Principals

1. GOP’s BBB moment
2. Crypto bill optimism
3. Trump’s Qatar deals
4. Trump to UAE
5. Russia-Ukraine talks
6. Dems counter clean energy cuts

PDB: New bipartisan Taiwan bill

Trump says India offered to remove all tariffs on US goods … Supreme Court hears birthright citizenship arguments … Dow futures ⬇️ 0.32%

GOP risks ‘big, beautiful bill’

It’s not lost on Republicans that the acronym for their “big, beautiful bill” is the same as Democrats’ failed catch-all legislation from four years ago, dubbed “Build Back Better.” And some Republicans are worried that their megabill is on the same trajectory, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller, Burgess Everett and Kadia Goba report. “We all knew this was going to happen: It was probably too much to do in one bill,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. The advantage of preparing one huge piece of legislation — that it’s too big to fail — comes with serious downsides: Every change on controversial pieces of the legislation could lose votes elsewhere in the party. Deeper spending cuts lose moderates; bigger SALT deductions lose conservatives. “I’m hopeful we can get there in the timeframe — but if not, I’d be really seriously concerned on what the actual Plan B is,” said Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla.

Senators predict passage of crypto bill

Key architects of a Senate bill that would create rules for stablecoins said Wednesday that they expected revised legislation to pass by Memorial Day — but it would likely not include language targeting President Donald Trump’s family’s cryptocurrency profits, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports. A push to advance the legislation last week imploded after crypto-friendly lawmakers were unable to finalize Democrat-sought revisions in time — and progressives had raised concerns about the president’s ability to profit off affiliated digital assets. “A lot of what President Trump’s engaged in is already illegal,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said onstage with Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong at an event moderated by Semafor. “So I’m not that worried about this bill having to deal with all of President Trump’s ethics problems.” Otherwise, “it would be a very long and drawn-out bill.”

Qatar adds to Trump’s Gulf tally

Trump’s visit to Doha, his second stop on the Gulf tour, produced a major plane deal, but not the one you expect. Qatar Airways ordered up to 210 Boeing widebody jets with GE Aerospace engines, valued at $96 billion. The White House said the deal would create over 1 million jobs over its duration. (The headline figure from Doha: $1.2 trillion in “economic commitments” — about six times the country’s GDP.) This was the first official state visit by a US president to Qatar — a gas-rich nation with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes and home to a major US air base. With just 300,000 citizens, Qatar manages a $526 billion sovereign wealth fund, is one of the top liquefied natural gas exporters globally, and plays mediator in conflicts.

— Mohammed Sergie

AI tops Trump’s agenda in UAE

Trump is headed to Abu Dhabi today, with cooperation on artificial intelligence atop the agenda. His visit to the United Arab Emirates comes at the end of a Gulf tour that has covered ground including chips, defense, and investment: Saudi Arabia reached deals to buy $142 billion of defense equipment while Qatar agreed to purchase 210 Boeing aircraft. The UAE, however, is hyper-focused on becoming a global AI hub, and wants to ramp up imports of US-designed chips as a result: The two countries have a preliminary agreement to allow the UAE to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips annually, according to Reuters, and Washington this week loosened curbs on selling semiconductors to Gulf nations.

Low expectations for Russia-Ukraine talks

The US push for peace in Ukraine will be put to the test as representatives from Russia and Ukraine gather in Turkey today for direct talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t show, and Trump downplayed the possibility he would go — though he opened the door to making the stop Friday “if something happened.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will be present, said he wants to demonstrate that Putin is the one slowing down negotiations. The talks — which Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff will join Friday — have derailed Europe’s plans for harsher Western sanctions targeting Russia for the time being, according to The Washington Post, though efforts could pick back up absent any breakthrough. Europe should ready sanctions to “suffocate” Russia’s economy, France’s foreign minister said.

