The art of the deal: Overpromise, underdeliver

The White House scales back Trump's promised $400 unemployment benefit; a watchdog finds that the Trump administration didn't do enough to prevent civilian casualties from arms sales. Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters. TOP NEWS "We're miles apart." Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images - Over the weekend, President Donald Trump signed a slew of coronavirus relief executive actions, including one that he said would extend unemployment insurance at a reduced level — $400 per week — as congressional negotiations remain stalled. [[Vox / Zeeshan Aleem](] - Now it’s becoming clear that Trump overpromised: As the Washington Post reported Tuesday, White House officials are conceding that the benefit will be just $300 per week, half of what Democrats are attempting to push through Congress. [[Washington Post / Jeff Stein, Tony Romm, and Erica Werner](] - That’s because Saturday’s Trump memo called for states to kick in $100 toward the $400 benefit — and state budgets, devastated by the pandemic, can’t afford that right now. [[Twitter / Tony Romm](] - In fact, the largely uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 in the US means there could be as much as a $500 billion hole in state and local budgets over the next two years, according to the financial firm Moody’s Analytics. [[WSJ / Kate Davidson and David Harrison](] - But according to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, Trump remains dead set against additional funding for state and local governments in the next federal coronavirus relief package, though budget shortfalls are affecting Republican- and Democratic-led states alike. [[Twitter / Mark Knoller](] - Without a new relief bill, many Americans are already suffering — and it’s likely only going to get worse. In the absence of an additional federal unemployment benefit and other forms of aid, evictions, homelessness, and food insecurity will spike. [[NYT / Ben Casselman and Gillian Friedman](] - Democrats are holding the line on a $600-per-week benefit in any new package, without which, one worker told the NYT, “there’s absolutely no way that my family’s going to make it.” That’s the same level expanded unemployment was set at until it expired last month. [[NYT / Ben Casselman and Gillian Friedman](] - The GOP plan, however, which Republicans unveiled less than a week before benefits were set to expire, would slash that benefit to just $200 per week — and some Republicans are reluctant to support even that much spending. House Democrats passed a plan in May. [[LA Times / Jennifer Haberkorn](] - Democrats also hold the edge as negotiations continue, as Republican opposition to any new spending means the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will need Democratic votes to advance a bill in the Senate. [[Vox / Li Zhou](] - For now, though, there’s been little movement on the Hill. On Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the factions remain “miles apart.” [[Twitter / Sahil Kapur](] [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Saudi war crimes, American weapons - On Tuesday, the State Department inspector general announced that, though more than $8 billion in arms sales to two Gulf nations last year were legal, the US failed to do enough to “assess risks and implement mitigation measures to reduce civilian casualties.” [[NBC News / Melissa Quinn](] - The report is the product of a 14-month investigation into the controversial weapons sales, launched at the request of Congress. In May last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used an emergency designation to push the sales through despite bipartisan congressional opposition. [[NYT / Edward Wong and Michael LaForgia](] - Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen has used American weapons indiscriminately, resulting in mass civilian casualties. In 2018, a CNN investigation identified at least a dozen such instances, including an attack on a school bus that left 40 children dead. [[CNN / Nima Elbagir, Salma Abdelaziz, and Laura Smith-Spark](] - Despite that, Western countries have continued to support the coalition. The 2019 sale at the center of Tuesday’s report is actually the smaller of two Trump administration sales — in early 2017, the administration cleared another $11.2 billion in weapons. [[ABC News / Conor Finnegan](] - Last month, the UK also resumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia after a report found that violations of human rights law by the country were only “isolated incidents” and thus apparently tolerable. [[Independent / Jon Stone](] - However, as of earlier this year, the UK Ministry of Defence had tallied more than 500 Saudi air raids that were in potential violation of international humanitarian law in Yemen alone even as the war in Yemen continues. [[Guardian / Julian Borger](] MISCELLANEOUS “A candidate the industry can get behind”: Read Recode’s Teddy Schleifer on Kamala Harris’s Silicon Valley ties. [[Recode / Theodore Schleifer](] - The New York Daily News is permanently closing its physical newsroom. [[NYT / Marc Tracy](] - The UK reported the worst second-quarter economic downturn of any G7 country on Tuesday. GDP fell by 20.4 percent. [[Independent / Ben Chapman](] - What Trump’s attacks on the US Postal Service mean for rural America. [[New Yorker / Bill McKibben](] - The Perseid meteor shower may have peaked early Wednesday morning, but it’s not too late to watch. [[CNET / Eric Mack](] [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( VERBATIM "And then it took Joe Biden to say, 'It’s time to come out from the shadows.' To say, 'I see you.' He saw her. He saw her qualifications despite all the negative stuff that was being thrown at her. He made history, but I think he will never know how much history he has made." [[Political operative Minyon Moore, who is Black, on Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as VP / BuzzFeed](] LISTEN TO THIS [Biden picked Harris.]( Biden picked Harris. Vox’s Fabiola Cineas explains the role race is already playing in the election, and Ezra Klein argues President Trump is making things easy for his opponents. [[Spotify / Sean Rameswaram, Fabiola Cineas, and Ezra Klein](] [Read more from Vox](#) [Air pollution is still the best reason to ditch fossil fuels]( [Most candidates run to the center in the general election. Biden is moving left.]( [How social justice slideshows took over Instagram]( [The Covid-19 pandemic could be the last straw for high drug costs]( [Kamala Harris’s controversial record on criminal justice, explained]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Manage your [email preferences](, or [unsubscribe]( to stop receiving all emails from Vox. If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring [contribution](. View our [Privacy Notice]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.