Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we explore one Democratic primary where a progressive challenger was rejected last night. Plus, Andrea Mitchell dives into the clash between President Donald Trump and Jeanine Pirro.

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— Adam Wollner

Progressives had another big primary night — with a notable exception

Last night’s primaries brought more success for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Former public health official Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s high-profile Democratic Senate contest. Activist William Lawrence won the party’s nomination in Michigan’s battleground 7th District. State Rep. Donavan McKinney unseated Rep. Shri Thanedar in the state’s 13th District. And in Kansas’ Democratic gubernatorial primary, state Sen. Cindy Holscher beat state Sen. Ethan Corson, who was backed by outgoing Gov. Laura Kelly.

But that trend notably did not not extend to a key House race in Missouri. In the Democratic primary in the 1st District, Rep. Wesley Bell fended off a challenge from former Rep. Cori Bush in a rematch of their 2024 clash.

As Sahil Kapur and Brennan Leach report from St. Louis, Bush ran on a platform of cutting off U.S. funding for Israel and taking a more combative approach to push Democratic leaders to the left — causes that have powered other successful challengers against incumbents in solidly blue districts.

Still, Bell managed to pull off a 22-point victory thanks to two key factors.

First, Democratic voters broadly saw him as a workhorse who is focused on results and more interested in delivering locally than garnering national headlines. One voter who flipped their support from Bush to Bell over the last two years told Sahil and Brennan that “politics is really complicated, and it’s about the practice and art of compromise.”

Second, he enjoyed a massive financial edge. Bell and his allies — including United Democracy Project, the super PAC aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — together outspent Bush by a 27-to-1 margin, according to AdImpact.

“There was no secret sauce,” Bell told NBC News when asked how he won his primary while other colleagues have fallen. “There was no shortcut or workaround. It was about getting things done for the people in the St. Louis region.”

Read more →

🗳️ Related: How Abdul El-Sayed won in Michigan — and how the results illustrate his challenges ahead, by Bridget Bowman, Stephen Pettigrew and Makenzie Kerneckel

Trump’s ‘beautification’ campaign becomes his latest loyalty test

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

With all the other headlines making news in Washington this week — the ongoing Iran war, Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan, the ethics investigation to Rep. Max Miller — perhaps none is more surprising than President Donald Trump’s fallout with his longtime friend and appointee Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

What came between the former Fox News host and the president? Something near to his heart, one of his pet “beautification” projects — the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — and his stance that his promised cleanup failed because of anti-Trump vandalism.

The president’s focus on the Reflecting Pool is not casual. In May, he drove in his armored limousine right up to its edge to visit the construction and spoke admiringly about the plan to paint the gray stone “American flag blue.” He said it would cost $1.8 million and be finished in a week or two, with no leaks. But within weeks of completion, D.C.’s hot temperatures, interacting with the shallow, still water, produced algae blooms, turning the water green. In mid-June, NBC News photographed Park Service teams pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water and vacuuming the algae. Soon, the admiral blue paint lining the pool began peeling off with large pieces floating on the surface.

Based on Interior Department evidence, Pirro said she charged an Olympian canoeist with a felony for allegedly causing the damage. On Friday, she dropped the charges, blaming it instead on a “botched construction job.” Trump sharply criticized her, angrily saying she had “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”

That set off a confrontation with one of Trump’s newer allies, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department has greenlit many of the president’s special projects on National Park Service land around the nation’s capital. In addition to the Reflecting Pool, the Interior Department holds sway over a proposed Trump golf course along the Potomac River, the paving of the White House Rose Garden, and a proposed triumphant arc that would loom over Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.

NBC News reported that Pirro “had it out” with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday as she defended her decision to drop the case and did not offer her resignation. Trump was still “pretty furious” with her yesterday, one source said, and the president told reporters last night he was still undecided about whether to fire her.

The controversy has been front-page news, highlighting the amount of time Trump spends talking about his D.C. makeover projects, frequently showing visitors and reporters architectural models. It has led to questions about whether this is politically smart when the country is involved in an unpopular war and polls show that voters are much more concerned about the price of gas than beautifying the nation’s capital.