Principals

☞ White House: With the debt ceiling taken care of, Washington has five minutes for a breather. This morning the Biden administration announced it has awarded $570 million in grant awards in the first round of a railroad crossing program funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law.

☞ Senate: The Senate isn’t reconvening until tomorrow; the upper chamber has a vote scheduled on David Crane’s nomination to be undersecretary of Energy for infrastructure. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va. again declined to rule out a 2024 White House bid during an interview on Fox News.

☞ House: The GOP-controlled House is trying to move several bills this week, including one that would prevent a federal ban on gas stoves. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the bipartisan leaders of the House select committee on China will hold an event in the U.S. Capitol commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

☞ Outside the Beltway: Disney hosted its annual Gay Days celebration for Pride Month over the weekend, which the Washington Post writes “marked a show of defiance” in Florida where state officials have restricted books with LGBTQ content and cracked down on discussion about gender identity in classrooms.

During a CNN Town Hall Nikki Haley referred to trans athletes in girls’ sports as “the women’s issue of our time” and suggested that one-third of teenage girls contemplated suicide last year because “biological boys were in their locker rooms.” She also suggested Trump and DeSantis were lying to the American public by saying they would not touch Social Security and Medicare (Haley has embraced reforms like raising the retirement age for younger workers).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country is ready to launch its long-anticipated counteroffensive against the Russians in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “We strongly believe that we will succeed,” he said. Zelenskyy also acknowledged he worries that the 2024 U.S. presidential election could usher in an administration less willing to support Kyiv in its war effort.

National Republicans are trying to recruit Rep. Mike Gallagher, the GOP chair of the House select committee on China, to run for Senate against Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. According to Politico, NRSC internal polling showed Gallagher trailing Baldwin by a single percentage point.

If you were in D.C. yesterday you probably heard the sonic boom. It was caused by two F-16 fighter jets dispatched by the North American Aerospace Defense Command to intercept a small Cessna plane after it didn’t respond to efforts by U.S. officials to contact it. The small aircraft ultimately crashed in mountainous terrain in Virginia Sunday afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which along with the National Transportation Safety Board plans to investigate the Cessna crash.

Oil prices rose after Saudi Arabia announced plans to cut its output by 1 million barrels a day during July, the latest in a string of production cuts by members OPEC+ during the past eight months meant to buoy prices, which have been hovering a bit below $75 a barrel. The International Monetary Fund estimates the Saudis need oil to reach almost $81 per barrel to cover its government spending plans.

Chuck Todd is stepping down this summer as moderator of “Meet The Press” after almost ten years, he announced on Sunday. White House correspondent Kristen Welker, who moderated the second 2020 debate between Trump and Biden, will take over. Todd texted with Ben Smith after the news and offered his advice for 2024 reporters: “Listen more to what the voter has to say and listen less to what the candidates claim the voters are saying.”

— Morgan Chalfant and Jordan Weissmann

Punchbowl News: 76% of K Street leaders say that Kevin McCarthy has been more effective than they initially predicted when he secured the speaker’s gavel, according to Punchbowl’s Canvass K Street survey.

Playbook: Less than 10 people knew ahead of time about the announcement Chuck Todd would be departing “Meet the Press.” Politico also takes a look at the three Republicans entering the primary race this week and why the fundamentals of the race “will not be shaken by their entry.”

The Early 202: McCarthy’s speakership isn’t in danger but he’s still feeling the heat from his right flank over the debt ceiling bill. The Washington Post writes that a vote scheduled this week on the Reins Act — which would require congressional approval of executive branch regulations costing over $100 million — seems to be an effort to appease conservatives.

Trump’s absence looms large in Iowa

THE SCENE

DES MOINES, Iowa – Eight GOP presidential hopefuls worked the room at Saturday’s “Roast and Ride”, introducing themselves to likely caucus-goers with no spotlight-hogging by Donald Trump. But the former president still loomed over the first Republican cattle call of the summer.

“Make America Great Again” signs lined the path to the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Volunteers wearing “MAGA COUNTRY’' shirts gave out business cards with QR-codes to sign up for Trump. When Nikki Haley said she wasn’t doing “shortcuts” to win the caucuses, and Mike Pence denounced the “siren song of populism,” voters and reporters could guess who they were talking about.

According to Sen. Joni Ernst, the host (and lead rider) of the motorcycles-and-BBQ fundraiser, Trump turned down an invitation to speak in person. A pro-DeSantis PAC claimed on Sunday that Trump promised, but never delivered, a video message; a source familiar with the situation confirmed their account, while the Trump campaign denied it.

“Obviously, as president, he has other considerations to think about, whether he does a multi-candidate event or not,” Ernst told reporters, referring — perhaps subconsciously — to Trump’s old job in the present tense.

SHELBY AND DAVID’S VIEW

The candidates who showed up in Des Moines did plenty of good for themselves.

DeSantis, who stepped on some of his applause lines, spent a long time mixing with voters — some of it outside a bus (that he signed with the help of his 3-year-old daughter, Mamie) rented by his allied Never Back Down super PAC. A leather-clad Pence got credit for making the motorcycle ride to the venue that most candidates skipped. “I roasted on that ride,” he joked, promising to bring back Trump-era policies and prosperity (“and then some”) and previewing his announcement speech next week.

Tim Scott and Nikki Haley shared their personal stories and the overlapping lesson they’d learned — that America isn’t racist. “The truth of my life disproves the lies of the radical left,” said Scott; “America is not racist, we’re blessed,” said Haley.

But offstage, the hottest topic was still the frontrunner who hadn’t even bothered to show up.

“Obviously, Trump leads by quite a margin,” Sen. Chuck Grassley told Semafor. “But nobody can take Iowans for granted, and a lot of things change, because people spend so much time here.”

DeSantis in particular was hounded with questions from the press about his main competitor — what message did it send that he showed up to Iowa, but Trump didn’t? Could he respond to Trump declaring he didn’t “like the term woke”? And what were his thoughts on the former president’s praise of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un?

That last question seemed to draw in the most candidates. “Kim Jong Un is a murderous dictator,” DeSantis told Fox News. “Whether it’s my former running mate or anyone else — no one should be praising the dictator in North Korea or praising the leader of Russia, who has launched an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine,” Pence also told Fox News offstage. “You don’t congratulate a thug,” Haley added.

For Trump, the absence was likely strategic: Showing up could serve to legitimize the slew of candidates vying to take him down. It’s the same logic that has some close to him encouraging him to skip the debates.

Voters were clearly interested in the buffet of options available to them; one woman, upon being approached by a Trump volunteer, even bluntly declared she wasn’t “for Trump”. But it wasn’t clear that there was an overwhelming next choice, even as DeSantis clearly generated the most excitement in Trump’s absence.

Notably, some of Saturday’s loudest applause went to candidates who Trump sees as non-threatening. Trump welcomed Scott into the race with no insults, and has praised Ramaswamy for having “only good things to say” about him. (One reason Chris Christie will enter the race tomorrow is his frustration in how most of the field happily co-exists with Trump.)

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

“Ninety-nine percent of life is about showing up,” DeSantis reminded a volunteer backstage after his speech.

There are signs he could carve out a path in Iowa if Trump isn’t careful: He locked in dozens of endorsements from Iowa legislators before entering the race, and is trying to pry off voters who like both candidates but want a younger, disciplined president. DeSantis spent significant time meeting voters face-to-face throughout Saturday’s event.

THE VIEW FROM A VOTER

Ingrid Sephler, a retired nurse, came to the event as a fan of Haley who wanted to learn more about DeSantis. She “loved Trump,” she said, but was looking at her options. “We supported Trump when he was in there,” Sephler said, “but my kids hated him because he’s a name-caller, and he tweets stupid stuff.”

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This lawmaker thinks biotech is the next AI

Gene editing to help fight climate change? Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass. thinks the whole government needs to be focusing more on the potential benefits of biotechnology and sees a new initiative tucked in the pages of the CHIPS and Science Act as a great place to start.

“We’re hearing a lot these days about AI and before that we heard a lot about crypto,” he told Semafor. “I think gene editing as a general purpose technology is underappreciated in how potentially seismic and transformative it can be.”

Auchincloss, who represents a hub for biotechnology in Massachusetts, said he sees potential for advancement not only in healthcare, but agriculture, manufacturing, and carbon capture.

But it will require ongoing attention to research investments, he said. Auchincloss is leading a bipartisan letter to the White House with recommendations on how to implement the National Engineering Biology Research and Development initiative established by the bill passed last year. The letter, shared first with Semafor, recommends the office overseeing the program be housed in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and that a career official from the Commerce Department play a leading role in managing the initiative.

The letter notes that China is making its own investments in biomanufacturing in making the case for “a reinvigorated focus on driving innovation in biology and the life sciences” and calls for closely coordinating government, academic, and private sector work in the field.

Funding for science research is also now under threat part due to the bipartisan agreement to limit nondefense spending agreed to by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Lawmakers need to appropriate money for scientific research authorized by the chips law each fiscal year. Biden insisted in his Oval Office address Friday evening that the agreement “fully protects the CHIPS and Science Act.”

“I’m very worried,” Auchincloss said. “The debt limit deal is putting a little bit of the screws on basic research funding and we have to protect it.”

Auchincloss said that the letter on the biology research initiative will be part of a broader effort he’s undertaking to make sure Congress plays a role in the implementation of the chips legislation. The letter is also signed by Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. and Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, who along with many other House Republicans voted against the bill last year.

— Morgan Chalfant

Energy permitting reform could be the next big item on Congress’s bipartisan to-do list, after both Democrats and Republicans saw some of their top priorities on the issue left out of last week’s debt ceiling bill. Semafor is setting the table with our own event on Tuesday, as well as related content all week.

What could a deal look like? Democrats want to make building electric transmission lines easier in order to hook more renewables to the grid, while Republicans want to clear regulatory roadblocks for new fossil fuel pipelines. ”You can see how a bipartisan deal comes together with that basic trade,” says Xan Fishman, head of energy policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

What the debt bill included

The debt ceiling deal didn’t include the grand bargain on permitting issues some had hoped for. But it did usher through the first major reforms in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act — the law governing federal environmental reviews that has often been blamed for tangling projects in red tape. Long a target for conservatives, NEPA has become a bigger concern for some Democrats as it’s begun to ensnare solar and wind projects.

Among the key reforms, the changes require agencies to finish environmental assessments within two years max and will narrow their scope to focus on “reasonably foreseeable” environmental impacts.

What Democrats still want

For Democrats, permitting reform is mostly about making it quicker to build electricity transmission, in order to construct high-powered lines capable of moving renewable energy across the country. Today, developers are required to slog through the permitting process state by state; advocates would prefer to have the whole effort managed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, instead, the way siting for natural gas pipelines is.

But states don’t necessarily want to lose control over siting decisions. And there’s bound to be a massive political fight over how to allocate who pays for new lines, since ultimately the cost will be split between customers.

What Republicans still want

Republicans celebrated the debt ceiling’s NEPA reforms and are still eying changes that would curb lawsuits under the law.

But at the top of their wish list are changes that would remove obstacles to oil and gas pipelines. The GOP is especially interested in narrowing Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which effectively gives states the power to halt pipelines that could harm their rivers, lakes, and streams. The Trump administration attempted to put new limits on 401 reviews by regulatory fiat, but last year the Biden administration moved to reverse them.

Will it happen?

In theory, you can imagine a trade here — especially since building more transmission will probably lower total U.S. emissions more than allowing additional pipelines will raise them. But given some Democrats have an absolutist opposition to fossil fuel development, and some Republicans will fight to keep their voters from paying more for electricity lines they don’t want, this is likely to turn into a rather, um, charged fight.

—Jordan Weissmann

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: The RNC announced criteria for the first presidential primary debater in August. Candidates will need to be polling at 1% or more and demonstrate a minimum of 40,000 unique donors.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. claimed she deliberately missed the debt ceiling vote in protest, but a video showing her running up the Capitol steps just after the vote was closed suggests otherwise.

Sean Patrick Maloney is a former Democratic congressman from New York and former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. President Biden officially nominated Maloney to be the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last week.

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— Steve Clemons

Editor-at-large Steve Clemons

Washington Bureau Chief Benjy Sarlin

Washington Editor Jordan Weissmann

National Security Reporter/Lead Principals Writer Morgan Chalfant

Congress and Politics Reporter Kadia Goba

Domestic Policy and Politics Reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig

2024 Campaign Reporter Shelby Talcott

Senior Politics Reporter David Weigel