It's the longest day of the year

Though at the moment every day is the longest day of the year.

Jun 20, 2025

∙ Paid

Welcome back to Hot Tip, and happy summer solstice to all who aren’t ICE/CBP! If you are ICE/CBP, fuck you! And a reminder to all my New York City pals voting in the mayoral election: Andrew Cuomo wouldn’t even win best Cuomo (or second or third or fourth etc.), so you simply should not rank him!!! And if you’re wondering: how does ranked choice voting work? I don’t totally know, but Steve Kornacki does, so let him explain it to you. What I do know is it’s in your best interest to fill out all five spots, and that if I were there, I’d be ranking Comptroller Brad Lander as my #1 and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani #2. Early voting is happening already, and election day is on Tuesday, June 24.

Mamdani and Lander Cross-Endorse Each Other in N.Y.C. Mayor's Race - The New York Times — Lander and Mamdani have (adorably) cross-endorsed each other in the mayoral election to defeat Cuomo, who should have been disqualified after saying he loves a “bacon, cheese, and egg.”

Hot tip: Hot people vote.

Hotter tip: Hotter people don’t vote for Andrew Cuomo.

In TBD wars: Trump gave two weeks notice, but not the kind we were hoping for. Through his familiar Karoline Leavitt—who was not wearing a cross at the time lest it burn into her skin—Trump announced he would be giving it “two weeks” before he decides on bombing Iran, as though he was putting something in an online shopping cart to see if he really wants it and not mulling World War III. Of course, the question should really be can Donald Trump himself decide to go to war? The Constitution would say he needs congressional approval, but the *gesticulates wildly at a map* would say otherwise.

Unlike everything else, a president deciding unilaterally to drop bombs is in fact very precedented. From constitutioncenter.org.

(This list obviously doesn’t even include the nearly blanket post-9/11 authority granted to George W. Bush who apparently has nothing to say, though he is very busy opening an art exhibit featuring “35 charming acrylic paintings of life.”)

I was ten years old and mostly panicking about being taller than all the boys when the US invaded Iraq, so I can’t attest to whether or not it feels the same, but on paper it certainly looks it. Some members of Congress are introducing a resolution (one in the House, and a separate one in the Senate) to try to limit Trump’s power here, something he famously loves and abides by. And truthfully, MAGA is divided on this—so much so that you’ve got Marj calling Fox News propaganda and Tucker Carlson doing real journalism (or maybe he just got brain damage from being strangled by a bowtie, idk.)

Watch this: It won’t solve much of anything, but millennial congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-CA) tricking Pete Hegseth and catching him in his unscientific and idiotic bigotry re: trans soldiers does scratch a certain itch right now.

repsarajacobs