In today’s edition … Liberal faith groups are working to counter Trump … We want to know how you would fix Congress … but first …
Read more At G-7, allies plan for a world less reliant on the U.S.
The United States and Iran reached a limited deal Sunday to end months of fighting, according to President Donald Trump, a top Iranian diplomat and the leader of Pakistan, which has been mediating between the two sides.
The sides are scheduled to sign the agreement on Friday.
For what is in the deal and more, read the report from our colleagues Michael Birnbaum, Sammy Westfall, Mariana Alfaro and Susannah George.
“How would you like to be in a political ad?”
Okay, that may not be the exact question canvassers from the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy are asking voters this year, but it’s not far from what happens: The political nonprofit is using a cutting-edge strategy that mixes old-school voter contact with artificial intelligence technology to create short, raw straight-to-camera ads.
Here is how it works: The group, which runs a large-scale voter-contact program to advance an affordability agenda, was looking for a way to bring the stories they were hearing from voters to the masses. So they empowered and trained their canvassers to take videos of voters who wanted to participate, and then used an AI-enabled editing tool to create raw ads that, in the words of Sondra Goldschein, the group’s executive director, create an “authentic way to communicate with voters.”
“When we thought about the challenge of finding more credible and authentic ways to communicate with voters, we realized that we already had the answer, and that’s in the voters themselves,” Goldschein said.
Campaigns are always looking for ways to make political advertising more engaging — and less formulaic. Think Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s use of cartoons in an ad. Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy’s ads are another approach, one that uses an artificial intelligence program to transcribe, edit and produce the ad. What comes out are voter-driven spots that don’t look like most political ads.
In Maine, that meant an ad featuring Hannah from South Portland in a hair salon lamenting the cost of child care before the group urged voters to call Sen. Susan Collins and urge her to lower costs. In North Carolina, their ad shows a voter on a street talking about how his father “refuses to call ambulances when he’s on the bed at the crib, sitting there about to have a heart attack” because of the costs. And in Iowa, the ad shows a woman named Arianna worrying that the “price of groceries is way too high, even for the most bare minimum necessities that we need,” before a slate urges voters to urge Republicans in Iowa to “look out for us.”
These ads are not highly produced. But Goldschein says that is the point — you don’t need a huge crew, you don’t need a candidate and you don’t need significant money.
“They’re unscripted. They are raw. They are real people. And so in a world where voters really don’t trust politicians and they are deeply skeptical of anything that feels contrived, these ads really lean into the rawness and authenticity that I think people are looking for right now,” Goldschein said.
“It’s somebody on the street in a place that is recognizable to you because it’s filmed within your community, talking about the issues that are top of mind.”
These ads will be part of a $50 million voter-contact program the committee plans to run. They piloted the idea in North Carolina, later moved on to Iowa and now plan to move on to Maine and Ohio. All four states will be home to high-profile Senate races later this year.
Because of its nonprofit status, the group is nonpartisan. But their accountability program — which calls out elected officials for not fulfilling their commitment to lower costs — targets Republicans for their voting records.
The campaign’s use of AI is significant. Many believed that 2024 would be the first campaign where artificial intelligence was widely used, but while the technology was used, most of it was in the more dull, behind-the-scenes work that campaigns do every day. That has changed ahead of the 2026 midterms, with campaigns and candidates using AI throughout their communication.
Goldschein is bullish about these ads, and she argues they can be more reflective of what is happening in that moment because from the time the ad is filmed to the time it can be published is “around two days.”
“These are just as compelling as studio-produced ads, and they can run on any platform,” Goldschein concluded. “We should really be looking to get as many eyeballs on them as possible because they’re really effective.”
Liberal faith groups are launching a counter to President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, aiming to rebut what they view as the MAGA movement’s embrace of Christian nationalism.
Read more World Cup racism monitor urges FIFA to remove match official over hand gesture on TV broadcast
The groups — American Humanist Association, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Interfaith Alliance and the Center for American Progress — will release a report today with constitutional arguments for religious pluralism. It features perspectives from 20 elected officials and faith leaders from a variety of religious traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism.
The report is intended to get ahead of the Religious Liberty Commission’s own anticipated report set to be released this summer. The commission has focused on perceived threats to Christianity under Democratic administrations. It is chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and is mostly made up of Christian and Jewish religious and political leaders. The commission was sued last winter for lack of diversity, asserting all members supported the idea of the U.S. as a Judeo-Christian nation.
Democrats are increasingly leaning into religion after years of dismissing the issue as a private matter, as we’ve written about before. A greater number of Democratic candidates are running on overtly religious platforms, including members of the clergy. We wrote about some of the party’s outreach to Evangelicals, one of Trump’s most loyal voting blocs, a few months ago.
Boston.com: World Cup matches have been happening nationwide this weekend, but the videos out of Boston — where Scottish and Haitian fans took over the city in the most endearing way — have been incredible. It’s a reminder of the power of sports.
Courier Journal (Louisville): Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was admitted to the hospital on Sunday, but there is little known about his prognosis.
The Kansas City Star: A skydiving plane crashed over the weekend, killing 12 people, including a pilot and 11 skydivers. “The low-wing, single-engine turboprop plane was not able to make it to full power, according to officials with the Bates County Emergency Management Agency,” the paper reported.
In our Friday newsletter, we highlighted that some are having trouble separating their own personal politics from the World Cup in the U.S.
“What I’m hoping to see during this World Cup are noticeably large swaths of empty seats throughout the stands in American stadiums,” wrote Don Crisafulli, a reader in Sacramento. “Let’s see Trump and his legion of amateur-hour suck-ups, hacks, and other lying enablers try to credibly spin what would be undeniably out there (and photographically documented) for all to see.”
We put this question to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani as part of a piece that was published over the weekend: Soccer-obsessed Mamdani has been waiting for this World Cup for years.
Mamdani argued that his “compass” has been ensuring “that you’re always working back from a place of, ‘How can I ensure we deliver the most affordable, most incredible experience for New Yorkers and those who come to visit the city?’”
But what was clear in our interview was how Mamdani compartmentalized his love of soccer with his political views in this moment.
“Soccer is another language where you can both unlock yourself and others around you,” Mamdani said. “And it’s an incredible way to engage with a world that we too often see through a very different lens.”
He added: “I’m just so excited for people to fall in love with the game across our city. And my hope is that this is also a summer where young kids across our cities start to think of themselves as soccer players and start to imagine what their life could look like with the ball at the heart of it. And that decades from now, when we look back at an incredible American team, we see the seeds of that team in this year.”
This data point from Jarrell Dillard is shocking: “Congress’s most important job is deciding how federal money is spent. It hasn’t passed annual funding bills on time since 1997.” We often write about how ineffective Congress has become. But we wanted to ask you: What is your opinion of Congress? Beyond your partisan feelings, what do you think the issue is? How would you fix it? Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
Thanks for reading. You can follow Dan and Matthew on X: @merica and @matthewichoi.
Read more A big trade swing, then a bold reset that powered the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup
