In today’s edition … memory of the immigration crackdown is still fresh for Minnesota Democrats … Trump storms out when confronted on 2020 … but first …
Read more Months after the Minnesota ICE surge, the backlash is driving a Senate primary
Israel reported strikes from Iran yesterday for the first time since a delicate ceasefire went into effect in April. Iran has for weeks demanded Israel cease its attacks on Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces said they intercepted all of Iran’s strikes and later in the day struck military targets in Iran.
Read more from Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv and Sammy Westfall.
Four months ago, Minnesota was the site of the largest immigration enforcement operation in the country’s history. Operation Metro Surge captured national attention as federal agents roamed the streets and detained immigrants. The fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti galvanized aggressive pushback from Democrats, leading to the longest partial government shutdown ever.
Operation Metro Surge formally ended in February, but the state’s Democratic electorate is still fired up. An unprecedented number of new participants served as delegates to the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party convention this year, and the wave of angry Democrats is giving a boost to the party’s left flank.
That’s benefiting the Senate run of progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is up against centrist Rep. Angie Craig. Flanagan is running on a platform of tearing ICE apart, creating Medicare for All and barring corporate money from campaigns. The base is eating it up, and she handily won the endorsement at her party’s convention last month.
“Folks want someone who is going to rip ICE apart and hold them accountable. And that’s our campaign,” Flanagan told us.
Operation Metro Surge still dominates political speeches and ads in the primary race. That anti-ICE sentiment is coming to haunt Craig, who voted last year for the Laken Riley Act, a Republican-led bill that amped up detention requirements for undocumented immigrants arrested for theft. Craig later expressed regret for voting for the bill.
But not so fast, says Craig. A winner in a deep blue Democratic Party convention does not a general election winner make.
“Minnesota is a purple blue state,” Craig told us. “We could lose if we’re not careful.”
Republicans still have a lot of sway in rural Minnesota. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is from there, mind you. The state legislature is closely divided between the two parties.
Craig rose to prominence winning a red-leaning district in 2018 on a message of being a bipartisan when she can, a fighter when she must. It’s the kind of message she says would do better in a general election. She has the backing of a number of her colleagues in the House, including former speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).
Craig also has the cash advantage, with more money going toward her candidacy than Flanagan’s by a comfortable margin.
But Flanagan’s supporters — Flana-fans, if you will — say that’s part of the problem. They’ve criticized Craig for accepting money from corporate and pro-Israel PACs and from donors who have given to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom.
“They are not working for the people, right? If you are taking money from any corporate, big companies, or it could be big groups, You will work for them,” Ahmad Nawaz, a pro-Flanagan DFL delegate, told us.
It’s a similar dynamic that has been playing out in Michigan with Rep. Haley Stevens’s run in the Democratic Senate primary, as we wrote about last week.
Craig said her record advocating for farmers as the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee and for immigrants in her votes to withhold DHS funding prove she isn’t beholden to corporate interests. And she redirected the ire right back at Flanagan.
The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association — which has been the biggest spender on pro-Flanagan ads in the race — has accepted oodles of cash from corporate interests, including Meta, Lockheed Martin and PhRMA.
“Peggy Flanagan is the biggest hypocrite in the entire universe on this topic,” Craig told us. “I take corporate PAC money, and I use it to beat the hell out of Republicans and help Democrats hold the majority. She took corporate PAC money, and now she’s saying, ‘Oh, that’s a terrible thing.’”
Flanagan’s team stressed that she did not have unilateral control over who could donate to the DLGA when she was chair and has led a different fundraising operation since running for Senate.
Read more Trump’s birthday spectacle contrasts wildly with Biden’s understated 80th
“More than a year ago, Peggy Flanagan made the decision not to accept corporate PAC money because she wanted Minnesotans to know that the only people she would be accountable to are them,” Alexandra Fetissoff, a Flanagan campaign spokesperson, told us.
Flanagan winning her party’s endorsement will mean she can campaign with DFL infrastructure, including its voter rolls and the support of other DFL-endorsed candidates. Other candidates have gone on to win the primary without the endorsement in the past, including Flanagan herself when she was part of the 2018 gubernatorial ticket with Gov. Tim Walz.
The two candidates are running to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith, who has endorsed Flanagan. Walz has avoided weighing in. Minnesota’s other senator, Amy Klobuchar, is running to replace Walz this year, meaning her seat could be open early next year if she wins the governor’s race.
Republicans are also split in the primary. The state’s Republican Party voted to endorse former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze while national Republicans are backing former sports commentator Michele Tafoya.
The primary is on Aug. 11.
Read more about the race here.
Remember when President Donald Trump said he would not get the country into overseas wars?
Trump doesn’t.
“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military,” Trump said during a testy interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker. “When you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”
Trump repeatedly vowed on the campaign trail not to get involved in forever wars, and said during his Election Day victory speech that he wouldn’t start new wars at all.
“They said he will start a war. I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars,” he said at the time.
The conflict in Iran is profoundly unpopular in the U.S., especially after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, choking access to critical global trade. A fifth of the world’s seaborne oil traffic passed through the strait during normal times, and other essential materials from fertilizer to aluminum are also being choked off from the closure.
The Trump administration has said reopening the strait is a requisite for lasting peace in the region. Trump has expressed frustration with Israel for not doing more to uphold peace, particularly as it continued to strike Lebanon. Iran refuses to accept a lasting peace agreement without a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Aside from Trump’s eyebrow-raising pivot from his campaign message, the rest of the “Meet the Press” interview was also quite something. He stormed out at the end in frustration over Welker’s questioning on his refusal to accept the 2020 presidential election.
He also grew frustrated over the $1.8 billion weaponization fund, which the Justice Department retreated from following opposition from Republican senators. Trump said he still wants to see the fund created.
“Me, personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed,” Trump said.
Read more from Isaac Arnsdorf on the interview.
Minnesota Star Tribune: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has an openly tumultuous relationship with the city council. They’ve started couples counselling to overcome their differences.
Orlando Sentinel (Florida): Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings ended his run for Florida governor following a cancer diagnosis.
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska): The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has long been the subject of debate over whether the massive swath of protected land should be open to oil drilling. But despite permission from the federal government, few oil companies have shown interest in drilling.
Our colleagues Liz Goodwin and Riley Beggin wrote about the fierce opposition to data centers among voters. What have your experiences with them been? Is there one near you? How has it impacted you? Do you have thoughts about a future data center in your area?
Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
Thanks for reading. You can follow Matthew and Dan on X: @matthewichoi and @merica.
Read more Eriksen ‘doing well’ and expected to leave the hospital after on-field collapse, Denmark team says
