This is a web version of The Lever ’s daily email newsletter.

🔥 New in The Lever : Corporate Dems want you to forget 2024 .

👇 Further down in this newsletter:

- The Epstein-y past of the new artificial intelligence czar.
- Will the credit card duopoly live to see another day?
- The skeletons in a “centrist's” closet.

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STORIES TO GO

In a hurry? These are the top stories in the country today.

🇧🇷 The son of Trump ally and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro will face leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a runoff election to lead the country.

🤒 Nearly 200 people have entered medical observation in Russia after a lab technician died of a suspected case of the pneumonic plague.

🌏 Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on a case determining whether localities and states can sue corporate polluters for the effects of climate change. While Big Oil has been working to shape the case, it just lost its ace in the hole, thanks to grassroots action .

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TODAY'S TOPLINES

Failing up. The White House has chosen one of the prosecutors behind the bungled release of the Epstein files — and the current director of national intelligence — to also serve as President Donald Trump’s next “AI czar.” Jay Clayton chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. Afterward, he joined the board of directors of the private equity magnate Apollo, while the company weathered scrutiny over executives' well-documented contact with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In 2025, Clayton moved from Epstein defense to offense when he was tapped to run the Justice Department’s “top-dog” Southern District of New York office. Clayton took charge of the Trump administration’s investigation into Epstein and assisted in the review, redaction, and release of the Epstein files — potentially including correspondence between the financier and Apollo executives .

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