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Copious adjectives have been used to describe Donald Trump’s behavior. Restrained was rarely one of them—until recently. Below, I look at how the former president’s newfound discipline is actually a mirage. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Trump is planning for a landslide win.

Never underestimate the destructive power of a stubborn old narcissist with something to prove.
Ideally no one gets hurt along the way: Maybe grandpop refuses to give up his license, drives into an oak tree, and only the car gets totaled. But sometimes there are casualties: Maybe a pedestrian gets hit.
President Joe Biden, 81, is acting like one of history’s most negligent and pigheaded leaders at a crucial moment, and right now, we are all pedestrians.

For just $65, the skin-care company Selfmade will sell you a kit that will purportedly help you feel more stable and confident in your relationships—and get better skin all the while. According to the kit’s marketing copy, it comes with a serum that enhances “safety and comfort with self,” a moisturizer that “promotes awareness that past negative experience and emotional states can carry throughout your life,” and the best-selling relationship-psychology book Attached.

Photographs by Roger Kisby
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The outcome of the presidential campaign, Republicans believed, was a fait accompli. “Donald Trump was well on his way to a 320-electoral-vote win,” Chris LaCivita told me this past Sunday as Democrats questioned, ever more frantically, whether President Joe Biden should remain the party’s nominee in November. “That’s pre-debate.”
LaCivita paused to repeat himself: “Pre-debate.

The idea that Donald Trump is forcing the Republican Party to moderate its extreme positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights would make for an interesting story. So interesting, in fact, that the story was all over the mainstream press. The only problem with this very interesting story is that it didn’t happen.
On Monday, a draft of the GOP platform began circulating ahead of the Republican convention. The coverage of the platform’s position on abortion was remarkable in its uniformity.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
America is hosting the NATO summit this week. Russia’s bombing of a children’s hospital should remind every member that the Atlantic Alliance must do more for Ukraine.

For the past month, up until Sunday’s parliamentary election, most French voters had been dreading the predicted victory of the far-right National Rally party. But then—in stark contrast to Americans who claim to be alarmed by the return of Donald Trump—they actually did something to prevent it.
Emmanuel Macron had called for the snap elections on June 9.

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If you were a college student in America a few decades back, chances are you engaged in a semi-regular ritual: You’d trudge to the nearest campus payphone, drop in some coins, and call your parents. That image kept cropping up as I reported this story.

As Democrats debate whether to replace President Joe Biden, an ill-conceived argument for retaining him as the nominee is alarmingly common.
Its premise is that Biden has earned voters’ loyalty—as if the question that confronts Americans is what we owe an individual politician rather than what’s best for the country. No matter how one feels about Biden, that premise is deeply flawed.