigation continues.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the federal agency that oversees these markets), Kalshi, and Polymarket filed separate lawsuits challenging the law. The CFTC argues that prediction markets are federally regulated financial products that states cannot ban outright. Kalshi and Polymarket similarly contend their platforms fall under federal law and that Minnesota’s ban would cause them irreparable harm.
Minnesota, meanwhile, argues the markets are a form of gambling and says the law is needed to protect consumers.
Newsbreak
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Trump–IRS Settlement
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has said he won’t vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general until the Trump administration rewrites a settlement that resolved President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax returns.
Cornyn is opposed to a roughly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund created under the settlement, which Blanche negotiated as acting attorney general to end Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns. The settlement paved the way for the fund to be used to compensate people who say they were unfairly targeted by the Biden-era Justice Department. It also grants Trump and his family immunity from federal tax audits.
Blanche has told senators the fund is “dead,” but Cornyn wants that commitment written into the settlement itself, along with clearer limits on provisions governing future IRS audits of Trump and his family. Cornyn has also said he would not rule out requiring Trump’s signature on the revised agreement.
Cornyn and fellow Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (NC) have both withheld support for Blanche’s nomination pending changes to the settlement. Blanche needs support from both for his nomination to move out of the Senate Judiciary Committee for a full vote in the Senate.
McConnell Illness
Sen. Mitch McConnell is not yet “medically cleared” to leave the rehabilitation facility where he’s been recovering since a fall at his home on June 14, his office said yesterday.
A statement from the Senate’s physician said the 84-year-old is doing multiple physical therapy sessions a day to rebuild strength and reduce his risk of falling again, and that his childhood polio remains a significant factor in his mobility. The Kentucky senator was hospitalized after the fall and also dealt with a mild case of pneumonia before moving to the rehab facility.
Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, sent McConnell’s office a letter yesterday demanding that he resign if he cannot publicly prove he is still capable of serving in the Senate. Beshear said photos and brief statements aren’t enough more than six weeks after his hospitalization. McConnell has been absent from the Senate since the hospitalization began.
I still think Dems oughtta take the platform of taking voter fraud seriously, even without conceding that it’s ever been rampant enough to affect the results of an election. And then campaign on some legislation similar or stronger than the SAVE act, but only after providing every eligible voter with documentation like a passport free of charge. It would be hard to argue with that, and takes the issue off the table, instead of the usual “but it doesn’t exist” platform that some people find suspicious.