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Supreme blowback, Bannon incarceration and Panama intervention

 
Today's POLITICS story

Biden slams Supreme Court immunity ruling

What happened
President Joe Biden late Monday sharply criticized the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling granting Donald Trump and other former presidents broad immunity for "official acts during his tenure in office." In a brief White House address, Biden said the court's conservative majority invented a "dangerous" and "fundamentally new principle" that leaves "virtually no limits on what the president can do." Trump asked a New York judge to set aside his 34 state felony convictions in light of the ruling and delay his July 11 sentencing. The court's decision also means Trump won't face federal trial before the election for trying to overturn his 2020 loss.

Who said what
The American people now "have to do what the courts should have been willing to do, but will not," Biden said: Decide if Trump's "assault on our democracy on Jan. 6 makes him unfit for office" and whether they want to "entrust the presidency" to him again, "knowing he'll be more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it." 

In an upside for Biden, Politico said, Republicans won't be able to go after him for the Afghanistan withdrawal, border management or any of the other "crimes" they have suggested merit prosecution.

What next?
Trump's motion to dismiss the New York state convictions "might be a long shot" because the hush-money case centers on acts Trump "took as a candidate, not as president," The New York Times said. On the other hand, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, charged by the Supreme Court to sort out which aspects of the federal election case are official and unofficial, may hold a "mini-trial" before the election, allowing "prosecutors to detail much of their evidence" against Trump while "lacking only a jury to render a verdict."

 
 
Today's LEGAL story

Trump ally Bannon reports to prison

What happened
Stephen Bannon, a longtime ally and former adviser to Donald Trump, reported to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, on Monday, to serve a four month sentence for contempt of Congress. He was convicted in 2022 for ignoring a House subpoena.

Who said what
"I'm proud of going to prison today," Bannon told reporters before surrendering to authorities. The low-security Danbury facility mostly houses "white-collar criminals, though it can also include some violent offenders and sex offenders," CNN said.

Although the MAGA influencer will spend the remainder of the presidential campaign behind bars, jail will "multiply" his voice "by ten thousand," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who joined Bannon outside the prison, surrounded by both supporters and hecklers.

What next?
Bannon will stand trial later this year on unrelated charges for allegedly "misusing money he had helped raise for a group backing the former president's attempt to build a wall on the southern border," The New York Times said.

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL Story

New Panama president vows to halt migration

What happened
José Raúl Mulino was sworn in as Panama's president on Monday and immediately pledged to halt northward migration through the Darien Gap connecting Panama to Colombia. A record 520,000 migrants took the dangerous jungle route toward the U.S. in 2023 and another 190,000 have already followed this year. Most of the migrants are from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and China.

Who said what
"I won't allow Panama to be an open path for thousands of people who enter our country illegally, supported by an international organization related to drug trafficking and human trafficking," Mulino said. "I understand that there are deep-rooted reasons for migration, but each country has to resolve its problems."

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attended Mulino's inauguration and signed a memorandum of understanding committing the U.S. to "cover" the costs of repatriating migrants caught trying to cross through the Darien.

What next?
This "massive shift" in Panamanian policy, after the previous administration helped migrants quickly move north into Costa Rica, could "potentially reduce the number" that reach the U.S. border, The Associated Press said. "But it could also force migrants to riskier paths and be a boon for smugglers."

 
 

It's not all bad

Virginia Hislop, 105, received her master's degree from Stanford University last month. She left Stanford in 1941 to marry her husband before his deployment in World War II, and although she never became a teacher as planned, Hislop served on school committees and boards and was a "fierce advocate for equity and the opportunity to learn," said Daniel Schwartz, the dean of Stanford's Graduate School of Education. As a thesis is no longer a graduation requirement, Hislop had enough credits for her degree.

 
 
Under the radar

Pharmaceutical companies are raising the warning flag about an emerging but worrying trend in the medical space: fake versions of their drugs. There are specific concerns about diabetes treatments that are also commonly used for weight loss, and the two main companies sounding that alarm are Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

Eli Lilly released an open letter about two of its diabetes/weight loss products, the tirzepatide medications Mounjaro and Zepbound. Knockoff versions are "often advertised and sold online, through social media or at certain med-spas" and "may contain no medicine, the wrong medicine, incorrect dosages or multiple medicines mixed together, which could result in serious harm," Eli Lilly said in a open letter.

Eli Lilly also announced it was filing lawsuits against "med-spas, wellness centers and other entities" selling knockoff drugs. They have been joined in lawsuits by Novo Nordisk, which manufactures the well-known diabetes/weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) took the unusual step of also warning about knockoff versions of the drugs, specifically Ozempic and Wegovy. Ersatz versions of these semaglutides "could be harmful, and if they do not have the necessary raw components can lead to health complications resulting from unmanaged blood glucose levels or weight," the WHO cautioned.

If you do need these medications and want to protect yourself from fakes, the WHO recommends you "take actions such as buying medicines with prescriptions from licensed physicians and avoid buying medicines from unfamiliar or unverified sources, such as those that may be found online."

 
 
On this day

July 2, 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The landmark legislation, which went into effect nearly a century after the abolition of slavery, outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or national origin. Johnson's signature marked the culmination of a yearslong effort by civil rights activists.

 
 
TODAY’S newspaperS

The Supreme Court's conservative majority has given Donald Trump "significant immunity" from prosecution, The New York Times says on Tuesday's front page. The Washington Post describes it as "wide immunity" and the "latest political triumph for Trump," while The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Trump's "broad" new immunity "further delays criminal case, likely until after election." The New York Daily News quotes one of the dissents, saying Trump is now "above the law," like a "king." The Philadelphia Daily News says the high court's grant of "generous immunity in criminal cases" turns Trump into a sort of Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Next!

A woman who asked potential suitors to take a 15-question screening test remains single after rejecting 5,000 applicants. Dutch influencer Vera Dijkmans told LadBible she "found just three guys who I thought were suitable" after sifting through "a lot of strange applications" submitted by social media followers. Despite not clicking with any of the three finalists during in-person dates, the experiment was "a success," Dijkmans said. "I was able to be upfront of what I want and see which men fit that criteria."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harold Maass, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images; Yuki Iwamura / AFP via Getty Images; Daniel Audilio Gonzalez / Anadolu via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images