And now, a message from Google. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America,

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Authority is using Google AI to create smarter tolling systems and improve traffic flow for Texans.

This is a new era of American Innovation. Find out more at G.co slash American Innovation. Good morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to The Daily Punch, brought to you by Punchable

news. It's Thursday, July 25th, 2024. Let's get into the mix. Here are your Washington

headlines of the day. Number one, Congress limps into August. Number two,

defense hawks come to terms with Vance. And number three, the House sets up a Trump shooting task force.

All right, let's get into it. It has been a crazy, busy week here in Washington.

Congress was historically productive. if you remember during the

first two years of Joe Biden's presidency passing landmark bipartisan bills on infrastructure,

gun safety, and semiconductor chip funding. Democrats jammed through hundreds of billions

in new funding during the 117th Congress to respond to the

COVID-19 pandemic. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 spurred massive foreign aid packages

and the same-sex marriage bill became law, which is kind of shocking looking back on it.

The 118th Congress, on the other hand, has been, well, pretty weak.

And Biden, with his own party rebelling against him, decided to pass the torch to Vice

President Kamala Harris just over 100 days from the election.

With a GOP-run house and a Democratic-controlled Senate, there's been little real progress

on the challenges facing the country.

Of course, we all remember the bitterly divided House Republicans dumping former Speaker

Kevin McCarthy last year for cutting a debt limit and spending deal with Biden, and they

would have dumped Speaker Mike Johnson this year if Democrats hadn't stopped then.

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