5 Big News Stories Overnight - Sunday, July 5, 2026

Democrats Are Seizing on Trump’s Soaring Wealth as a Campaign Opportunity

The WSJ reports:

A day after President Trump disclosed that his personal income topped $2 billion last year, he and his aides, friends and family piled into a gleaming new Air Force One, gifted by the Qatari government, for an official trip to North Dakota. The Wednesday jet ride was the latest reminder that Trump ostentatiously revels in his lavish lifestyle.

Democrats see an opportunity. Spurred on by a restive base, they are casting the president’s growing in-office wealth as corruption and a sign he has lost focus on Americans’ finances. A number of Democratic candidates are now pivoting their campaign messages and vowing to combat such behavior.

To many voters, Trump’s personal wealth has long added credibility to his claim that he could make America wealthy, too. But now, Democrats say the public’s sour view of the economy creates an opening to turn his recent wealth-building into a liability for his party.

In Georgia, Sen. Jon Ossoff has tried to link Trump’s wealth-building to the economic challenges facing voters, telling a Savannah rally last week that “while you pay more for everything, the Trumps are raking in billions from all over the world.”

Meghan and children not coming to London with Harry

The Telegraph reports:

The Duchess of Sussex, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet will not travel to London next week after a request for police protection was denied.

After 10 days of uncertainty since the refusal, the Duke of Sussex has decided that it would not be safe to bring his family to the capital.

It remains unknown whether the Duke – who will fly solo to London on Monday – will accept the invitation to stay at a royal residence, as had been anticipated.

He is understood to be liaising directly with the King, with any plans to see each other made privately between them.

The 11th-hour decision throws his longed-for reunion between his children and their grandfather into doubt.

While the Duchess and the children will not come to London, the family has not ruled out the prospect of them travelling to Britain.

Iran promotes message of continuity and revenge at Khamenei commemoration

Al Jazeera reports:

Large-scale public commemorations for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have commenced in the capital, with authorities promoting a message of continuity for the Islamic Republic and vengeance for his killing.

Khamenei, 86, was targeted in an airstrike at the start of the war with the United States and Israel on February 28, after ruling Iran with absolute power for nearly 37 years.

Red flags, commonly associated with martyrdom but also viewed as a symbol of revenge in Shia Islam, were seen throughout the Grand Mosalla commemoration site in Tehran and other mass gatherings.

“We must rise,” was the official slogan used for the ceremonies, accompanied by an image of Khamenei’s clenched fist on a red and black background.

DOGE self-deletes on July 4th. The grand experiment fell apart long before that.

Politico reports:

President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting commission that once plunged the government into chaos is nearing its destiny — becoming a former federal initiative.

Up for debate: how and when the end will truly come for the Department of Government Efficiency, which triggered thousands of federal employees to leave their jobs and voided billions of dollars in government contracts.

Trump’s January 2025 executive order creating DOGE also established a July 4, 2026, sunset. “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift” to America on its semiquincentennial birthday, the president said when he announced the commission.

But DOGE didn’t really deliver on that promise, said Elizabeth Linos, a Harvard Kennedy School public policy and management professor, as did others who spoke to POLITICO about DOGE’s dramatic efforts over the past 18 months. Instead, it resulted in a near-immediate loss of expertise and live-saving programs but cost savings nowhere near the $2 trillion once promised.

PHOTO: White House

Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin

New York Times reports:

An up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them, the overall results are remarkably bad.

Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion.

The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025.

The odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether the price of his memecoin went up or down. He collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin.