Thursday Afternoon News Updates: Brutal Jobs Numbers, Trump's Stock Schemes, DOJ's Jack Smith Leak, and More – 7/2/26

Your Thursday afternoon update is here.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concludes his remarks at an event with National Guard soldiers at Meridian Hill Park, site of recently re-opened fountains touted by the Trump administration, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 2, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Hi all, Ben here. It’s Thursday, and there is a whole lot I want to cover today, so let’s dive right in. Here’s what we’re tracking:

• More on Trump’s obscene financial disclosures and the Micron conflict of interest

• Trump Cabinet officials getting booed

• The empty fairgrounds continue at Trump’s so-called Great American State Fair

• A brutal June jobs report

• Trump officials scrambling to spin that report

• Stalled U.S.-Iran talks in Doha

• Russia’s massive overnight assault on Kyiv

• Funeral plans for Khamenei and calls for “vengeance”

• Behind-the-scenes reporting on the Witkoff and Kushner push to get Iran to “think bigger”

• The manufactured outrage over Mayor Mamdani’s thermostat advice

• A DOJ leak involving the hidden Jack Smith report and a blown Epstein files deadline

• Heat and fireworks pollution concerns ahead of July 4th

• The FBI surging resources into the Georgia 2020 election probe

• Exclusive MeidasTouch reporting on a new Democratic report alleging Trump allies misled donors and diverted money from America’s 250th birthday celebration into a shadow operation called Freedom 250

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Let’s get into it.