Josh Fiallo

ReutersDonald Trump spent the latter half of his Fourth of July spamming posts to Truth Social, where he raged against Jack Smith, took shots at ABC News’ George “Slopadopoulos,” and even revealed the parameters of his dream presidential debate night. That debate, Trump wrote, would be “no holds barred” with only him and Biden on stage—no moderators in sight. “What a great evening it would be, just the two of us, one on one, in a good, old fashioned debate,” Trump wrote, “the way it used to be.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty ImagesThe DOJ opened a probe this week against Chinese swimmers and international sport organizers—a massive slap in the face against China just weeks before the 2024 Olympic Games begin in Paris.The probe pertains to accusations that two dozen Chinese swimmers, including gold medal winners, were improperly cleared to compete in the last edition of the summer games despite failing doping tests weeks prior.Federal investigators are sure to have irked Chinese officials, who chalked up the failed drug tests to food contamination—a seemingly long-shot story that was accepted by World Aquatics, the global swimming federation.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesJoe Biden’s week from hell was punctuated on the Fourth of July, with sources revealing he told Democratic governors behind closed doors that he, the most powerful politician on the planet, has asked his advisers to no longer schedule events that begin later than 8 p.m.It’s a bombshell revelation, first reported by The New York Times, that further calls into question Biden’s fitness and position atop Democrats’ presidential ticket. Biden has been adamant since his disaster of a debate a week ago that he has no plans to bow out of the 2024 election, despite some top Democrats, donors, and physicians sharing publicly that he’s physically incapable of another four years. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Kirby LeeBronny James landed a massive deal with the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, signing a four-year contract worth a whopping $7.9 million—a figure that seems to overvalue him relative to his draft position.The shiny new contract for James, 19, was announced just hours after the Lakers revealed they’d struck a deal with his superstar dad, 39-year-old LeBron James, that will see him make the league maximum salary of $104 million this season. While the James family is sure to be celebrating Wednesday night, it’s impossible to ignore that the younger James’ payday likely has everything to do with his dad’s stardom and not his own basketball resume. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Sam WolfeDonald Trump was gifted yet another big win Tuesday morning after Manhattan prosecutors agreed to postpone his criminal sentencing so Judge Juan Merchan can weigh whether Monday’s immunity ruling by the Supreme Court may render his conviction moot. The decision to officially postpone the sentencing lies with Merchan, but he’s likely to do so with both sides asking for yet another delay.Trump has fought tooth and nail to have each of his criminal trials pushed back until after the 2024 election—a once-lofty goal that appears to be inching toward reality after a favorable Supreme Court ruling.Read more at The Daily Beast.

David Dee Delgado/GettyRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held a news conference that was brutally crashed by protesters on Monday afternoon as she sought to rally support for Steve Bannon before he surrendered to start his four-month prison sentence. Greene trekked north to Danbury, Connecticut, to stand alongside her fellow MAGA loyalist, who wrapped his arm around her while he attempted to martyr himself as a victim of political persecution. Behind Greene at one point was a sign that read, “bleach blonde, bad built, butch body,” a reference to the insult Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) infamously yelled at Greene during a recent spat on Capitol Hill.Read more at The Daily Beast.

ReutersJustice Sonia Sotomayor issued a withering dissent to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling on Monday, writing that U.S. presidents will now be able to assassinate political rivals and accept bribes with impunity while they’re in office.That’s a dangerous precedent to set, Sotomayor wrote, especially as the increasingly unpredictable Donald Trump seeks a return to the White House. “The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world,” Sotomayor wrote. “When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Elizabeth FrantzCalls for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race are as loud as they’ve ever been, with some of the president’s most sympathetic voices in media musing that, after a disaster of a debate, it’s time the 81-year-old politician called it quits. Biden’s campaign came out firing against those calls by Friday, however, emphatically stating the president would “absolutely not” be dropping out of the race and that he still plans to debate Donald Trump a second time.Seth Schuster, a campaign spokesperson, texted multiple media outlets, “Of course he’s not dropping out.” Lauren Hitt, another campaign spokesperson, texted other reporters the same message.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Justin Lane/Pool via ReutersThe Supreme Court released a slew of new rulings on Friday morning, but, once again, none of them included the decision weighing heaviest on Americans’ minds—whether Donald Trump should be granted king-like immunity for his criminal indictments. Friday marks 114 days since the case was accepted by the high court—an inexcusable amount of time to rule on something so consequential to the country, a top legal expert tells The Daily Beast. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said Friday it’s clear that the Supreme Court, which has operated with a comfortable conservative majority since Trump’s presidency, is doing the ex-president’s bidding. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Bill Clark/GettyJustices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas led the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that slapped down a lawsuit seeking to take a popular abortion pill off the market. Handing pro-abortion supporters a rare win from the country’s highest court, Kavanaugh wrote that the case’s plaintiffs, a pro-life group of doctors who vehemently oppose abortion by any method, didn’t have the authority to challenge the FDA over an issue that did not impact them personally. “Plaintiffs are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Because plaintiffs do not prescribe or use mifepristone, plaintiffs are unregulated parties who seek to challenge FDA’s regulation of others.”Read more at The Daily Beast.