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• In a Monday court filing, federal prosecutors disclosed that Ryan Wesley Routh—the man suspected of planning to shoot former President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course—wrote a letter admitting his intent to kill the former president. “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” he wrote in a letter addressed to “The World” and left with an unnamed witness. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.” Routh also offered $150,000 “to whomever can complete the job.” Prosecutors said at a court hearing on Monday they intend to charge Routh with attempted assassination based on evidence in the letter. Routh—who was spotted by the Secret Service and fled before he could get a shot off at the former president—was previously charged with two weapons violations. 
• Several news outlets reported on Monday that satellite images appear to show that a recently developed type of Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) likely mistakenly detonated, leaving a 200-foot crater at its launch site in northern Russia. The new ICMB—officially dubbed “Sarmat,” but also referred to as “Satan II” in the United States—is believed to have a maximum range of more than 11,000 miles, though it only completed its first test flight in April 2022. The incident—thought to have occurred sometime between Thursday last week and Monday morning—has not been reported by Russian government authorities, and it remains unclear what may have caused an accidental detonation. 
• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday launched a series of airstrikes across Lebanon, targeting about 1,600 Hezbollah sites housing the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s weapons. Lebanese government officials reported that more than 490 people—including 35 children—were killed in the aerial attacks. In a video message Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Lebanese civilians directly, urging them to evacuate.“Israel’s war is not with you. It’s with Hezbollah,” he said. “For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage.” Also on Monday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 rockets at areas across Israel and the West Bank, including its deepest barrage of the war so far which targeted West Bank communities east of Tel Aviv. The attacks were largely intercepted, resulting in no deaths and only minor damage to infrastructure. 
• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday that the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran—believed to have been carried out by Israel—would “not go unanswered.” Haniyeh had traveled to Tehran to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration. Speaking from New York City ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting that begins on Tuesday, the Iranian president claimed that though Iran believes Israel to be responsible, it had initially held off retaliating at the request of United States officials. Those officials allegedly told Tehran that a retaliatory strike could jeopardize ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Such a deal has yet to come to fruition and reportedly remains unlikely in the near future. 
• Meanwhile, Defense Department spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a Monday press conference that the U.S. is deploying “a small number of forces” to the Middle East amid escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. While Ryder added that the deployed forces include military personnel, he did not specify the type of forces or answer whether any military equipment—such as aircraft—would accompany the troops. 
• The Biden administration proposed a rule on Monday that would ban certain software and hardware systems developed in China and Russia that connect cars to the internet, citing national security concerns. The Biden administration has suggested such software could be used to gather data about U.S. drivers and infrastructure, among other risks. The proposed rule—issued through the Commerce Department—would apply to the 12 State Department-designated “countries of particular concern,” though a White House fact sheet singled out Chinese and Russian software as posing “particularly acute threats.” The rule is now open for a 30-day public comment period, and if finalized, the software ban would go into effect with the 2027 model year while the hardware limits would be effective as of the 2030 model year. 
• California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued ExxonMobil on Monday for allegedly engaging in deceptive practices to promote single-use plastics consumption—such as exaggerating the benefits of recycling technology—with the intent to profit at the expense of the environment. ExxonMobil is the largest producer of polymer chemical compounds, a core ingredient in plastics manufacturing. The lawsuit is the first to challenge a petrochemical company for misleading the public on recycling efficiency, according to a public statement from Bonta’s office. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman put the blame on California for its ineffective recycling system. “Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” she said.

After last week’s attacks on Hezbollah’s electronics systems—which saw pagers and walkie-talkies explode in terrorists’ hands across Lebanon—one might assume that, sensing some sort of security breach may be afoot, top Hezbollah leaders would avoid all being in the same place at the same time. 

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a daytime strike on what it said was a meeting of top commanders of the Iran-backed terrorist organization underneath a civilian building in Beirut, Lebanon. According to the IDF, the attack eliminated the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil, as well as basically all of the top Radwan commanders—as many as 11, the IDF claimed, though Hezbollah acknowledged just two deaths among top brass. 

The pinpoint attack apparently foiled a planning session for an October 7-style attack on the northern Israeli communities of the Galilee in retaliation for the electronics attack. 

Israel has been increasingly aggressive against Hezbollah in recent days—taking out top brass and destroying significant amounts of its sizable arsenal—adopting what seems to be a strategy of “escalation to de-escalate.” Monday marked the most destructive day in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel since October—perhaps even since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war—though it remains to be seen whether Hezbollah will back down or whether a full Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon may be imminent. 

