Axios PM

July 12, 2022
Today's PM — edited by Justin Green — is 586 words, a 2-minute read.
🚨 Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said near the end of this afternoon's Jan. 6 committee hearing that former President Trump had personally called an unidentified committee witness.
- "That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call and instead alerted their lawyer to the call," Cheney said. "Their lawyer alerted us." The committee referred the matter to the Justice Department.
1 big thing: Trump draft revealed

The draft tweet above — ultimately not tweeted by @RealDonaldTrump — was memorialized in White House documents and sent to the National Archives.
Why it matters: The House Jan. 6 committee used this draft to allege at today's hearing that Trump was planning well in advance to urge the crowd to march on the Capitol, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.
- Jan. 2: Rally organizer Katrina Pierson told fellow organizers after a call with Mark Meadows that Trump planned to "call on everyone to march to the Capitol."
- Jan. 4: "POTUS is going to just call for it 'unexpectedly,'" rally organizer Kylie Jane Kremer told activist and pillow salesman Mike Lindell.

- Jan. 5: Steve Bannon and Trump spoke, after which Bannon said on his podcast that "all hell is going to break loose tomorrow."
Between the lines: Some of Trump's own staff and family testified that they tried to get him to accept reality ahead of Jan. 6.
- Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone testified that Meadows indicated around late November that Trump would eventually leave office gracefully.
- Former Attorney General Bill Barr testified that, around that time, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner said he and Meadows were "working on" getting Trump to accept the reality.
- Former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia testified that in mid-December, he "communicated to the president ... what had to be done was concede."

Cipollone also described an "unhinged" December 2020 meeting in the White House during a clip of a closed-door interview that the Jan. 6 select committee shared today.
- Cipollone testified that some Trump allies, including election lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, exhibited a "general disregard for backing what you actually say with facts."
Many details from that meeting were first reported in the 2021 Axios series "Off the Rails," reported by Axios' Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu.
- Flashback: Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency, by Swan and Basu (Published Feb. 2, 2021).
✨ 2. The cosmos, as you've never seen them

The Hubble Telescope walked so that James Webb Space Telescope could run, Axios Space editor Miriam Kramer reports.
- Today, the Hubble and Webb are set to work in tandem to observe the universe, beaming back new photos and data to waiting astronomers on Earth and giving everyone a more holistic view of the cosmos.

Above: Hubble's view of the Carina Nebula in 2007.
Below: The Carina Nebula, captured in infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022.

3. Catch up quick
- Senior ISIS leader Maher al-Agal — who ran the group's Syria operation — was killed in a drone strike conducted by the U.S. military today in northwest Syria. Go deeper.
- Netflix's "Squid Game" made history today as the first non-English show nominated for an Emmy for best drama series. Go deeper.
- Taiwan is appealing to pro-Ukraine democracies for support, Axios China author Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports.
4. 📸 Parting shot: Manhattanhenge

The view from 42nd Street in New York last evening, during the last Manhattanhenge of 2022.
- That's when the setting sun aligns with the Manhattan street grid, bathing the urban canyons in a rosy glow.
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