Good morning, it's Monday, August 17. The nation's new attorney general said on national television that no, he won't pledge to keep the Justice Department independent of the White House — and that the president should have a say in who gets investigated.

Also in today's issue: Lincoln families fight back, Cassidy calls out vaccine lies, Trump's gas price ask, AIPAC's California gamble.

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The president's lawyer stopped pretending on Sunday.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, was asked whether the Justice Department would always act independently of the White House. He didn't hedge. "No, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that." When the host asked whether President Trump should have a voice in individual prosecution decisions, Blanche said, "yes, of course."

Here's what that means at your kitchen table. The Justice Department is the one part of the federal government that's supposed to treat every American the same — regardless of who's in the Oval Office. If you've ever counted on the law being applied equally whether you voted for the president or against him, that assurance just got weaker. What Blanche said wasn't a slip. It was a policy position.

Some context. Blanche was Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer — the man who sat next to the president in a Manhattan courtroom. He was confirmed as attorney general on August 8 by a vote of 50 to 49. Two Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted against him alongside every Democrat. Murkowski said she lacked "confidence" Blanche would "check the worst impulses of this administration." Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, warned that Blanche "will never do what's best for the American people." He replaced Pam Bondi, whom Trump fired in April.

On the same broadcast, Blanche declared the DOJ's "anti-weaponization" compensation fund dead — that was the proposed $1.8 billion pool critics called a reward for January 6 defendants. But he said those defendants can still file individual claims against the federal government. The fund is gone in name. Whether its purpose survives is another question. And this is where things start to get complicated.

Blanche then turned to voting. The DOJ has been suing states to hand over their voter registration records — lists with voters' names, addresses, and partial Social Security numbers. Twenty-two federal judges have ruled the government has no legal basis to demand that data, according to case tracking by Democracy Docket. An appeals court agreed. Blanche said taking it to the Supreme Court is "absolutely" a possibility.

Here's the detail that rewards a closer look. The states fighting back aren't just blue states. Idaho, Georgia, Utah, Nevada, Vermont — these are Republican-led states telling the president's own Justice Department it's overstepping. When both parties agree a legal theory is wrong, and judges appointed by both parties confirm it, pressing the case isn't about fair elections. It's about who controls the machinery.

The midterms are less than three months away. If the Supreme Court takes the voter rolls case, the ruling could reshape how November's elections are run. And with an attorney general who has publicly said the president's wishes shape who gets investigated, every future DOJ action now carries a question that didn't used to need asking: whose idea was this?

The norms that separated prosecution from political power since Watergate were never laws. They were agreements. Blanche isn't bending the line. He's saying it shouldn't exist.

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Families of roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are publicly condemning President Trump after he told reporters on August 14 that the ship's record-setting 260-plus-day deployment was "not nearly long enough." The carrier has gone more than 200 days without a port call while supporting Iran war operations. Families report food shortages, broken toilets, and weeks without laundry service. A sailor went overboard in early August in what the Navy called a mental health episode. To relieve the Lincoln, the Navy is pulling the USS George Washington from the western Pacific — temporarily leaving that region without a carrier as China steps up military activity. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a Marine veteran, called the administration's response "a true lack of leadership" on ABC News.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — a physician who cast the deciding vote for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation — accused Kennedy on August 16 of lying to get that vote. Cassidy told ABC's This Week it is "pretty evident" Kennedy broke his pledge not to alter the childhood vaccine schedule, reacting to Trump's August 10 executive order that cut recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11 and directed splitting the MMR vaccine into three separate shots. He called the order "crazy" and "stupid," noting parents would need six doctor visits instead of two for MMR alone. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates it would take a decade to develop the separate vaccines. CDC data shows measles cases in the first half of 2026 have already topped all of 2025.

President Trump on August 14 told a Long Island crowd to accept paying more for gasoline during the Iran war, calling it a "tiny little bit more" to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Gas is near $4 per gallon nationally — up more than 30 percent since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on February 28. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports the average household has paid an extra $527 in fuel costs since the war began. Trump also said he would declare the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway carrying roughly 20 percent of global oil — a U.S. territory. Iran's deputy foreign minister called the idea "fanciful delusions." A Quinnipiac University poll from late July found 60 percent of voters oppose military action against Iran.

Pro-Israel super PACs linked to AIPAC have poured more than $5 million into California's 14th Congressional District special election ahead of the August 18 runoff, spending heavily against progressive state Senator Aisha Wahab to boost BART board president Melissa Hernandez. Wahab — the first Muslim woman and Afghan American elected to California's state legislature — won the June special primary by 26 points. The seat was left open when former Representative Eric Swalwell resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations. AIPAC's investment follows its loss in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, where it spent roughly $30 million trying to defeat progressive Abdul El-Sayed. According to the New York Times, AIPAC-affiliated groups have now spent $67.2 million this election cycle, with much of that aimed at Democratic primaries.

That's the average extra fuel cost per American household since the Iran war began on February 28, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. If prices hold, the projected year-end total climbs to $650.

P.S. Should a president direct who the DOJ investigates? Hit Reply — one word is enough.