The Sunday — July 20

This is the Tangle Sunday Edition, a brief roundup of our independent politics coverage plus some extra features for your Sunday morning reading. 

What the right is doodling.

What the left is doodling.

Monday, July 14.

The ICE raids in California. On Thursday, July 10, federal immigration authorities said they arrested 319 people suspected of being in the country illegally in raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection at two licensed cannabis farms in California. Law enforcement officers also found 10 children in the country illegally during the raids and arrested four United States citizens for allegedly assaulting or resisting officers, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Separately, a farmworker reportedly died after falling off the roof of a greenhouse at one of the farms. The immigration sweeps are believed to be the second-largest single-state ICE worksite operation in history.

Our take: “The cannabis-farm raids are a perfectly legitimate form of immigration enforcement. Other actions, like the profiling a federal court just stopped, are a very different matter. Both violent standoffs with protestors and the rights violations show the difficult situation our country is in with illegal immigration.”

Reader Survey:

Tuesday, July 15.

New developments in the war in Ukraine. On Monday, July 14, President Donald Trump announced two measures aimed at pressuring Russia to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. First, Trump said Russia would face tariffs “at about 100%” if it did not agree to a peace deal in the next 50 days, adding that he would impose secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, such as China, India, Brazil, and Turkey. Second, he outlined a plan for countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to purchase weapons from the United States and then transfer them to Ukraine. Trump also said he would authorize the transfer of an unspecified number of Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, which the European Union would pay for. The announcement follows recently heightened criticism from President Trump towards Russian President Vladimir Putin over his purported unwillingness to end the war. 

Our take: “Trump took too long to see Putin for who he really is. I’m glad he is firming up on Russia, but the delay in the U.S. response is giving Putin exactly what he wants. In order to get to a productive peace agreement, Trump will have to demonstrate a lot of resolve through the coming months.”

Reader Survey:

Wednesday, July 16.

Jerome Powell, Trump, and inflation. In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has escalated his criticisms of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over Powell’s decision to maintain interest rates at current levels. The comments follow reports that Trump is considering removing Powell from his position. Separately, on Tuesday, July 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly Consumer Price Index report, which showed prices rising faster than in May. The report added to existing concerns from economists and lawmakers that President Trump’s tariffs would be inflationary, a possibility that Powell has cited as his rationale for holding off on cutting the Fed’s interest rate. Congressional Republicans have also scrutinized the Federal Reserve over a planned $2.4 billion renovation of its Washington, D.C., headquarters, leading to speculation that the president may use the controversy as pretext to oust Powell from his position.

Our take: “The economy has been doing great, but June’s CPI report suggests the first tariff-induced price spikes are here. Whether these spikes constitute inflation is debatable, as is whether the Fed should cut interest rates. Powell certainly should not be fired for his decision or for the Fed’s renovation, and replacing him with a yes man could be disastrous.”

Reader Survey:

Thursday, July 17.

Biden’s use of the autopen. On Tuesday, July 15, Fox News reported that the White House Counsel’s Office — in coordination with the Justice Department — is investigating former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen while in office. The Trump administration says the investigation will examine how Biden used the autopen, a machine that reproduces a person’s signature, over his presidential term, and whether the Biden administration had a policy in place to regulate its use. The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee is also investigating whether Biden understood the actions he authorized with the autopen. 

Our take: “In one version of this story, Biden used an autopen for efficiency and Trump is hammering him for it for political reasons. In the other, Biden was unaware of what he authorized — and may not have been involved at all. Either version is problematic to me, and pursuing clearer answers about what happened is not conspiratorial or absurd.”

Reader Survey:

Friday, July 18.

In Friday’s members-only edition, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman presented a comprehensive piece on climate change, covering how public understanding has lagged behind the latest science, and what the newest models tell us about what’s coming (spoiler: It’s not what scientists were saying 10 or 20 years ago). You can read the piece here.

What just happened.

Here are a few stories that have broken since our last newsletter on Thursday.

• On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agreed to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to personal data of Medicaid enrollees to help ICE find “the location of aliens” across the country. (The report)
• On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump signed a personalized bawdy message to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. (The exclusive) Trump denied the report and sued The Journal for libel. (The response) Then on Friday, Trump announced that he had directed the Justice Department to ask a federal judge to unseal grand jury testimony from Epstein’s trial. (The request)
• On Thursday, the White House announced that President Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that prevents valves inside certain veins from functioning properly that can allow blood to pool or collect in the veins. (The diagnosis)
• On Thursday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to sentence the officer convicted in the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, to a one-day sentence. (The case)
• On Friday, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act, the first major bill governing digital currencies, into law. Among other actions, the law establishes a regulatory framework for the $250 billion stablecoin market. (The law)
• On Saturday, a driver plowed his car through a crowd outside a night club in East Hollywood, CA, injuring 30. The driver was pulled from the vehicle by a crowd and shot by a member of the crowd. (The event)

Reader essay.

