1. A dose of reality

Okay, maybe it wasn't Fauci-level reality, but it was closer than the president has been in the past. Yesterday, President Trump relaunched the daily White House coronavirus briefing with a warning that the "nasty horrible" coronavirus will get worse in the U.S. before it gets better. Taking the stage alone, with no members of his task force present, he also professed newfound respect for face masks, pulling one from his pocket to prove it. All in all, perhaps the most jarring part of the briefing had nothing to do with COVID-19 at all. It was Trump's admission that he has spent time with accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell on numerous occasions. "I just wish her well, frankly," he said. —Associated Press

• — First Russia, now China. Seems that everyone wants our coronavirus data, and now some of those trying to get it illegally will pay. The Justice Department announced charges yesterday against two Chinese hackers who allegedly targeted U.S. companies conducting COVID-19 research. The operation was part of a long-running effort by China to steal American trade secrets and intellectual property. —NPR
•  
• — Get out in 72 hours or less. The U.S. has told China to close its consulate in Houston, Tex., amid the spying accusations, marking a further deterioration in relations between the countries. Beijing is considering shuttering the U.S. consulate in Wuhan in retaliation. —Reuters

2. 'Proactive arrests' in Portland

Despite widespread criticism, acting Homeland Security Sec. Chad Wolf is defending his agency's actions in Portland, Ore., where federal agents are cracking down on violent protests and peaceful demonstrations alike with allegedly abusive tactics. At a press conference yesterday, Wolf staunchly defended the DHS's mission and the federal officers on the ground in the city, denying they are inadequately identified and promising they "will not retreat." —The Hill

• — 'It'd be a cold day in hell.' The nation's first Homeland Security secretary and a former Republican governor from Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, had harsh words for President Trump over the Portland deployment. "The department was established to protect America from the ever-present threat of global terrorism. It was not established to be the president's personal militia," he told Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish. —Pennsylvania Capital-Star
•  
• — Napolitano concurs. Legal analyst Andrew Napolitano also criticized the federal government for deploying troops without the coordination of Portland authorities. On Fox News, of all places, he called the move "unconstitutional" and "plain wrong." —Mediaite

MORE: Cotton compares Portland's graffiti artists to the Confederacy —New York Magazine

3. Graham: America's Interior Ministry?

"One common tool for an interior ministry is a national police force. That can be a dangerous tool because an armed national police force at the disposal of the central government has a tendency to be misused. A repressive regime that is in danger, or simply faced with protests it finds troublesome, can use the national police to crack down, turning the force into an agency that protects the rulers, rather than one that defends the rule of law." —The Atlantic

MORE: Comey: Is televised conflict Trump's goal? —The Washington Post

4. For the love of golf...

...or the love of money. In February 2018, President Trump asked the American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, if the British government could help steer the world-famous British Open to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland.

• — Experts on government ethics point to a potential violation of the emoluments clause that may have been triggered by the president's actions: The British or Scottish governments would most likely have to pay for security at the tournament, an event that would profit Trump.
•  
• — The White House declined to comment on Trump's instructions to Johnson, as did the ambassador and the State Department. —The New York Times

MORE: NFL owner and Trump ambassador to UK sparks watchdog probe over alleged racist and sexist remarks and a push to promote Trump business —CNN

5. Congress gone wild

Tensions are obviously high on the Hill this week, and some members are letting it get the best of them. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, was forced to apologize today for a contentious encounter with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, on the steps of the Capitol on Monday. Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez "disgusting" for suggesting that poverty and unemployment led to a recent rise in crime in New York City, and then allegedly called the congresswoman a "f***ing b****" as he walked away. Yoho denied that he used any such obscenity. —CBS News

• — In defense of Cheney. Some notable Republicans are speaking out in support of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who was harshly rebuked by fellow GOP congresspeople at a House Freedom Caucus meeting yesterday for her perceived lack of fealty to President Trump and his agenda. —Newsweek
•  
• — Ethics violations for Trump ally. Hard to believe, but true. An investigation has found that Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has improperly sent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a company linked to a speech-writing consultant who was ousted from the Trump Administration, in direct conflict with House ethics rules. —Politico
•  
• — It's not just the federal government. Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder received a visit from the FBI yesterday and, just hours later, appeared in U.S. District Court on charges that he conspired in a racketeering scheme involving a $60 million bribe. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. —Dayton Daily News

