NO MONEY, MO’ PROBLEMS

Can Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Internal feuds, millions in debt, and a flying cellphone threaten to keep the party from capitalizing on Donald Trump’s errors.

• Democrats are riding high on optimism about retaking the House, and possibly even the Senate, in the November midterms. But if you peaked inside the party’s headquarters, you’d think they were gearing up for a funeral, instead of a victory celebration. Tensions inside the Democratic National Committee have boiled over in recent months. At the center of this vortex of bad vibes sits the party’s chairman, as he struggles to reckon with the party’s abysmal finances — and his own tenuous future.

• DNC Chair Ken Martin, the party’s fundraiser-in-chief, is having a tough one. He’s the guy in charge of making sure that Dems have enough cash to compete with Republicans nationwide. And the party has negative dollars to its name.

• The DNC is $2 million in debt, according to fresh financial reports. Surely, Republicans can’t have much more than that, right? Wrong! The RNC has been raking in the cash despite President Donald Trump’s unpopular policies, with a whopping $128.5 million in the bank — not including Trump’s $400 million personal war chest.

• Martin recently argued that the “story being told” about the party’s finances “is simply wrong. But the problem is so dire, in fact, that the organization put its headquarters up for collateral last year to help pay down debt, according to NOTUS. In the same year, Martin greenlit $840,000 to territories that don’t hold federal elections, including Guam and Puerto Rico, the New York Times reports.

• Money isn’t his only problem. Democrats have questioned Martin’s leadership ability ever since he blocked the release of a draft report into why Democrats lost the 2024 presidential election, only to reverse course in May following public pressure. The report was embarrassingly sparse, and several Democratic lawmakers called on Martin to resign.

Martin isn’t handling the mess well — which brings us to the flying phone.

• Martin threw a phone at a junior staffer’s desk while scolding that person earlier this month, leading to a formal HR complaint, six people familiar with the incident told the Times. He has also been making dark jokes about losing his job, even though his term isn’t up for three years, the outlet reports.

• “He isn’t a villain in politics or anything, but he is incredibly thin-skinned,” a former DNC official told me. Martin’s anger is “something that he needs to work on,” the person said. “When it comes to the fundraising stuff, that’s him shooting himself in the foot.”

• The DNC declined to comment to What A Day. But Martin really doesn’t like it when his dirty laundry gets hung out for the whole neighborhood to see. “It pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building,” Martin told staffers shortly after the autopsy was released, several people who heard the remarks told the Times. “My success is your success.… So the weaker I am, the weaker all of you are.”

• Democrats remain favored to take the House in November. The DNC drama, however, foreshadows a tough few years for the party, and a rocky road ahead to 2028, and even beyond.

• The midterms are often a referendum on the party in power, meaning that Democrats will have an easier time winning (without spending loads of cash) thanks to Trump’s unpopularity. The calculus shifts during the presidential cycle, when the DNC needs to support the party’s candidate with money and resources. The Democratic nominee will need to raise enough money to compete with Republicans’ massive war chest, while helping to pay off the DNC’s debt, the former official said.

“It’s not going to be good unless things change, whether it’s Ken or the staff dynamics,” the former official added.

WHAT ELSE? 👀

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is extending his hospital stay, which has already lasted six weeks. “I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders,” said McConnell, who was hospitalized after a fall in his home, which left him unconscious. The 84-year-old’s office also released a new photo of him, wearing a buttoned-up shirt in a hospital bed, next to his wife.

ICE could start trying to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. this week, CBS News reports. The planned operations come after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in its bid to end Temporary Protected Status for the migrants. Mass deportations to Haiti would likely strain the country’s humanitarian system, as violent gangs overrun the country.

The U.S. and Iran haven’t attacked each other in three days, as Donald Trump considers escalating the war. “We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” Trump told Axios. Iran, meanwhile, is still insisting that it’s in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Trump administration’s deadly boat strikes in Latin America, which have killed over 200 people, haven’t slowed the flow of cocaine into the United States, according to a federal assessment reviewed by the Washington Post. So more death and destruction isn’t going to solve the drug problem? It’s almost as if we haven’t learned anything from the last 55 years of the disastrous war on drugs, huh.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is in for a tough week. Days after the House left for summer recess, Trump said that Thune isn’t allowed to send senators home until he passes the SAVE Act — his bill to overhaul federal elections — or terminates the filibuster. (Neither has any shot at happening anytime soon.) Trump wrote in a social media post: “Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”

After that post, Thune told reporters that he isn’t cool with canceling vacation: “What’s your picture of victory at the end on this?” he said. “Because if the end game is we actually get an outcome or a result, we could stay here till Christmas.”

The woman who called child protective services on former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last month, in a move that prompted officials to temporarily take away his kids, appeared “mentally unstable,” according to police records. Officials acted on an unsubstantiated tip, which one child advocacy law expert described as “reckless.”

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

A coalition of former NASA astronauts launched a nonpartisan advocacy group to promote free and fair elections, and remind politicians to protect the Constitution’s principles. “We’re fighting for our country, for our democracy, and for decision making, and restoring the faith in our institutions,” astronaut Cady Coleman told the Guardian.

Cubans have figured out creative ways to work around Donald Trump’s blockade of oil to the island, months after he first predicted that the country would soon collapse. As the New York Times writes: “They are swapping their gas-guzzling 1950s American cars for electric motorcycles and rickshaws from China; importing hefty lithium batteries to keep televisions and fans running through blackouts; jury-rigging generators to run on more accessible natural gas; and installing solar panels on rooftops and even vehicles.” Electric vehicles and solar panels? Did Trump by mistake start a green energy revolution in Cuba?

You’ve probably heard the “Gen Alpha melody,” even if you have no idea what that means. A researcher in Denmark noticed that dozens of popular songs over the past decade have used a similar four-note melody. A YouTube video he made, mashing up many of those songs, has racked up millions of views. “These kids have heard bad romance since the womb and have been chasing that high ever since,” one commenter wrote.

UNESCO named two Brazilian theaters in the Amazon to its World Heritage List. The theaters, which were built in the late 1800s, represent “symbols of political and urban ambition,” the organization said in a statement. Anyone else remember “Fitzcarraldo,” Werner Herzog’s 1982 classic about the would-be rubber baron who dreams of building an opera house in the jungle?

A whaling museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts is going viral after embracing a one-star review on Google, which described the museum and the “worst aquarium ever.” The museum, which is only home to deceased sea animals, has sold hundreds of t-shirts with the review written on the front. I mean, technically speaking, a whale museum is the worst aquarium ever!