In the mid-1980s, Amy Liu Longacre and her husband were thrilled to learn they were expecting their first child — until a routine ultrasound turned devastating when Amy’s unborn child was diagnosed with a fatal birth defect. Drawing on their Christian faith and pro-life beliefs, Amy and her husband chose to defy doctors and carry their son to term. Forty-one years later, Amy reflects on her experience, remembering what Josh’s short life taught her about the innate dignity of humanity.

You can read the full piece here.

Have a personal story or local issue you want to write about? Pitch us! Fill out this form or reply to this email, and we’ll get back to you if we’re hooked.

Reader review.

In this section, we like to highlight reader comments that respond to our coverage from different angles. A good number of readers pushed back on our coverage of the Biden autopen story.

daveg said we shouldn’t have covered the topic at all:

This autopen thing is a prime example of a shiny object designed to divert attention away from much more important matters. It's a nothing-burger. And for Trump to be criticizing Biden for pardoning those who should not be pardoned is the height of hypocrisy. In the meantime, we're not talking about why Trump is defunding NOAA and the NWS who used to be developing early warning systems for things like floods. We're not talking about the recent Supreme Court decisions that threaten birthright citizenship or the fact that Trump still has soldiers in the streets and parks of LA doing nothing except intimidating the people. Israel just decided to launch another illegal attack on a different sovereign nation, you know, to “mow the lawn.” And the fricken globe is warming, threatening everyone alive and yet to be born. And we're talking about the autopen?

Keep your eye on the ball. This autopen thing ain't the ball.

Ethan said that presidents shouldn’t be able to pardon people at all:

Honestly, presidents shouldn't be able to pardon people for crimes. It's an idea that kind of spits in the face of the separation of powers.

Imagine the very reasonable scenario where the sitting president asks an aid (or god forbid a general) to do something patented illegal in their own interest, only to pardon them for any wrong doing.

Imagine a scenario where the president starts "selling" pardons for political or monetary gain. It's reasonable to say that these sorts of things have already happened.

This power should not exist with the executive. It is a recipe for disaster.

Recommended reading.

“Pulling into the parking lot of a hotel in Norfolk, Nebraska, I noticed a small crowd of people, in regular clothes, jogging across the lawn. Soon, it became clear: They were chasing a llama.”

When Sam Myers was growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2011, a local man’s exotic animals ran wild after his death and made national news. The event stuck with Sam, who recently wrote a deep dive into the exotic animal network in rural America — from off-the-book auctions to roadside zoos, and the legal and ethical implications of it all. You can read the piece here. 

On the channels.

INSTAGRAM: The Wall Street Journal reported on a “bawdy” letter with Trump’s signature written to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. President Trump denied the report and said he would sue the Journal for publishing it. We broke down the situation in an Instagram post here. 

PODCAST: Isaac, Ari, and Kmele spoke for nearly an hour about Jeffrey Epstein before talking about Jerome Powell, the Fed, and airing some grievances. You can listen to the full episode here.

BONUS: In case you want a digest version of our Thursday coverage, we explored Biden’s autopen controversy in an Instagram reel here. 

Post of the week.

It’s hard to say exactly why, but Thomas White’s Anthony Bourdain post sent us 

Tangle’s favorites.

Infotainment.

On Tuesday, July 15, the Television Academy unveiled nominations for the 77th Emmy Awards, which will be held on September 14. These days, television shows often feel like greater cultural movers and shakers than films, and that trend felt especially prominent in the past year, with shows like Severance, The White Lotus, The Studio, and many others dominating discourse online (and on the Tangle Slack channels). Here are some numbers on the nominees:

• 600. The total number of television series in contention for an Emmy award across 15 program categories this year.
• 142. The total number of Emmy nominations for HBO shows, the most of any network this year.
• 23. The number of nominations for The Studio, tied for the most nominations for a comedy show in a single year in Emmy history.
• 77. Actress Kathy Bates’s age. Bates is the oldest woman ever nominated in the lead drama actress category (for her work in Matlock). 

Ask the readers.

Last week, Bob asked if national politics makes readers appreciate their local political scenes.

Since we chose his answer, we gave John the opportunity to ask our readers a question in today’s newsletter: 

You can let us know your thoughts by replying through this form.

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