• Obama judge saves sanctuary city funding: At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut off funding for sanctuary jurisdictions. In April, Judge William Orrick issued a preliminary injunction against the EO, and he has now extended it. Orrick’s ruling also blocked similar conditions on two grant programs. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision. Trump’s campaign against sanctuary cities is ongoing, as he correctly points out that they are sanctuaries for criminals — in defiance of federal law, no less. Thus far, Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, DC, has been successful, which may give him the political leverage to bring about change in sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore, which have sky-high crime rates.

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia arrested … again: Salvadorian illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia reported to the ICE Field Office in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was once again taken into custody this morning. He’ll soon be deported to Uganda. Garcia, the “Maryland Man” who is an accused MS-13 member, wife beater, and human trafficker, has had courts repeatedly stymie the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him. On Thursday, the Justice Department offered him a plea deal to admit guilt to human smuggling charges in Tennessee in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica. He rejected the deal and now will likely soon find himself on a flight to Uganda.

• National Guard supplementing DHS in 19 states: The Department of Homeland Security will see National Guard reinforcements in the coming weeks in 19 primarily red states. Guardsmen are expected to mostly perform administrative tasks. Deployment is proceeding under Title 32, which places the Guardsmen under the command of state governors. Of the 1,700 Guardsmen expected to mobilize, less than 2% have already been deployed, though 60 soldiers and airmen are expected to begin training in Virginia Monday for activation in early September.

• DOJ releases Maxwell transcript: On Friday, the Justice Department released the transcript of Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche over two days last month. Within the lengthy transcript, Maxwell makes a number of notable claims. She says that Donald Trump was “never inappropriate with anybody” while he was on friendly terms with Epstein during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Maxwell also denied that Epstein had a “client list” of individuals he supposedly had blackmail material against. She claimed that Bill Clinton never traveled to Epstein’s infamous island, and she also does not believe that Epstein killed himself.

• Comey authorized anti-Trump leaks in 2016 election: Earlier this year, FBI Director Kash Patel sent redacted documents to Congress detailing FBI involvement in the leaking of classified information used to hurt the Trump campaign. Attorney General Pam Bondi removed the redactions last week and sent the updated version of the documents to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The documents show that ex-FBI general counsel leaked classified information on the word of James Rybicki, believing the instructions to be coming from then-FBI Director James Comey. The New York Times was the recipient of the leaks, although the exact information leaked is still unidentified. Bondi has confirmed her commitment to punishing these leaks, calling Comey’s behavior “abhorrent.”

• MN Dems can’t count votes accurately: The Minnesota Democratic Party endorsed Minneapolis socialist mayoral candidate Omar Fateh — until it didn’t. In what could be mistaken for a comedy routine, the Gopher State’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) leadership decided weeks after officially endorsing Fateh that it had done so in error and therefore revoked its endorsement. What was the error? Apparently, not all the delegate votes were counted. Current Democrat incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey challenged Fateh’s endorsement based on a failure of the electronic voting system. Fateh received 328 votes to Frey’s 227, while an additional 176 votes were never counted. If they had been, they would have gone to a third candidate, DeWayne Davis, which would have triggered a second mayoral ballot. Radical leftist Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar blasted the DFL’s decision as “inexcusable” and “unacceptable.”

• Canada drops retaliatory tariffs: On Friday, Canada announced it was dropping most of its 25% retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Back in March, in response to Trump’s raising of tariffs against our North American neighbor, Canada imposed a 25% tariff on a significant number of U.S. products. Canada’s latest action is aimed at building a better relationship with the Trump administration ahead of a coming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Canada did not drop all its retaliatory tariffs, however, maintaining 25% tariffs on U.S. auto, steel, and aluminum. This decision also came after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s phone call with Trump, the first since the two failed to come to an agreement before an August 1 tariff deadline hit. Trump has used tariffs to pressure Canada into acting to help prevent fentanyl from crossing the Canadian border into the U.S.

• Think tank advises Democrats to stop talking like crazy people: “Microaggression,” “othering,” and “existential threat” are among the terms the Third Way think tank advises Democrats to stop using. While these terms are irritating to most normal Americans, this represents another Democrat attempt to pretend that messaging and not the message is the reason they’re failing so spectacularly to reach the American people. Third Way’s senior vice president thinks the reason that terms like “birthing person” fail to land with ordinary people is because Democrat language has been too focused on “never [making] anyone upset about anything.” The think tank reaffirmed its commitment to the ideas behind the terms but advises Democrats to talk more like normal people. Politico, where Third Way unveiled its advice, was quick to point out that there are parts of the country where ordinary people do use terms like “holding space” and “deadnaming.”

Headlines

• Powell indicates conditions “may warrant” interest rate cuts (CNBC)

• Trump administration ends Rhode Island offshore energy project (Washington Examiner)

• California Democrat mega-donor pleads guilty to massive carbon-credit scam (Daily Wire)

• Trump plans to make Cold War-era plutonium available for nuclear power (Daily Wire)

• Pentagon reportedly blocking Ukraine from firing Western missiles deep into Russia (Daily Caller)

• The judicial Calvinball of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (Jonathan Turley)

• Study: Mental illness more likely after abortion than after childbirth (National Review)

• Humor: 10 most shocking discoveries from the John Bolton FBI raid (Babylon Bee)

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