Principals

1. Defining Trump’s foreign policy
2. Friday tax vote?
3. Dems offer tax plan
4. Vought faces Senate
5. Souring on the economy
6. Anthropic on AI race
7. Afrikaners in Washington
8. Mamdani tops Cuomo

PDB: Trump sends mixed messages on NATO’s Article V

Trump, Zelenskyy meet … Trump disputes intelligence assessment on Iran strikes … Brent Crude ⬆️ 1.06%

Trump tests his global approach in Iran

President Donald Trump is putting his foreign policy instincts to the test in the Middle East, as he works to maintain a fragile ceasefire and his party tries to define what, exactly, his doctrine is. That’s a complicated question for Republicans, who are trying to make sense of his decision to bomb Iran before pivoting to diplomacy, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, Burgess Everett, and Morgan Chalfant write. Trump’s global approach isn’t clear, beyond his desire to protect US interests. He’s “not a neocon,” said a former Trump administration official. But he’s also not “America only,” a person close to him pointed out. Lawmakers will seek more answers when administration officials appear for a rescheduled briefing Thursday, amid reports US strikes damaged but didn’t destroy Iranian nuclear sites. Vice President JD Vance summed up the “Trump Doctrine” Tuesday night as “aggressive” diplomacy — followed by “overwhelming military power.”

Senate careens towards Friday tax vote

Senate Republicans are steaming toward a Friday initial vote on their big tax cuts bill, despite having a metric ton of work to do to finish the package. It’s not totally inconceivable that negotiations could continue past the vote to proceed to the bill and into the final amendment of the vote-a-rama — what’s called a “wraparound amendment.” Republicans are still wrangling over the bill’s potential effects on rural hospitals and the state and local tax deduction. Some Republicans want a rural hospital fund of about $10 billion; others want as much as $100 billion, according to two people familiar with the debate. The parliamentarian has knocked out proposals to shift SNAP spending to states and sell public land — and while Republicans are rewriting them, they haven’t been litigated yet. Republicans also haven’t quite figured out how to handle an effort to stop state-level AI regulation.

— Burgess Everett

Moderate Dems offer counter tax plan

A group of moderate House Democrats will release their proposal today for how their party should revamp taxes if given the chance, drawing a contrast with Republicans’ proposal. The plan from the New Democrat Coalition embraces some of the same policies Republicans want to enact as part of their megabill, but takes them a step further, including by making the Child Tax Credit refundable. It also preserves Biden-era clean energy credits cut by Republicans. The GOP “decided to do it in a way that only favors the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else,” Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., who chairs the group’s tax taskforce, said. “Will Republicans continue to walk the plank, or join with Democrats?” Horsford said he expects purple-district Democrats to campaign on the plan: “You can’t just be against Donald Trump or Republicans.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Vought faces Senate questions

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee today as Chair Susan Collins seeks to scale back House-passed legislation that would cut spending on global health at Trump’s direction. “I’m unclear what the process is going to be, but I certainly want to see significant changes,” Collins told reporters when asked if she planned to offer an amendment to the bill, which must pass by July 18 to cancel the spending. House leaders are skeptical the Maine Republican will succeed after they were able to convince moderates with similar concerns. “They will find a way to get there,” House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington told Semafor. He added that “this is a baby step” and that failure would “be very discouraging to a lot of folks who are concerned about our debt.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Sherrod Brown group finds economic pessimism

Voters are “extremely pessimistic” about the economy regardless of their age, gender, or race, according to new research conducted by former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s nonprofit and shared first with Semafor. The Dignity of Work Institute hosted focus groups in which four in five participants said they did not feel financially secure, while nine in 10 reported the economy getting worse. They widely blamed “greedy corporations” and viewed politicians as “in bed” with them. “It’s clear that workers don’t trust either party,” Brown told Semafor. “Regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, the voters want you to stand up to corporate interests. And not nearly enough of my colleagues do.” The research cuts against stable economic indicators like a resilient labor market and easing inflation, but aligns with a recent signal that consumer confidence may have sunk in June.

— Eleanor Mueller

Anthropic co-founder testifies on AI race

The US is poised to win the artificial intelligence race against China, but will also need to overcome security and safety challenges associated with the technology, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark will tell lawmakers today. “There’s a whole pile of other work that America is going to need to do,” he told Semafor. Clark will appear before the House select committee on China to discuss AI.

One area where Beijing has an advantage? Power capacity. “China is building tons of nuclear plants,” Clark said. “They are very well-positioned to build out the fundamental infrastructure that you need to deploy large amounts of compute.” Clark also offered up a somewhat “America First” view when asked about investing in data centers in the Gulf, given Middle East tensions: “You can build stuff abroad, but you should be building the majority of your stuff at home.”

