The Astronaut Caught in the Trump-Musk Crossfire. Plus. . .

It’s Thursday, July 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Only Eric Adams can beat Zohran Mamdani. Why ‘Love Island’ is the gateway drug for lasting love. Will Trump broker a deal between Syria and Israel? And more. 

But first: The astronaut who would be NASA’s king. 

As in any divorce, it’s the children who suffer most. And the breakup between Elon Musk and President Trump is no exception.

Today, Gabe Kaminsky talks to a major casualty of the Trump-Musk feud: Jared Isaacman, the entrepreneur, astronaut, and Musk ally who was the president’s pick to rebuild NASA. As Musk’s relationship with Trump fell apart, however, the White House yanked Isaacman’s nomination.

Gabe was the first to report on the hesitation among Republican lawmakers about Isaacman’s appointment back in January. Now, Isaacman tells Gabe his side of the story, and offers his views on Trump and Musk and why, even after having been collateral damage in the political breakup of the decade, he’s not sure he’s done with D.C.

—Will Rahn 

• At least 120 people are dead and 173 are still missing after catastrophic flooding in Texas, with Kerr County hit hardest—reporting 96 deaths and 161 unaccounted for. As questions mount over the lack of warning systems, local officials defended their response and said hundreds were rescued as the Guadalupe River rose on July 4.

• At a 2024 fundraiser, Donald Trump said he warned Vladimir Putin he’d “bomb the shit out of Moscow” if Russia invaded Ukraine, according to audio obtained by CNN. Trump said that Putin was skeptical of the threat but “he believed me 10 percent.” Trump also claimed to have issued a similar threat to China’s Xi Jinping over Taiwan. “He thought I was crazy,” Trump said of the Chinese leader, while adding “we never had a problem.”

• Google co-founder Sergey Brin called the UN “transparently antisemitic” after it accused Google of profiting from what the UN called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. In an internal company forum, Brin said the report’s language was offensive and misleading. “With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides,” Brin wrote during the forum. 

• Canadian police have arrested four men—including active military members—accused of plotting to form an anti-government militia and seize land in Quebec. Authorities uncovered the largest weapons cache ever seized in a terrorism case, including explosives and assault rifles. The suspects allegedly conducted military-style training and scouting missions.

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced Wednesday she is stepping down, two years after Elon Musk hired her to lead the platform’s turnaround. Her tenure saw major product changes and efforts to stabilize X’s ad business, which remains well below pre-Musk levels. Yaccarino called the experience “the opportunity of a lifetime,” and thanked Musk for entrusting her with the company’s transformation.

• Elon Musk’s chatbot, Grok, praised Adolf Hitler and made antisemitic remarks in response to an X user asking which twentieth-century figure could handle the Texas floods. The comments, now deleted, included blaming the tragedy on “antiwhite hate” and referring to Hitler as the solution. xAI, the start-up that built Grok, later said it was working to remove the posts and improve Grok’s safeguards, but the incident drew swift condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League.

• Nvidia stock surged Wednesday, pushing the company past a $4 trillion market cap for the first time. Fueled by the generative AI boom, it’s the first chipmaker to reach this milestone, despite U.S. chip curbs and tensions with China. By the end of the day, however, the world’s most valuable company fell just short of the $4 trillion mark, leaving its market cap at $3.97 trillion. 

• The Justice Department has opened criminal investigations into former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director James Comey over potential wrongdoing related to the Trump-Russia probe, according to Fox News. Per The New York Times, Secret Service agents trailed and monitored Comey after he posted a picture of seashells arranged to say “86 47.” 

• The Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services told Harvard’s accreditor Wednesday that the university may no longer meet accreditation standards, citing violations of antidiscrimination laws. Loss of accreditation would strip Harvard of access to federal student aid. The warning marks a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the school.