Eighty-eight American business leaders have written a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for president. This development may surprise those who assume that corporate business leaders lean Republican. But a close look at the signers, as well as the history of the relationship between business and government, reveals that while this is not some kind of watershed moment in terms of big business' relationship with political leaders, it does signal that Republicans have some work to do in terms of their relationship with business.

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Elon Musk's much-ballyhooed, glitch-riddled Monday interview with Donald Trump was just the latest episode in the tech mogul's enduring crush on the former president. Musk, no stranger to controversy, has been unabashed in his backing of Trump in the 2024 presidential election — and he was instrumental in returning Trump to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Every election cycle, celebrities try to put their thumb on the scale in favor of their candidate. And while a new study shows that celebrities like Megan Thee Stallion or Kid Rock can influence an election by drumming up voter enthusiasm, it is the extremely wealthy and powerful CEOs — like Musk — who can wield outsize power in political campaigns.

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We live in remarkable times. President Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the presidential race at such a late date is extraordinary. Richard Nixon stepped down from the presidency in August 1974, but that was not a presidential election cycle. Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman surprised people by announcing that they would not run again, but they made their decisions in March of presidential election years, not in July. Franklin Roosevelt delayed his decisions to break protocol and run for his third and fourth terms, but in both cases, he decided to run again, not withdraw. A candidate dropping out this late in the process, with weeks to go before the party convention, is unprecedented.

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The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is unfortunately far from the first against an American president. Four presidents have been assassinated (Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John F. Kennedy in 1963), but our history has seen numerous other unsuccessful shootings targeting the nation's chief executive: against Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford (twice), Ronald Reagan, and now Trump.

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Labour's Keir Starmer has won the British election, raising questions about the next chapter in the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom. For all the talk of these ties between British prime ministers and American presidents, the truth is, it's a pretty recent invention. Throughout America's first century, England was seen more as an adversary or a rival. Not until the tumult of the 20th century would Britain be considered an ally.

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