Dems message on clean energy cuts

Congressional Democrats plan to focus on the risk of rising consumer energy prices as they campaign against Republicans’ proposed cuts to clean energy. Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., told Semafor he was “frustrated” with draft budget legislation advanced this week by two House committees that would give fossil fuel projects express access to permits, scrap billions of dollars in grants and loans, and scale back tax credits for renewables, nuclear power, and other technologies. Some of those tax credit cuts will likely be dropped from the final version. Meanwhile, Democrats will argue that removing tax credits for clean energy amounts to a higher tax on all energy. “We have a choice between higher energy bills and astronomically higher energy bills,” he said. “A lot of gigawatts depend on these tax credits, and if you just cut them off, all those projects die.”

— Tim McDonnell

Blindspot: Witkoff and Wolff

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: US special envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly gave Edan Alexander, the American released by Hamas this week, a Star of David necklace that belonged to Witkoff’s late son.

What the Right isn’t reading: Michael Wolff claimed that President Trump and his wife, Melania, are separated.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: President Trump has taken an unusual interest in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s consideration of his diplomatic nominees, leading the panel to move them more quickly. “He’s totally immersed in it… I get calls morning, noon and night from him,” Chairman Jim Risch said. “A lot of [the nominees] are people that are close to him. They call him. And you know what he does? He calls me.”

Playbook: Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said “the window is closing” for a House GOP deal on SALT.

WaPo: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will face questions about the crisis at Newark airport and the reduction of force at his department when he testifies before Senate appropriators today.

Axios: The Trump administration gave Iran a written proposal for a nuclear deal on Sunday, the first time an offer has been presented on paper.

White House

• President Trump said that the US and Iran are “close to maybe doing a deal.”
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to “significantly scale down the size of the National Security Council.” — NBC
• The official in charge of DOGE’s Treasury team has hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in financial companies, Politico found. And a DOGE lead helping to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also on the payroll of an Elon Musk company, ProPublica reported.

Congress

• A bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation later today to formally define and codify President Ronald Reagan’s “six assurances” to Taiwan, according to a summary shared with Semafor. The sponsors include Democratic Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Gregory Meeks, and Greg Stanton, along with Republican Reps. Young Kim, Zach Nunn, and Nicole Malliotakis.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have quietly pushed back on a White House effort to take control of the Library of Congress. — Politico
• Johnson defended President Trump’s planned acquisition of the Qatari jet.

Outside the Beltway

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for the state to reduce health care for undocumented immigrants in order to balance the budget.

Health

• Senators from both parties grilled HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the effects of massive layoffs at the nation’s health agencies and his comments about vaccines.
• Overdose deaths in the US fell 27% last year, in the largest single-year drop.

Economy

• Home sales last month were at a five-year low for April, which is normally a hot time for the housing market.

Business

• The Department of Justice is investigating UnitedHealthcare for possible Medicare fraud. — WSJ

Courts

• Swing-state voters promised $100 each by Elon Musk’s America PAC are suing over a failure to pay.
• The Georgetown postdoc detained by ICE since March has been released.

National Security

• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem echoed Stephen Miller’s suggestion that a suspension of habeas corpus might be legally warranted during testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, on the grounds that migration constitutes an “invasion,” but stopped short of saying she’d actually try to take that step.
• In PDB news: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is moving the work of producing the president’s daily brief out of the CIA’s headquarters and “into her own complex.” — NYT

Foreign Policy

• The White House ordered agencies to stop any work related to the G20 summit to be hosted by South Africa later this year, after President Trump accused the country of engaging in “genocide” against White South Africans and vowed to boycott the summit. — WaPo
• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney tapped former defense chief Anita Anand as his new foreign minister.

Immigration

• Experts are pushing back on the Trump administration’s claim that it’s safe for Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan. — NBC
• The Mexican government said 17 members of cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán had been allowed to cross into the US.

Transportation

• An FAA official told Congress that the hotline meant to connect air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport with those at the Pentagon has been “inoperable” for more than three years.

Technology

• Elon Musk cut his “xeet” count nearly in half in April, Semafor’s Rachyl Jones reports.
• The Trump administration sought to crack down on Huawei AI chips by warning companies that using them “anywhere in the world” could incur criminal penalties.

Principals Team

Edited by Morgan Chalfant, deputy Washington editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor

And Graph Massara, copy editor

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Kadia Goba, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Lloyd Smucker is a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania.