• Ukraine mineral deal: In a move that was months in the making, the Trump administration and Ukraine signed a mineral deal that is a significant step toward ending the three-year-long war. Signed on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained, “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.” One of the sticking points to the original deal had to do with Ukraine being obligated to pay back the aid it received from the Biden administration. Ukraine is no longer obligated to repay that amount, but it will be on the hook for further military aid, which will be compensated via mineral developments and reconstruction contracts to U.S. firms and our allies. As Bessent noted, “To be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

• Another activist judge interferes with immigration enforcement: These judges just can’t help themselves; they hear about illegal aliens being deported and they leap into action. (Word of illegals swarming across the open border prompted no such action.) In this case, Border Patrol was investigating places in California where illegals frequently find work, detaining and efficiently deporting at least 78 of them, but U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston ruled that these sweeps cannot result in detainment without a reasonable suspicion that they are illegal aliens. Her ruling requires warrants for arrests unless they are a flight risk. Warrants can take one to five days to obtain. If there are only 10 million illegal immigrants, that’s 10-50 million days of judicial review before they can be deported. This ruling is another method of stopping deportations altogether.

• Anti-Semitic Palestinian protester released: Mohsen Mahdawi is a 34-year-old Palestinian man who specializes in leading anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus. (Or, if you read NPR, he’s a “Columbia student.”) Mahdawi was co-president of the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group that has since been suspended. On the Monday following the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, which occurred on a Saturday, the SJP released an open letter calling for Israel to be held accountable for its actions. Mahdawi has won a court case allowing him to remain a legal Vermont resident and freeing him from custody. The DHS assistant secretary pointed out that Mahdawi is a green card holder, which is a privilege. Why we must let him keep spewing his hateful rhetoric as a guest in our country is unclear; apparently, it’s the only kind of free speech leftists will defend.

• Senate tariff bill quashed: The bipartisan effort led by Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Wyden to end Donald Trump’s emergency tariff powers failed in a deadlocked 49-49 vote, with two senators out of town unable to cast votes. Vice President JD Vance served as the tiebreaker, voting against the measure. The two Republicans who joined Paul and the Democrats in voting in favor of ending Trump’s tariff power were Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Mitch McConnell, one of the two senators who missed the vote, would have voted in favor, according to his spokesman, who said, “The Senator has been consistent in opposing tariffs and that a trade war is not in the best interest of American households and businesses.” Even if the measure had passed the Senate, the Republican-controlled House had already killed any possibility of even considering a vote on it until at least October.

• Religious charter schools: On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a landmark charter school case involving religious liberty. At issue is St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which was created as a Catholic school but seeks state funding in Oklahoma as a public charter school. Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ruled against the school’s charter school application, deeming charter schools to be a “government entity,” meaning religious schools violate constitutional limits against government involvement in religion. St. Isidore countered that the denial of its charter school application amounted to religious discrimination, also a constitutional violation. The justices appear divided on the case, with the Court’s conservatives favoring the school and the leftists opposing it. The decision likely hangs on Chief Justice John Roberts, since Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself due to ethical concerns, given her previous support for public funding of religious charter schools.

• Team Biden kept dossiers on individuals deemed “vectors of disinformation”: “We know that the best way to combat disinformation is freedom of speech and transparency,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during the public cabinet meeting the Trump administration held yesterday. This is a radical shift compared to the previous administration. Rubio told the room that at least one person sitting at the meeting had a dossier kept on their social media posts under the Biden administration due to their spreading of “misinformation.” Rubio shuttered the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) in April. The GEC worked with social media companies to flag accounts as “Russian proxies” based on criteria like describing COVID as an engineered bioweapon.

• Polis blesses taxpayer-funded abortion: Last week, despite impassioned pleas from pro-lifers and a letter signed by a group of bishops from the state of Colorado, Democrat Governor Jared Polis signed into law SB 25-183. Now, taxpayer dollars will be used to fund abortions in the state. This is a massive reversal in a few short years, as Section 50 of Article V of Colorado’s constitution had explicitly prohibited the use of taxpayer funding for abortions. Last year, Coloradans approved Amendment 79, effectively overturning Section 50. Democrats controlling the state’s legislature passed SB-25-183 without a single Republican vote, and it “appropriates $1.5 million in state taxpayer funds to pay for abortion reimbursements.” Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie ridiculously defended it as a cost-cutting measure because “a birth is more expensive than an abortion.” Mary Szoch of the Family Research Council called McCluskie’s comments “disgusting.”

• FBI’s BLM sympathizers reassigned: Set the wayback machine for June 2020, “The Summer of Love Fiery but Mostly Peaceful Protests.” Then-Attorney General Bill Barr deployed the FBI to protect federal buildings and participate in crowd control. Some of the agents — and you’d be forgiven if you noticed a pattern in the photos — decided to take a knee in the face of the “mostly peaceful” protesters. The agents in question argued their choice prevented violence. It was determined that this did not violate policy, although it arguably put them at a tactical disadvantage. Now return to 2025: Those agents have been reassigned to “less coveted positions” instead of being fired. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Headlines

• Trump to oust National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (WSJ)

• Adam Schiff reintroduces bill to ban “assault weapons” (Not the Bee)

• Hunter Biden abruptly drops lawsuit against IRS (NY Post)

• Scathing Harvard report details pervasive anti-Semitism driven by “politicized instruction” (Washington Free Beacon)

• Biden gave asylum to nearly 600 migrants with terrorism ties (Daily Wire)

• 40% of Tesla owners report vandalism (Breitbart)

• California, which allows chemical castration of kids, gets closer to ban on declawing cats (Not the Bee)

• $48 million in DOD-funded research benefitted Chinese military (Washington Stand)

• Dangerous fires rage in Israel; Palestinians call for more arson (Daily Wire)

• Humor: Democrats show solidarity with MS-13 by getting new face tattoos (Babylon Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.