Cross-Examination

• Trump takes to the South Bronx: “Build the wall!” That cry, along with “We love Trump!” were the prevailing chants yesterday at a Donald Trump rally in the deep-blue South Bronx that drew as many as 25,000. The majority-minority borough isn’t likely to go for Trump in November, but the movement his campaign has seen in New York — Joe Biden won the state by 23 points in 2020 but leads by only nine points now — is telling. It’s been 40 years since a Republican won New York. That was when Ronald Reagan swept 49 of the 50 states against Walter Mondale. “These millions and millions of people that are coming into our country,” said Trump to a notably black and brown audience, “the biggest impact, and the biggest negative impact, is against our black population and our Hispanic population, who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose.” That economic message should scare the daylights out of Biden and his fellow Democrats. Polls aren’t votes, of course, and neither are rallies. But as The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman observed on Fox News this morning, “What you’re seeing here, I think, is the modern version of Reagan Democrats.”

• GOP senators shoot down awful border bill: Just as he threatened to do, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brought a horrible border bill before his chamber for another vote yesterday, hoping to give Biden and his fellow Democrats a lifeline while putting the Republicans on the defensive on a hugely important campaign issue ahead of the 2024 election. And just as the Republicans did the first time, they shot it down in flames, 43-50, with a few Democrats crossing over and joining them. As The Washington Post reports, “The no votes included two senators, Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), who originally negotiated the deal and criticized the vote as political gamesmanship.” Said a disingenuous Schumer ahead of the vote: “To my Republican colleagues: You wanted this border bill, today we vote on this border bill, and it’s time to show you’re serious about solving the problem.” To which we reply: Where were you and your fellow Democrats during the first three and a half years of the Biden presidency while 10 million illegals were waltzing across our wide-open southern border?

• Does the NFL’s Goodell value diversity of opinion? “Listen, we have over 3,000 players,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday. “They have diversity of opinions and thoughts just like America does. I think that’s something we treasure. That’s part of what ultimately makes us as a society better.” That’s certainly a walk-back from the league’s comments last week in the wake of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s commencement speech at tiny Benedictine College, a Catholic liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas. At the time, Goodell’s diversity officer said of Butker: “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion. Which only makes our league stronger.” As we noted last week, Butker’s message was perfectly suited to his devout Catholic audience, but it was too much for the woke Left, whose adherents headed to Change.org to create a petition calling for the Chiefs to release their kicker “for discriminatory remarks.” The petition has topped out at around 225,000 signatures, which amounts to around one indignant leftist snowflake for every 1,500 Americans.

• Norfolk Southern agrees to $310M settlement: It was a little over a year ago that a Norfolk Southern train derailed in the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, resulting in the spill of hazardous chemicals. Both waterway and air contamination forced the evacuation of many residents. In April, Norfolk Southern agreed to a $600 million class-action settlement with residents within a 20-mile radius of the derailment. On Thursday, the railroad company agreed to a $310 million settlement with the EPA and DOJ, which includes a $15 million civil penalty for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act. That said, Norfolk Southern is not expressing liability for the derailment. While no one was killed in the incident, the sheer scope of the toxic spill registers as among the worst in U.S. rail history.

• NYC begins evicting illegals from shelters: Following a deal reached with migrant advocacy groups, New York City will begin evicting from its shelters illegal aliens who have exceeded the 30-day limit for adults or the 60-day limit for young adults ages 18 to 23. The city currently has more than 65,000 migrants filling its shelters, which are intended for the city’s homeless population. Migrants with young families will be permitted to reapply for shelter once they hit their time limit; however, others will be required to leave. Any agreement that allowed the city to evict migrants from shelters would produce cries of “inhumanity,” complained Democrat Mayor Eric Adams. “People said it’s inhumane to put people out during the wintertime, so now they say it’s inhumane to do it in the summertime. It’s humane to do it in the springtime. It’s humane to do in the fall time.” He added, "It’s always inhumane to have to not be able to house 198,000 people.“ Well, Adams and the residents of NYC wouldn’t have to deal with this problem in the first place if it wasn’t for Joe Biden’s border malfeasance.

• CNN’s sinking ratings hit a new low: CNN hasn’t seen numbers this bad in over three decades. Last week, the Leftmedia cable news outlet pulled in just 83,000 viewers among the prized 25-54 age demographic during its 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slot. To make matters worse, over the entire week, CNN hit 494,000 viewers. The last time CNN saw numbers this bad was back in 1991. Meanwhile, CNN’s biggest competitors, Fox News and MSNBC, saw two million and 1.1 million totals, respectively. Last June, CNN fired CEO Chris Licht, who was directing the news outlet to become more straight news and less leftist-biased. CNN editor-in-chief Mark Thompson replaced him, but that move has not reversed the sinking ratings. Responding to CNN’s abysmal viewership, Fox News’s Joe Concha gloated, "Being MSNBC Light appears to not be the smartest strategy. And all the propping up of Abby Philip and Kaitlyn Collins isn’t improving the situation.”

• Crockett trademarks slam against Greene: In an awful sign of the times — and of the type of people we’re attracting to Washington, DC, these days — Democrat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has filed for a trademark of the insult she hurled last week at her Republican “colleague” Marjorie Taylor Greene during a House hearing. As The Hill reports: “An application for ‘bleach blonde bad built butch body’ was filed by Crockett’s campaign Sunday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.” Just think: In the days and weeks ahead, you too might be able to festoon your vehicle with that very phrase on a bumper sticker, or sport a similarly adorned T-shirt, and the profits will go to the classless Crockett. As the Washington Examiner’s Christopher Tremoglie observed: “At any other time in recent history, [this] would have caused outrage, especially within the LGBT community. Calling a female ‘butch’ and then having the audacity to file a trademark application using the term would have resulted in protests and demands to resign by the fanatical left-wing political activists plaguing this nation.”

• Quantico update: Both individuals who attempted to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico in a box truck posing as Amazon delivery drivers early this month were Jordanian, and both were in the U.S. illegally. One of the men crossed into the country illegally over the southern border. The other Jordanian overstayed his student visa. Other than that, DHS notes that neither individual has a criminal history in the U.S. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill blasted DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the agency’s lack of clarity and transparency surrounding this potential terrorist incident. Senator Lindsey Graham sent a letter to Mayorkas asking, “Are either of them on any terrorist watchlist?” Congress has launched an investigation into what Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green called a “brazen attempt.” He warned, “The consequences of these potential national security threats running loose in our country will come back to haunt us.” Both Jordanians are in ICE custody.

Headlines

• Majority of House Democrats vote against barring illegal immigrants from voting in DC elections (Daily Wire)

• Supreme Court says South Carolina election map doesn’t impermissibly exclude black voters (ABC News)

• Democrats’ Alito ramblings are about delegitimizing the Supreme Court (Washington Examiner)

• NCAA signs off on deal that would change landscape of college sports — paying student-athletes (NBC News)

• Louisiana legislature approves bill classifying abortion pills as controlled dangerous substances (AP)

• South Carolina becomes 25th state to protect minors from gender transition procedures (Washington Stand)

• Up to 50% of UCLA med students are failing basic tests after lowering admissions standards for minorities (Not the Bee)

• Hundreds walk out of Harvard College graduation; UCLA contends with new protest (NBC News)

• Three more Israeli hostages’ bodies found in Gaza (BBC)

• Humor: Democrats release damning photo of Justice Alito reading the Constitution (Babylon Bee)

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