12:30 REPORT

Tuesday, August 25 | By Joshua Feldstein and Claire Leibowitz

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It’s Tuesday, the last one in the month of August. 🎵 Queue Noah Kahan’s “End of August”🎵

In today's issue:

Supreme Court's mail-in voting ruling
South Carolina, Oklahoma runoffs
USS Lincoln finally heads to port
Lake America?

Programming note: We’re Joshua Feldstein and Claire Leibowitz, filling in for Cate today. Please send us your tips, comments and story ideas to jfeldstein@thehill.com and cleibowitz@thehill.com.

🏛️ IN THE SUPREME COURT

We’re kinda running out of time for this:

Mariam Zuhaib, Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a block that was preventing President Trump's mail voting executive order from going into effect ahead of November's midterms.

That doesn’t mean the order – which would direct the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to only send ballots to verified citizens – is moving ahead.

First of all, there’s a second injunction on the directive in a related case before the U.S. district court in Boston. Secondly, the Supreme Court did not decide on the constitutional merits of the order, it just said the lawsuit was premature because the order had not been finalized.

That’s about to change: The USPS is set to publish a finalized rule tomorrow and states are already moving to block it — again.

All eyes are now on U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Obama, who imposed both injunctions.

The administration says it will ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Talwani’s other injunction if she doesn’t lift it by 5:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

She has previously found the administration overstepped its constitutional authority with the order, as states have the express power to oversee elections.

Sound like a “Kafkaesque nightmare”? Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks so.

The Supreme Court’s junior liberal justice wrote 23 pages of her own, saying the lift "lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges."

She wrote that it "needlessly injects chaos" into upcoming elections and that her conservative colleagues had a "lack of situational awareness."

💬 Follow today’s live blog

⏱️ ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

These could be the last big tests of Trump’s primary power:

GOP runoff elections for senator in South Carolina and governor in Oklahoma Tuesday night will test the power of Trump's endorsement.

And it’s honestly not looking great for his candidates.

Palmetto State primary:

According to Al Weaver at NOTUS, multiple Republican sources have said that a Graham win over Norman is looking increasingly unlikely, especially following her mistakes in last week’s debate.

And a new poll has the race in a dead heat. The Trafalgar Group survey shows Graham with 47.9 percent of the vote, Norman with 47.8 percent and 4.4 percent undecided.

If Graham goes down, much of the blame will likely point toward her debate flub last week, when she admitted she didn’t know much about national security in response to a question about Taiwan.

“That’s the kind of thing that, if she does lose on Tuesday, I feel like we’ll be chalking entirely up to that,” Geoffrey Skelley, Decision Desk HQ’s chief elections analyst, told The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky.

Off to Oklahoma:

In the Sooner State, Trump-endorsed candidate Mike Mazzei, a former state senator and state budget secretary, finished just ahead of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond in the primary.

Trump surprised some by doubling down on his support for Mazzei, who is seen as an underdog in the race.

"Oklahoma marks one of the final midterm primary gauges of the president’s political power amid his lackluster approval numbers — and it comes after five of his gubernatorial picks in open primaries lost so far this cycle," The Hill's Julia Mueller writes.

Mazzei's campaign paid almost $70,000 to Trump confidant Roger Stone for consulting services, Mueller reported, which prompted critics to ask if money factored into the president's endorsement. The candidate has pushed back against these claims.

Whoever crosses the finish line tonight is likely assured to win the November election in the red state.

📰 OTHER NEWS:

At least these weary sailors are going somewhere nice:

After 250 days at sea, the USS Abraham Lincoln has finally started making its way to land.

Read the receipts: Texts shared with USA Today said the USS Abraham Lincoln planned to stop in Thailand after its lengthy deployment in the Middle East for the continued conflict with Iran.

One sailor aboard the ship told their relative to send them hotel options in Thailand, while another told her family member that she was excited to visit the country.

Family members of those aboard the ship said that they have received messages about food and water shortages and mental health issues on the ship, which have been serious enough to where multiple sailors have attempted to jump overboard.

The politics of it: Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee have called for a discussion with the Pentagon surrounding the ongoing impact the war with Iran is having on those who have been deployed for an extended period.

Meanwhile, Trump and other members of the administration have brushed off the poor reports on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Is Overton over her head?:

While anti-abortion groups and conservatives have applauded President Trump’s nomination of Dr. Heidi Overton for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, some leaders of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement haven’t shared their excitement.

Insiders can read the full newsletter from The Hill's Helen Huiskes. But here’s a taste.

MAHA podcaster Alex Clark told her followers on the social platform X to push their local senators to vote against Overton's confirmation, citing the health policy aide’s part in an executive order that boosted glyphosate herbicide production, which MAHA has pushed against.

“Everyone knows she is the biggest roadblock in the admin when it comes to getting several true MAHA initiatives done,” Clark said of Overton.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a MAHA foe who has been very critical of the Trump administration, also said that he has “strong concerns” on Overton’s nomination.

Pro-Overton: Anti-abortion group leaders have expressed their support for President Trump’s nomination, highlighting her calls to restrict access to mifepristone, a medical abortion drug.

John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, said in a statement that Overton “has the scientific and medical background that will enable her to perform an objective analysis of the dangers chemical abortion poses to women.”

🔎 Read Huiskes’s full Insider newsletter here.

➤ CANADA RETALIATING: Canada fired back Tuesday at the U.S. tariffs that went into effect last week, announcing a slate of counter-tariffs to take effect on Sept. 8.

Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the 15, 25 and 50 percent tariffs will be on $27.6 billion imports from the U.S.

Arguably the biggest measure is Canada doubling its tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50 percent to match the 50 percent the U.S. put on Canadian steel and aluminum.

“Those tariffs will have real consequences for Canadian workers, businesses, and communities across our nation,” Champagne said of the U.S. tariffs. “Canada must respond, and today we are in a proportionate, targeted, and strategic way.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has also threatened to cut the province’s power exports to the U.S. as well as a response.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses. Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes,” Ford said during a press conference.

💡Follow the U.S.-Canada trade war here.

➤ QUICK HITS:

— President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. is considering changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America amid the recent trade war with Canada. Last year, Trump signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

— Golf company Callway issued an apology Tuesday after a new advertisement posted by their media partner Good Good Golf depicted violence against women. The ad shows a woman reaching for her driver when the company’s co-founder, Garrett Clark, rushes after her and knocks her to the ground.

— The Florida Department of Health announced that a third person has died from the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus. The bacteria are found in warm, brackish seawater, and can also be acquired from eating raw or undercooked shellfish.

— Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) and Fox News’s Jesse Watters engaged in a heated interview on Monday, debating over gas prices, the federal budget and transgender athletes.

➤ MORE READS:

Associated Press: Australia’s music industry bans AI songs from charts

The New York Times: Study’s alarming finding: At least 1 in 4 NFL players gets brain disease

Reuters: Target apologizes for children’s clown Halloween costume after backlash

Politico: Legal troubles pile up for Seton Hall as it tries to move on from abuse scandal

🗓️ COMING UP

The House and Senate are out. President Trump is in Washington. (All times EDT)

7 p.m.: Polls close for the South Carolina GOP Senate runoff

8 p.m.: Polls close for the Oklahoma gubernatorial primary runoff

🐝 INTERNET BUZZ

🍦 Celebrate: Today is National Banana Split Day. Head to your favorite ice cream shop and beat the heat with a treat!

🎃 The pumpkin spice latte officially returns today at Starbucks! Is it OK to start drinking pumpkin spice products before September? We're not judging.

🤖 Usain Bolt who? A Chinese robot beat the Jamaican Olympian’s 100-meter record at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing.