Good morning. Welcome, Maxios today. It's Tuesday, August 16th. I'm Nyla Boudou. Here's

what we're watching today. The Colorado River reaches a drought tipping point. Plus, Scotland

becomes the first country to provide free period products. But first, today's one big thing.

GOP calls to defund the FBI.

Some Republican lawmakers are embracing a new rallying cry to defund the FBI, following last

week's search of Mar-a-Lago. It's a message that stands in stark contrast to the GOP's position

as a party of law enforcement, especially since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that had

calls to defund the police. Axios' political reporter Andrew Solender has been talking to members

of Congress about this. Hi, Andrew. Hey, how's it going? Andrew, defund the police was the

message from some Democrats beginning in 2020, but now Republicans are saying the same, but for

the FBI. Who in particular is saying this? That's right. So, particularly members of the Freedom

Caucus, so Marjorie Taylor, Green, Lauren Bobert, Paul Gosar, kind of the usual suspects when it comes

to road testing, sort of new right wing positions. Green in particular has been selling defund the

FBI merchandise on our campaign website. We've also heard from some others, the chair of the Texas

Republican Party, from Jeff Duncan, who's another Freedom Caucus member, and candidates as well.

Several candidates in key races in New Hampshire and North Carolina have also echoed this position.

So, how could the Sue message from the GOP change things for the Republican Party ahead of the

midterms? So, what we're hearing from both Republican and Democratic strategists is that this could

give Democrats an opportunity and an opening to kind of counter the defund message from Republicans

that we've been seeing. Republicans really leaned into that these last few cycles. The NRCC is

put out press release after press release, hitting Democrats who received money from organizations

that endorsed defunding the police. And now Democrats are already, as we're seeing fundraising off

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