Good morning! August is always a slow news month in Washington. Congress goes on vacation, and the whole place sort of empties out in the swampy summer heat. With that in mind, before we dive into the lame news, here’s a peek at what really matters:

• Costco people are big mad that the store's food court switched from Pepsi to Coke.

• Cracker Barrel succumbed to minimalism and lost its soul.

• People are freaking out over some weird new combo nacho electric boat plane thing.

WORLD

🌍️ Plan for peace in Ukraine moves forward … maybe

Well, he wore a suit this time. That’s one way to avoid the controversy that helped tank Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s last visit to the White House in February. With seven other European leaders in tow, Zelenskyy stopped by the White House this week to discuss a potential end to its three-year defensive war with Russia.

What happened? They talked. A lot. Then talked some more. Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin at one point to begin planning a dual Ukraine-Russia meeting and a later trilateral meeting that also includes the United States.

Security guarantees: Ensuring Ukraine doesn't sign a peace deal and potentially give away 20% of its land only for Russia to wait five years and invade again is, well, kind of important. Options on the table for post-war security include sending European troops to Ukraine as a buffer, but Russia isn't a fan of that.

• Trump ruled out using U.S. troops, but said the U.S. might provide some sort of air support.

• Russia called all this planning a “road to nowhere” if Moscow’s not involved. But its economy might be cracking under the weight of war, which could be a factor in negotiations.

Does peace have a chance? This is Europe’s deadliest war in 80 years, and Trump is all in on ending it. He even noted that, "If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.” Zelenskyy said Ukraine is "ready" to meet with Putin. But will Putin meet with Zelenskyy? Maybe not, in Trump’s view. Russia's bombing of a Ukrainian university on Wednesday could be a signal of where things stand.

In other news: The State Department revoked more than 6,000 student visas for alleged legal violations. Trump wants to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors over accusations of “mortgage fraud.” And the U.S. and NATO are pumping troops into the brutally cold Arctic to counter Russia and China.

GOVERNMENT

💰️ Secretary Howard Lutnick, the man in charge of the U.S. Department of Commerce, thinks the federal government should receive a 10% stake in Intel. The White House is discussing the plan, which would make the U.S. government the chipmaker's largest shareholder. Last fall, Intel finalized an $8 billion federal grant from the 2022 CHIPS Act to help build semiconductor factories in the U.S. and reduce America’s reliance on China. Lutnick defended the plan, saying the government wouldn’t have any voting power at the company and would get its money back by converting “what was a grant … into equity.”

⬛️ As anyone who’s been a child before might realize, fences have one critical weakness: They’re easy to climb over. That’s one problem the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a plan to solve as it builds about half a mile of fencing per day along the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS has begun painting the fence black so it gets hotter in the desert sun, and fewer people try to climb over it. As a bonus, the black paint also helps prevent rust. The paint will be applied to new sections as well as more than 1,000 miles of existing barriers.

⛰️ A ranger at Yosemite National Park in California was fired by the National Park Service for hanging a humongous, 66-foot-wide transgender pride flag on the famous climbing formation at El Capitan. The flag was on display for about two hours in the main area of the park on May 20. The NPS accused the ranger of "failing to demonstrate acceptable conduct." But the ranger in question, who identifies as nonbinary, said being fired sends the message that any federal worker who disagrees with the Trump administration "will be eliminated."

POLITICS

📈 Democrats shed voters nationwide as Texas Republicans pass redraw

Don’t shoot the messenger, but things aren’t looking so hot for the Democratic Party right now. Among the 30 states that track voter registration by party, Democrats are losing ground to Republicans in … all 30. Yikes.

Between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Democrats shed 2.1 million voters. During the same period, Republicans gained 2.4 million voters. That’s a net swing of 4.5 million registrations.

• Pennsylvania: Democrats had an edge of 517,000 active voters in 2020. Now? That’s down to 53,000.

• North Carolina: Democrats led by 400,000 registrations here in 2020. Now? Fewer than 17,000.

• Miami-Dade County: In 2020, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in Florida’s most populous county by 200,000. Now? Republicans lead by 14,000.

As if the overall numbers weren’t bad enough, the party is also losing ground among its traditional constituencies. Back in the stone ages of 2018, just 34% of new voters under 45 registered as Republicans. By 2024, that was up to a majority: 52%.

• Democratic-aligned voter registration groups used to target young and nonwhite people. They knew they’d register a few Republicans, too, but most of the new voters would be Dems.

• Not anymore. They’re on the losing side of that ratio now and no longer target such broad groups.

Democrats still lead nationwide by ~9 million voters. But that’s somewhat misleading because some large Republican states (looking at you, Texas) don’t register voters by political party.

This year: You might think this would swing the other way now that Trump’s in office. Not so. According to the limited data that’s available, the net swing toward Republicans so far in 2025 is 360,000 voters. Said one data scientist, “It’s going to get worse,” for Democrats, “before it gets better.”

Elsewhere in the political world:

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom is trolling his way to social media fame by mocking Trump.

• Kamala Harris’s 2028 star is dimming among Democrats, even in her home state of California.

• President Trump says he'll use an executive order to "end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt."

• Elon Musk is pumping the brakes on his plan for a new political party and wants to remain close to JD Vance.

PS: After assigning cops to follow their Democratic colleagues to ensure they don’t flee the state again, Republicans in the Texas House passed a new congressional map to favor their party on Wednesday. It’s headed now to the Texas Senate.

TRIVIA

As we’re all hopefully aware by now (if you’re not, we don’t even know where to start), President Trump is a Republican. The guy before him, President Biden, was a Democrat. Yadda, yadda, yadda, every president elected since 1860 has been a member of one of those two parties. In the 42 elections since 1860, how many has each party won?

Hint: It's nearly 60-40 in one party’s favor.

BRIEFS

● Israel's military is calling up 60,000 reservists as it begins its ground offensive to capture all of Gaza City, which makes up ~12% of the overall Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Israel also approved a plan to build more Israeli homes in the (Palestinian) West Bank.

● A federal judge rejected a Justice Department request to break precedent and unseal grand jury docs from Jeffrey Epstein’s trial. The U.S. House Oversight Committee will publish some (other) docs after subpoenaing them from the DOJ.

● Conservative media is having a bad week. Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a defamation lawsuit from a voting tech company. Over at Fox News, a similar, ongoing $2.7 billion lawsuit revealed some embarrassing text messages from its hosts.

● Protestors heckled Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a meeting with National Guard troops deployed to fight crime in D.C. The move is unpopular among District residents, only 6% of whom voted for Trump.

● Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, is back in Parliament after losing reelection in April. He has no connection to and doesn’t live in his new district, which is 1,700 miles away from his old one. This is somehow totally normal in Canada.

● A federal judge ruled that Texas cannot force public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and another blocked West Texas A&M University from banning drag shows on campus.

QUOTE

ANSWER

In the 42 presidential elections since the current two-party system gelled in 1860, Republicans have won 25, while the Democrats have won 17.

Team R really dominated early on, so the overall score is a little misleading. Looking at just the past 100 years, things are far more even. Democrats lead that count by one: 13-12.