— Morgan Chalfant

Afrikaner delegations seeks support in DC

A group of prominent Afrikaners is in DC this week for meetings with White House, the State Department, and lawmakers, as they seek to capitalize on the unprecedented attention the Trump administration is paying to South Africa’s white minority. Ties between Pretoria and Washington have deteriorated after Trump confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa with allegations that Afrikaners were facing mass killings and land seizures — claims the South African leader pushed back against. Dr. Corné Mulder, leader of the conservative Freedom Front Plus party and a member of the delegation, told Semafor that he welcomes the Trump administration’s focus on Afrikaner issues and believes reforming land expropriation laws and improving protections for farmers were “non-negotiables” for Washington. “Are we asking for sanctions? Of course not,” said Gerhard Papenfus, another delegation member. “But there needs to be a bit of stick.”

— Mathias Hammer

Mamdani ahead of Cuomo in New York

Left-wing state legislator Zohran Mamdani is on track to become the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, storming past former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s primary. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist who polled in low single digits when he entered the race, was on track to win more than 43% of the vote. “He won,” Cuomo told his supporters. “Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night.”

Mamdani crushed Cuomo in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, surviving a wave of spending from a pro-Cuomo super PAC, as most of the other Democrats on the ballot either cross-endorsed Mamdani or urged their voters not to rank Cuomo in next week’s ranked choice ballot count. “We are sending Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs,” Comptroller Brad Lander told supporters at his election night rally.

— David Weigel

Can we reconnect a generation? A mental health crisis is gripping young people, with rates of depression, anxiety, and loneliness rising. As social bonds fray and digital life deepens isolation, experts are sounding the alarm and demanding action.

Join Daniel Zoltani, Executive Director of the Whole Foods Market Foundation; Sara DeWitt, Senior Vice President and General Manager of PBS KIDS; January Contreras, Former Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services; and Steve Bullock, Former Governor of Montana, as Semafor explores the complex drivers of youth wellbeing, highlighting opportunities to rebuild social ties, foster resilience, and develop lasting strategies to improve the mental health of young people.

July 16, 2025 | Washington, DC | RSVP

Blindspot: NATO and whistleblowers

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: President Trump posted on Truth Social screenshots of messages from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praising him.

What the Right isn’t reading: A former Justice Department attorney-turned-whistleblower accused top officials at the department of trying to mislead judges and ignore court orders related to the Trump administration’s immigration deportations, CNN reported.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: A lot of Senate Republicans “loathe the GOP’s massive reconciliation bill” — a problem as leaders aim to pass something by July 4.

Playbook: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the leaked intelligence assessment about damage on Iranian nuclear sites was “mischaracterized” and that the strikes caused “very significant, substantial damage” to “a variety of different components.”

Axios: Israeli intelligence believes US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites caused “very significant” damage, offering a more optimistic picture of the operations’ success than the leaked US assessment.

White House

• “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*ck they’re doing,” President Trump told reporters, potentially becoming the first sitting president to say “f*ck” on live TV.
• Trump cast doubt on his commitment to NATO’s Article V en route to the alliance summit in the Netherlands, but changed his tune during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte earlier today. “We’re with them all the way,” he said.

Congress

• Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and other MAGA lawmakers are pressuring House Speaker Mike Johnson to keep language expanding what health savings accounts can be used in the GOP megabill, which the Senate had stripped out. — Politico

Outside the Beltway

• Florida is constructing a large detention camp for migrants in the Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Personnel

• Edward Coristine, the Elon Musk aide known as “Big Balls,” resigned from his government job. — WIRED
• The National Security Council is staffing back up after President Trump cut it down in the wake of former Chair Mike Waltz’s exit. — Bloomberg

Business

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent meets this morning with National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons and representatives of manufacturing companies across the US to talk about the GOP’s tax-and-spending bill, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports. President Trump discussed the effort at a NAM board meeting before the election.

Economy

• Nearly 2 million student loan borrowers could default on their loans by July. — WSJ

National Security

• The FBI is returning counterterrorism agents who were diverted to work on immigration cases back to their original assignments, given additional terrorism risk from Iran. — NBC
• The Trump administration had prepared several options for maintaining the US’ oil supply if the conflict in Iran continued to escalate. — Bloomberg

Foreign Policy

• President Trump said he doesn’t want regime change for Iran.

Technology

• A federal judge sided with Anthropic over its move to train models on published books without the authors’ permission, the first time a court backed the argument that using copyrighted material to train AI constitutes “fair use.”

Health

• A review of a vaccine ingredient that’s set to be presented at a CDC vaccine review board this week cites a study that does not exist. — Reuters

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, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Ro Khanna is a Democratic member of Congress from California.