Monday, July 27th, 2026 - Trump Cancelled Blue State Grants, the Pentagon Fudged Iran Casualty Count, 19 Million Eggs Recalled

Today's Headlines: The White House Correspondents Dinner happened over the weekend — Trump did an hour of his greatest hits, mocked Kaitlin Collins and his own guest Nicki Minaj, and Wolf Blitzer presented the Wall Street Journal with an award for uncovering Trump's Epstein ties while noting the reporter had to move after Trump doxxed her home address in a lawsuit, which is a sentence about the current state of press freedom. The Trump administration is moving to rename New York Penn Station — renderings obtained by Gothamist already show a presidential seal with Trump's name on it — because courts blocked his Kennedy Center name and apparently he needs a replacement trophy. Meanwhile, court documents from an Energy Department lawsuit revealed that the administration canceled $7.5 billion in energy grants to states specifically because they voted for Kamala Harris and have two Democratic senators, with an Energy Department attorney explicitly stating there was no programmatic or performance-based reason for the cancellations, which is actually quite honest. In food safety news, nineteen million eggs have been recalled for salmonella across 17 states with nearly 100 people sickened and 26 hospitalized, meaning the lettuce, beef, and now eggs are all compromised simultaneously, MAHA. On the war beat, Iran strikes were paused for two days to give negotiations "some space," days after Trump said he was considering an attack "bigger than ever before," while the Pentagon quietly removed four recently killed service members from the official Iran war casualty count because they died after the "ceasefire" — and the injury count fluctuated between 482 and 420 on the Pentagon's own website. This week: Zelensky visits the White House Tuesday, the US and UK are meeting in London to find countries willing to help with the Strait of Hormuz, and Sam Altman is heading to DC to pitch the government on approving the AI model that autonomously hacked another company last week. Resources/Articles mentioned: NYT: Nearly 100 Cases of Salmonella Tied to Voluntary Recall of 19 Million Eggs NYT: At Correspondents’ Dinner, a Rambling Trump Hurls Insults The New Republic: Trump Team Moves to Rename New York’s Penn Station NYT: Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him Axios: Dems' 2028 primary schedule angers some progressives WaPo: Trump wants to give U.S.-Iran talks ‘some space’ as he weighs escalation, aide says  AP News: Pentagon's official Iran war death toll no longer lists 4 troops killed during renewed fighting Axios: Trump to meet Zelensky at White House Tuesday Axios: Scoop: U.S., U.K. planning international conference on Strait of Hormuz Axios: What OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will tell the White House this week Subscribe to the Betches News Room and join the Morning Announcements group chat. Go to: betchesnews.substack.com Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices