Good morning and welcome back to the Elective. We hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend, or at least enjoyed it more than that Polish guy who stole a hat from a kid at the U.S. Open tennis match. In other news, some gel nail polishes were just banned in Europe, and according to Politico, “Trump denies he’s dead.” Glad they straightened that one out for us.

MILITARY

🔱 U.S. blows up Venezuelan drug boat in Caribbean

The world is home to 11 fewer Venezuelan drug traffickers than it was on Tuesday. The U.S. military struck a small ship in the Caribbean that the Trump administration said was operated by the Tren de Aragua drug cartel. Typically, the U.S. would seize the vessel and apprehend its crew. Blowing it out of the water is a new policy.

• This is the first known strike since Trump’s recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean to fight the cartels.

• Trump designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist group back in February, and the White House used that designation to defend this attack.

Is this legal? Trump said the U.S. has hard evidence that these guys were up to no good, including “tapes of them speaking.” Even so, some legal observers aren’t convinced the strike was legal under international law because the U.S. isn’t “engaged in an armed conflict” with the targets.

• A Venezuelan official claimed Trump’s video of the strike was an AI fake, and Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro said he was prepared to respond to any U.S. attacks.

Is this an effective deterrent? The president certainly thinks so. He believes other cartels will “watch that tape” and think twice about their current career trajectories.

Part deux? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this is just the beginning of “a deadly serious mission” to stop drug trafficking, and that “it won’t stop with just this strike.” That lines up with Trump’s comment that “We have to protect our country, and we’re going to.”

Court fight? If Trump continues his crusade on this front, or follows through on his threats to send the National Guard to fight crime in Chicago or New Orleans, expect this to end up in court ASAP. A federal judge in San Francisco ruled his recent use of the National Guard to quell riots in Los Angeles was illegal. TBD on whether his other military actions join the “you can’t do that” club, but three of his other moves just did:

• Trump wants the Supreme Court to step in after a lower court judge said his entire web of tariffs is illegal.

• In keeping with a Supreme Court precedent that Trump wants to overturn, an appeals court reinstated a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) whom Trump tried to fire.

• Another appeals court said Tuesday that Trump can't use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan gang members.

On the other side of this divide, a federal judge apologized to the Supreme Court after justices rebuked his anti-Trump decision as counter to their demands.

GOVERNMENT

🚀 Goodbye, Rocky Mountains. President Trump announced that he plans to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to … Huntsville, Alabama? Space Command is one of the military’s cross-branch unified combatant commands. It oversees all operations that are, you guessed it, more than 62 miles above sea level (that’s 100km). It was launched in 2019, around the same time as the U.S. Space Force, with Colorado Springs as its temporary home. Trump named Huntsville the permanent home in 2020, but Biden reversed that call. Now, Trump has reversed Biden’s reversal. Huntsville seems random, but the place is nicknamed Rocket City and is home to rocket research centers for both NASA and the Army.

🩺 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is probably not going to have fun today. The secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) is headed to Capitol Hill today to get grilled by lawmakers, a week after he and Trump fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Several CDC officials resigned in protest, and more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed an angry letter demanding Kennedy resign, too. For his part, RFK said he wants to restore the CDC's original focus on infectious diseases. That focus, he says, has been worn down by decades of "bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep."

🏦 Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director and a member of the Cabinet, apparently isn’t a big fan of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Vought blasted the GAO as an agency that “shouldn’t exist” due to its legal structure as a “quasi-legislative independent agency.” Some conservatives also think the joint is staffed by career Democrats who overstep their authority by constantly smacking down the president’s spending decisions. Gene Dodaro, who’s led the GAO since 2008, disagrees. He called the auditing agency critical to “transparency and accountability” and said its work has saved taxpayers $1.2 trillion.

POLITICS

🥊 Congress busts out a budget fight as shutdown looms

America’s congresscritters are back from their traditional August vacation and hard at work … failing to censure Rep. LaMonca McIver (D-NJ) for an April clash with ICE agents. On a cooler note, House leaders also presented World War I’s legendary Harlem Hellfighters with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Shutdown time? Meanwhile, Congress has until September 30 to avoid a government shutdown. If a budget for the 2026 fiscal year isn’t passed by the time current funding expires, all nonessential federal government operations will shut down.

Pocket rescission: Complicating that situation is an effort by President Trump to use a so-called “pocket rescission” to cancel $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid spending.

• Rescission is when Congress votes, based on the president’s request, to claw back (unspent) funding it had given to the executive branch.

• Per the rules governing that process, Congress has 45 days after the request to hold its vote.

• What’s the problem here? Well, the current fiscal year ends just 32 days after Trump’s request.

Democrats in Congress, along with some Republicans, argue the cramped calendar makes Trump’s plan illegal. The White House, of course, disagrees. Now the Dems are threatening to throw a wrench in the budget fight and shut down the government to stop Trump’s pocket rescission plan.

Elsewhere in the political world:

• Democrats: Beating Sen. Susan Collins (R) in Maine is likely the best chance Democrats have to pick up a Senate seat next year, and two very Maine-coded candidates are in the race: a brewery owner and an oyster farmer.

• Republicans: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has recruited terrible college football coach Derek Dooley (son of the legendary Vince) to challenge Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) next year in what is likely Republicans' best pickup opportunity.

• Florida: Congressman Jared Moskowitz (D) worries Republicans could control the Sunshine State for the next 70 years.

• 2028: If Sen. Cory Booker (D) runs for president again, he’ll have one thing his 2020 campaign was missing: a wife.

TRIVIA

Now that Rep. Jerry Nadler (D) is retiring, the congressional district covering the cool, rich part of Manhattan is open for the first time since 1992. It’s probably safe to assume it’s going to be a bloodbath next year as ambitious Democrats fight to represent New York’s New Yorkiest areas in Congress.

One person not running, though? Former presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton, who just put to bed longtime rumors that she was interested in a run here. Had she won the seat, Chelsea wouldn’t have been the first president’s kid to serve in Congress. But she would be the first in quite a while. Who is the most recent U.S. president to have a son or daughter who later served in Congress?

Hint: This president was from New York.

BRIEFS

● Google stock jumped to a record high on Wednesday after a federal judge opted against forcing it to sell Chrome and Android, as the Department of Justice had requested, for monopolizing the online search and ad markets.

● Cable channel Newsmax filed an antitrust lawsuit against Fox News, accusing its conservative media rival of abusing its power to suppress the right-wing competition. Fox denied the claim and accused Newsmax of trying to sue its way to success.

● The Florida Department of Health plans to end all vaccine mandates, including those for public schools. Florida’s surgeon general, who recently joined a CDC advisory committee, said people are still free to get the shots if they so choose.

● Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan was arrested at London’s Heathrow airport for anti-trans social media posts from April that British police said incited violence against trans people. His arrest has sparked a firestorm over the limits of free speech in the U.K.

QUOTE

ANSWER

President Biden’s son, Beau, served as Delaware’s Attorney General. Dubya was, of course, President George H.W. Bush’s son. He served as president, but lost his only bid for Congress in 1978. Maureen Reagan lost congressional races in 1982 and 1992, and Jack Carter lost one in 2006.

You have to go all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) to find a president with a kid who actually won their race for Congress. Two of FDR’s sons served in the House during separate stints in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.