The shift follows the Israeli government adding to its explicit war objectives the return home of tens of thousands of civilians who have been forced to evacuate due to near-constant Hezbollah rocket attacks along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon since October 8. In addition to the unprecedented attacks on electronics last week, as we reported, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi approved battle plans for the north. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said. 

Between the electronics attack—which Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called an “unprecedented” blow to his organization—and the successive strikes eliminating almost all of Hezbollah’s top leadership, the group is on its back foot. “We’re seeing Hezbollah in a moment of regrouping, of recuperating, of checking all systems—what is compromised, what is not—and trying to build again,” Iftah Burman—an Israeli analyst and founder of the Middle East Learning Academy—told The Dispatch over the weekend. 

Still, the terrorist organization was able to carry out several attacks over the weekend and into Monday, hitting increasingly further south. On Sunday, it launched around 100 rockets, some of which hit near Haifa—the city to which many Israelis who evacuated regions further north had fled. And on Monday, the group fired more than 200 rockets toward Israel and the West Bank, hitting a West Bank Palestinian town east of Tel Aviv in its first long-range rocket attack of the war.

Israel, urging Lebanese civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon, on Monday launched the most aggressive attacks on Hezbollah targets since October 8, dubbing the new phase of fighting operation “Northern Arrows.” In strikes that continued overnight on Monday, the IDF said it had struck more than 1,600 targets in southern Lebanon. IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said most of the targets were missiles and other weapons that Hezbollah—which, like Hamas, uses civilians as shields—had hidden in homes. Hezbollah is estimated to have an arsenal of somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 projectiles, including missiles and rockets. The Lebanese government said nearly 500 people were killed in the strikes on Monday.

Israel also targeted one of the last remaining senior Hezbollah leaders—Ali Karaki, in charge of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon—though Hezbollah said he survived the Beirut strike. “In the past day, we are crushing what was built by Hezbollah for 20 years,” Gallant said Monday. “Nasrallah remains alone at the helm, entire units of the Radwan force were taken out of service, and tens of thousands of rockets were destroyed.” 

The last several days of Israeli airstrikes and covert attacks are apparently about sending a message. “We will safely return the residents to their homes, and if Hezbollah has not understood this yet, it will get another blow and another blow—until the organization understands,” Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, said Monday.

But the question remains whether Hezbollah will step down the escalation ladder. “There’s a serious potential for rapid escalation from the current conflict because Israel and Hezbollah ultimately each have a first strike, use-it-or-lose-it incentive,” said Jonathan Ruhe, foreign policy director at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “Hezbollah can overwhelm Israel’s defenses unlike any other Israeli adversary with all its strategic arsenals, and Israel needs to go in and take as many of those out as possible before Hezbollah could render its defenses basically impotent.” 

An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that it was up to Hezbollah to accept some sort of negotiations or ceasefire. “We are going to hit them hard,” the official said, “but we will stop if they decide it’s time to move toward negotiations.” A Hezbollah leader described the conflict on Sunday as “open-ended.” 

But a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah may be inevitable, as Charlotte reported last month, with Hezbollah’s latent ability to overwhelm Israel’s air defenses and the ongoing displacement of the northern border communities. Such a war—against an enemy orders of magnitude more powerful than Hamas in Gaza—could be costly for an already-taxed IDF after a year of fighting to the south. 

Tehran’s regional proxies, and even potentially Iran itself, would also likely get involved, as Hezbollah has long been considered the jewel in the crown of Iran’s terrorist network and an important insurance policy against Israel. “Iran’s not going to let Hezbollah go under without a fight,” Ruhe told TMD. “So you’d be seeing proxies from Yemen, Iraq, Syria, maybe even more direct attacks from Iran itself, to try to strain Israel and prevent it from focusing all its efforts on taking out Hezbollah as quickly as possible.” 

The U.S., sensitive to the threat of a regional conflagration, is sending additional U.S. troops to the region to augment the roughly 40,000 already there. One carrier strike group—a Navy aircraft carrier and its support vessels—is already in the region. The USS Harry S. Truman, another aircraft carrier, left Norfolk, Virginia, on Monday on a regularly scheduled deployment to the Middle East that leaves open the possibility it could remain in the region if the conflict continues to heat up. Axios’ Barak Ravid reported Monday that U.S. officials—who have been focused for months on avoiding a regional war—agreed with Israel’s “escalate to de-escalate” strategy but were concerned about the potential for all-out war. 