6. Trouble for trolls and pundits

Twitter announced yesterday that it has begun taking sweeping actions to limit the reach of the QAnon conspiracy theory on its platform. In the last few weeks, Twitter has taken down more than 7,000 QAnon accounts for the dissemination of misinformation and for breaking the company's rules on targeted harassment. Twitter will also stop recommending QAnon accounts and content in places like trends and search—a move that will affect approximately 150,000 additional accounts. —NBC News

• — A civil lawsuit was filed on Monday against four current and former Fox News commentators—Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ed Henry, and Howard Kurtz—by a former Fox producer and a guest contributor, accusing them of sexual misconduct and harassment. —Deseret News
•  
• — The right-wing student activist group Turning Point USA and its co-founder Charlie Kirk are under scrutiny for making misleading financial claims and enriching several of the nonprofit's top leaders as it pushes President Trump's message. —ProPublica

7. Fischer: Fact vs opinion in the newsroom

"In print, readers could follow cues like physical location within a paper to be able to easily distinguish what was opinion from what was news. ... Opinion pieces were physically segregated from the rest of the paper in a way that they aren't online, making it harder for readers to discern the difference between reporting that aspires to neutrality and opinion journalism that doesn't." —Axios

MORE: Over 280 Wall Street Journal employees raise credibility concerns about opinion page —The Hill

8. Voting is more critical than ever

Why? Because without a clear, undeniable election result in November, we can almost certainly expect challenges. As in 2016, President Trump has made it clear that he might not accept the results of an election he is already calling "rigged." Some election experts, former lawmakers, political strategists, legal scholars, and historians fear a potential nightmare scenario, in which Trump's norm-breaking behavior—coupled with the unprecedented challenges of pandemic-era voting—test the limits of American democracy and plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. Yikes. Make sure you register and vote. —The Mercury News

• — A new cross-partisan proposal, issued by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Brookings Institution, makes a case for a mandate on election participation. —The Fulcrum

• — The death of Rep. John Lewis, who was brutally beaten in 1965 while demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Ala., has renewed a push by Democrats to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and name it in his honor. Thus far, Republicans have opposed any such reauthorization. —The New York Times

• — A thousand public health experts have signed a letter urging Congress to provide states with $4 billion so that they can expand access to vote-by-mail and ensure safe in-person voting in November. —Center for American Progress

9. Görlach: Democracy and truth

"In the past 15 years, actors have appeared all over the democratic world who have gradually shifted the borders between the legitimate interpretation of an opinion and mere gut feeling. If their partial victory is not to culminate in a triumph that would mean the end of democracy, people of goodwill from the leftist, the ecological, the liberal, and the conservative spectrum must make a major effort to retake control of the facts. Once these have been torn from the hands of populists and demagogues, a fair and constructive struggle over the best path for democratic society can begin." —Deutsche Welle

Ed. Note: Alexander Görlach is a senior fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a senior research associate at the Religion & International Studies Institute at Cambridge University.

MORE: Americans tune in to 'cancel culture'—and don't like what they see —Politico

10. An American Story: Surprise delivery

Langston Walbuck, a young boy in California, would wait outside every day in hopes to receive a package from UPS driver Hector Velasco, who makes deliveries on his street.

• — Velasco noticed Walbuck looking disappointed from his balcony from not receiving a package, so Velasco decided to brighten the boy's day by delivering a box filled with toys and candy.
• 
  — Velasco explained to the Walbucks in a text that he was moved to do something special for their son because "the world didn't give my wife and I any boys. Gave us two beautiful girls. And I've had [these] cars in my collection, but [you've got to] let them go some time, and I felt like today was the day. [Your] son taught me a lesson that it's not only my kids going through this epidemic. Our kids are our world and the future."

• — "It made me feel special," said Langston about his surprise delivery. —Upworthy

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.