| Who knew Cory Booker had it in him?! The Senator from the fallible state of New Jersey pulled off the impossible this week: He got himself featured in Vogue magazine. For sartorial reasons! And, well, also because he did this: “Over 25 hours, Booker broke the floor speech record long held by Senator Strom Thurmond, who bellowed for a day to block civil rights legislation in 1957,” Nia-Malika Henderson writes. At 55 years old, she says “Booker’s iron-man effort — spotlighting how the cuts in services and tariff-induced price hikes will land on average voters — set a new standard for how Democrats can fight and get attention.” People are calling him the “yapping world champion” and wondering how he managed to go so long without a bathroom break. It’s impressive in a you-could-probably-win-Survivor kind of way, which is exactly the kind of spritely energy the Dems — not exactly the picture of youth — need to distance themselves from a certain disgraced 74-year-old minority leader. Of course, not everyone has to be born with the gift of gab or be able to withstand bathroom breaks to stand up to Trump. All it takes is a strong moral compass and a bit of backbone! In a new op-ed, Steven Brill says Big Law must fight for their constitutional rights and those of their clients. “This is not a partisan issue or a pro-MAGA or anti-MAGA issue. Rather, it has to do with abuses of executive power that undermine democracy,” he writes. Spelling it out in plain terms like that could help the Democrats’ bottom line: The party too often gets bogged down by what David M. Drucker refers to as “woke baggage.” In his mind, the party’s stubborn focus on cultural issues — trans athletes, DEI, abortion rights — too often distracts from the fact that Trump is running the economy into the ground: Even amidst the souring economic vibes, both Democratic candidates lost in Florida’s special elections this week (a waste of donor money, in Mary Ellen Klas’ opinion) and Trump now has two more MAGA loyalists in Congress. That’s not to say that cracks aren’t starting to form in the Republican façade. In Wisconsin, Patricia Lopez says voters rejected the conservative judge that Elon Musk was hellbent — to the absurd tune of $20 million! — on getting on the state Supreme Court. In general, it’s been a losing week for Musk, what with his bromance with Trump being on the fritz and his car company’s sales dropping to the lowest since 2022. Like Liam Denning’s says, the billionaire’s dystopian vision isn’t selling much these days. Make America Mongolia Again? | While everyone else is busy talking about what just went down in the Rose Garden this afternoon, Mike Bloomberg had his eyes on one thing, and one thing only: The deficit. “The US is on course for fiscal breakdown,” he writes. “Unless Congress changes course, there’ll be a reckoning, and it will be grim.” If there were more — or any! — assiduous adults in the Congressional chamber, reducing the nation’s monetary imbalance would be a top priority. But Republicans are daydreaming about erecting tax cuts, announcing tariffs and deporting makeup artists, none of which will help them balance the books: “The impact on overall revenue is likely to be negative, because tariffs depress commercial activity and job creation,” he writes. But what about Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, who claims the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs will raise $700 billion a year? Achieving that number wouldn’t be without pain, writes Justin Fox: “High tariffs were the norm in the 19th century, but they haven’t been in the 20th and 21st. Suddenly raising them back to 19th-century levels would amount to a huge economic shock with hard-to-predict consequences,” he explains. “Navarro’s projected $700 billion in tariff revenue would put the US between Senegal and Mongolia on this chart, and somewhere back in the 1800s in the others,” Justin explains. Beyond the economic costs, Clive Crook notes “the deeper harm — to America’s ability to lead by consent — might in the end be greater.” Bonus Trade War Reading: Liberation Day could be transformative or a non-event. Don’t trust first takes. — John Authers | 
