This is something I’m still trying to get my head around — both the technical legislative details as well as how all this plays in political terms. The details are still fuzzy to me, but I want to get the outlines in front of you. At the end of the summer we’ll be coming to the end of the fiscal year. DOGE has canceled tons of NIH grants and done various other things to make it really hard for NIH and other grant-making parts of HHS to do their work and spend the congressionally appropriated money. So by late August a very large pot of money will have built up and you will be coming to the end of the fiscal year in which Congress mandated that it be spent.

I had not seen that David Horowitz died. He was 86. I have said many harsh things about Horowitz over the years, going back to one of my earliest pieces in The American Prospect in the late 90s. I even had a few personal run-ins with him. I stand by all the stuff I wrote but it’s not the moment to rehash the specifics. You can peruse our archives. Horowitz was actually the first person, very early in my career, who was verbally confrontational with me in person. I wasn’t a victim here: He was reacting to highly critical and dismissive things I’d written about him in that Prospect article. I note it because it was just my first experience with fights you pick in print coming to life in person. He seemed to seek out those confrontations. That acidic and aggressive personality you saw on TV was him off camera too.

At least for the moment this hasn’t gotten much attention. So let me point your attention to a new part of the White House Signal chat story which is actually a pretty big deal. You likely saw that yesterday Reuters published a photo of a Trump Cabinet meeting in which Mike Waltz could be seen using Signal on his phone. That was pretty unbelievable. You could see several of the chats, though mainly who he was chatting with more than the contents. Embarrassing, etc. But 404 Media, a newish tech news site, noticed that there was more than that. He wasn’t actually using Signal at all. He was using a third-party Signal knock-off which allows you to use your Signal account but with additional features.

When I got word this morning that Mike Waltz was making his final swirl around the National Security Advising bowl I set myself to thinking: what’s the stupidest way this could play out. I tried, readers, and I failed as we’ve now learned that Marco Rubio will be taking over as interim National Security Advisor. I should point out that Marco Rubio is now Secretary of State, Administrator of USAID, National Security Advisor and Archivist of the United States (head of the National Archives). I’m not at all joking about any of that. It’s possibly there are yet other jobs I’ve forgotten.