And how does the Lebanese government fit in this landscape? “Profoundly uncomfortably,” Ruhe said. The Lebanese government—which has some overlap with Hezbollah—is fragile and in the midst of a deep economic crisis. Hezbollah acts with relative impunity in the country, particularly in the south: The Lebanese government has never enforced a United Nations resolution that should have demilitarized the area in the wake of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. 

With ongoing cross-border attacks and tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes already, the question of what constitutes an escalation may be a matter of semantics. “Hezbollah has been waging a war against Israel since October 8. It’s not coming out of the blue. Hezbollah also openly states its intentions to attack Israel, including by conquering the Galilee,” Assaf Orion, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute and retired Israeli brigadier general, said of Hezbollah’s ambition to carry out ground assaults on northern Israeli communities. “We’re in an open war.”

• Should foreign airlines be allowed to fly commercially between two U.S. cities? For his Substack Slow Boring, Matthew Yglesias says “yes.” “If you want to fly direct from DC to Bangor, Maine these days, your only option is on American Airlines, even at the peak of the summer travel demand season,” he wrote. But, “Airlines like RyanAir, EasyJet, and Whizz Air that serve lots of European leisure travelers could not enter this market. Only an American airline can fly between American cities. … If we see a market with barriers to entry and a lack of competition, do we want to change policy to make the industry more competitive, or do we want to point to the lack of competition as a reason that we need utility-style regulation? Sometimes utility-style regulation is, in fact, the answer. But I think there is a tendency in some quarters to reach too quickly for that solution rather than ‘remove the barriers to entry.’”
• “Are you among the silent majority?” Simon Davidson asked, writing in The Hill. “I once was. With polarization plaguing public discourse, I saw no point in engaging. But then I began to wonder if my silence was part of the problem,” Davidson wrote. “Though a loud minority spreads polarization with false stereotypes, we are complicit by failing to correct them. We can slow polarization’s spread not with silence, but by reclaiming the public square as a place to seek truth and understanding. When others want a fight, we don’t have to give it to them. We can engage not with fear and loathing, but with respect and empathy. Not with animosity, but with curiosity. Not to prove we are right but to discover we are wrong, as it is only then that we learn.”

New York Times: A Congressman Had an Affair. Then He Put His Lover on the Payroll.

Shortly after taking the oath of office, the first-term congressman [Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York] hired his longtime fiancée’s daughter to work as a special assistant in his district office, eventually bumping her salary to about $3,800 a month, payroll records show.

In April, Mr. D’Esposito added someone even closer to him to his payroll: a woman with whom he was having an affair, according to four people familiar with the relationship. The woman, Devin Faas, collected $2,000 a month for a part-time job in the same district office.

The Hill: Trump Threatens John Deere With 200 Percent Tariff If It Outsources Manufacturing

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Oops. Trump’s Campaign Mixes Up State Of Georgia With Country Of Georgia

This was supposed to be Los Angeles Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani’s recovery year. But on Thursday night, Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to have a “50/50” season—that is, the first to hit at least 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season. 

Needing two home runs and one steal to reach 50/50 entering Thursday’s game against the Miami Marlins, Ohtani put on a show, hitting three home runs and stealing two bases, culminating in one of the greatest single-game performances in MLB history. Some recovery.

• It’s Tuesday, which means Dispatch Live (🔒) returns tonight at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT! Steve and the team will discuss the news of the week and, of course, take plenty of viewer questions! Keep an eye out for an email later today with information on how to tune in.
• In the newsletters: Kevin explored (🔒) the nature of poverty, the Dispatch Politics team unpacked the drama over Nebraska’s electoral college votes, and Nick weighed (🔒) the pros and cons of a Reaganite third party. 
• On the podcasts: David is joined on Advisory Opinions by Notre Dame law professor Sherif Girgis to discuss the ethics and legality of Israel’s pager attack. 
• On the site: Robert VerBruggen takes a look at affirmative action in the wake of the decision in Students for Fair Admission, Stirewalt examines the state of the race in swing states, and Kevin weighs in on the Mark Robinson scandal. 

Will Israel’s “escalate to de-escalate” strategy be effective? How should the U.S. respond?