YouTube video by Garrison Hayes

Over the first six months of the year, American job growth has slowed to a 15-year low. It's worth asking why.

Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig joins Ali to discuss his powerful new piece, “The Self-Evident Truths of Freedom— and of Tyranny,” a reflection on the Declaration of Independence and its 27 “self-evident truths” about freedom and tyranny that apply today more than ever. Luttig warns that “almost every single right, privilege, and liberty,” Americans have cherished for almost 250 years is now “under attack,” and that power has dangerously “drifted away from the people to the government” itself. “The main problem and the main issue for America today is that we have no leader and we have no leadership,” he warns. “Our elected politicians…have followed like lemmings those who would walk this country off a cliff toward tyranny.

In our current moment of political and moral crisis, Americans are facing "an all-out attack on who we even claim we are trying to be," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II tells Ali Velshi. As Americans, we have a moral, even spiritual duty to stand up and fight for our own rights and for those of our neighbors and especially the most vulnerable among us. Ali shares his Independence Day thoughts on how we can all work towards a more perfect union and finish what the founder began. "All of us have to find our way together now," adds Barber, in finding a way to stand up to Trump's "constitutionally inconsistent, morally indefensible, and economically insane" agenda. 

Republicans managed to pass Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act – but few people seem to really be happy about it. A lot of concerns have been raised about how it would cause the deficit to swell. The GOP’s solution? An accounting gimmick that would mask the trillions of dollars that the bill would actually cost so that its members can have some political cover to vote for it. The whole thing is “complete garbage,” says MaddowBlog writer Steve Benen. “They’re supposed to be the deficit reduction party – the fiscal responsibility party – but of course that’s ridiculous.” “There has not been a fiscally conservative Republican in my lifetime,” says Economist Justin Wolfers.

The Atlantic called the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” the biggest anti-abortion victory since Roe v. Wade was overturned. That’s because the mega-bill includes a provision that will bar Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements – not just for abortion but for any health service they provide. Michele Goodwin, Professor of Constitutional Law & Global Health Policy at Georgetown Law is among the many experts warning that this defunding will have a devastating impact on reproductive healthcare, saying in many of the communities served by Planned Parenthood, “there’s no other place for [patients] to go. There's no other clinic, there's no other county provider, and we are talking about basic health care, like getting vaccinated or even getting prenatal care and postnatal care.” Amanda Zurawski, a reproductive rights activist who nearly died after being denied an abortion under Texas’ ban, says stories like hers used to be shocking but are becoming so commonplace, as access to reproductive care is rolled back, that no one notices them anymore. “We're seeing [lawmakers] coordinate these orchestrated efforts to restrict access, you know, in more sinister and unfortunately creative ways, and it's working. And I think we have to really stay vigilant, and we have to keep an eye on our elected officials,” Zurawski says. 

The latest jobs report shows a steady economy—tame inflation and record-high stock markets. But will the passage of Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” upend the economic growth of America? Editor-in-chief of Investopedia, Caleb Silver joins Ali Velshi to outline what’s at stake.

YouTube video by Brad Lander for NYC

The discomfiting spectacle of RFK Jr.’s new vaccine-advisory committee