Introducing: THE DRAIN PIPE — A Normal Person’s Guide To The Swamp
Welcome to The Drain Pipe, a normal person’s quick and dirty guide to Washington. You shouldn’t have to be a member of the White House press pool, a Polymarket insider trader, or a Chinese honey pot to understand what’s going on with the government — especially since you fork over so much money every April. What is the government doing with all that money? A lot of lobbies and NGOs depend on you never finding out.
Their strategy is twofold:
First, they make DC seem complex. In fact, tracking DC can be rote, paint-by-numbers simple. Anyone can dive deep into a congressional hearing or a court case with public resources, and we plan to demystify those as often as possible.
Second, the Beltway grifters dull your senses by making everything seem boring. The doltish reporters churning out Washington’s daybooks are all too happy to comply, writing about the seat of power of the world’s most powerful country in the stilted style of an overdue English report for a book they never read. But the debates in DC don’t just involve rival ideas. They can also turn on petty feuds, backroom deals, and eye-watering corruption. And the stakes are earth shattering.
Our newsletter will dredge up the muck of the Washington swamp more accurately. Put your hazmat suit on. Time to take a ride in The Drain Pipe.
Shortly before 2 p.m., Trump will depart for a drag race and vehicle demonstration, a tour and gift ceremony before delivering remarks, according to his public schedule. The demonstration comes about a month before Trump plans to host an Indy 500 Grand Prix on the National Mall August 22 through the 23.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House Tuesday for the first face-to-face sit down with Trump since the war began, according to Netanyahu’s office.
Bibi arrives with the war in a precarious lull: After 13 straight nights of strikes, U.S. forces did not attack Iran Saturday or Sunday.
Trump faces a fork in the road: Accept a diplomatic agreement or trigger a steep escalation in violence to extract concessions. Officials met to discuss next moves on Friday.
United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz appeared on Face the Nation on Sunday to give the latest brief, insisting Iran is not like “Afghanistan or Iraq, these endless wars where the policy goals, what were we doing there, started to drift so badly.”
He said that diplomatic efforts continue but that weaponry was being marshalled into the Iranian theater so that “all options are on the table.”
Reading the tea leaves, The Times of Israel predicted Bibi’s visit means a major escalation is off. The initiation of a new round of joint attacks would involve some sort of feint, not a visit between the two leaders, the paper speculates.
Trump told Axios that Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to,” but that there could be “consequences” from Iranian strikes.
Both Trump and Bibi say their relationship remains good. But Trump expressed public frustration after Israeli strikes on Lebanon jeopardized a June peace agreement. And New York Times reporting earlier this year revealed that Trump’s decision to go to war was informed by overly rosy Israeli intelligence indicating swift victory, an open Strait of Hormuz, and an overthrown regime – none of which materialized.
A dwindling supply of Patriot interceptor missiles with which to defend U.S. bases may be a decision-making factor, the Times reported. In the meantime, the U.S. is purchasing an older interceptor model that it has not bought in 30 years, The War Zone reported.
The Press Corps’ Follow Up:
Trump’s first White House Correspondents Dinner in April ended with a bang, literally, when would-be presidential assassin Cole Tomas Allen rushed the ballroom and fired a shot into a Secret Service officer’s ballistic vest before tripping and being detained.
Trump immediately promised to host the event again. The second go at the dinner took place Friday night.
“We’re here to show everyone that we do not yield to political violence,” Trump said Friday night at the Waldorf Astoria. “We settle our differences not with bullets but with open and vigorous debate. And no deranged loser with a gun will ever change that.”
Round Two was a smaller and more secure affair, with attendees required to show government ID. (Allen’s manifesto had noted the lax security, saying, “this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.”)
“That night will go down in history and so will our response,” said White House Correspondents Association President Weijia Jiang, whom Trump said........
