Principals

1. Tariff week
2. Next megabill battle
3. Congress’ to-do list
4. Trump, Netanyahu meet
5. Texas floods
6. NYT and Mamdani

PDB: Trump criticizes Musk after he announces a new political party

Trump signs more executive orders … S&P 500 futures ⬇️ 0.28% … WSJ: Musk running out of road in China

Trump faces pressure on trade deals

It’s make-or-break time for President Donald Trump’s tariff pressure campaign. Trump plans to send letters starting today to trading partners threatening higher tariffs as of Aug. 1, administration officials said, in order to force them to make concessions. “I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNN, as he insisted that August is “not a new deadline.”

But Trump’s tariff pause, which is supposed to end on Wednesday, has yet to yield agreements beyond the ones with the UK, China, and Vietnam — and even those are not all set in stone. White House economic adviser Stephen Miran said on ABC that some countries may see extensions if they are negotiating in good faith, citing “good things” about talks with Europe and India. Meanwhile, Trump threatened an additional 10% tariff on BRICS nations after their weekend summit.

GOP prepares for next megabill battle

Now that Trump’s massive tax cut-and-spending bill is law, Republicans have a new challenge: selling it. The bill is poised to become a flashpoint in the 2026 midterms, and early polling suggests pieces of it are unpopular. “If a Republican candidate voted to cut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts, they would lose by 21 points,” Fabrizio Ward, a GOP polling firm, warned in May about competitive House races, per The Wall Street Journal.

The bill’s effects won’t be felt immediately, and some Americans may not notice its tax-cut extensions. The legislation also boosts funding for ICE, and will test economists’ warnings about the potential negative impact of mass deportations. Still, the bill represents a generational victory for the GOP, which achieved it “by co-opting key Democratic messages and building a MAGA-based story of America and what ails it,” Semafor’s David Weigel writes.

Congress returns in post-megabill daze

As the Trump administration turns to selling its megabill, lawmakers turn this week to other priorities that fell by the wayside as Republicans beat the odds to muscle through their mammoth tax-and-spending package. The biggest task will be the White House’s ongoing push to claw back and slash billions of dollars in federal spending, using rescissions and annual spending legislation, respectively. The Senate will mark up three appropriations bills this week and the House, which is out until July 14, will prepare for debate on another package next week. As for rescissions, the Senate has until July 18 to send Trump’s proposal to his desk, amid concerns from top lawmakers like Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins. Expect to hear a lot about crypto, too: House leaders will be looking to build consensus on a trio of ambitious digital assets bills they’ve lined up for floor votes next week.

— Eleanor Mueller

Gaza dominates Trump-Netanyahu meeting

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are meeting at the White House today to discuss a litany of topics, including the war in Gaza. Over the weekend, Netanyahu expressed optimism that Trump can help secure a ceasefire and hostage deal, and despite negotiations repeatedly breaking down, high-level representatives from both countries are heading to Doha for another round of indirect talks. Trump will likely take a victory lap of sorts after the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities last month and helped to end what he termed the “12-Day War” between Iran and Israel. But questions still remain regarding Iran’s nuclear program and what the US will do, should the country resume activities or retain capabilities. Netanyahu will be looking for some answers there, too.

— Shelby Talcott

Texas stress-tests emergency response

The severe flooding in Texas poses an urgent challenge for the federal government, as Trump looks to potentially hollow out the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among the deadliest US floods of the last century, the disaster has killed more than 80 people in Central Texas. Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday, activating FEMA in the state, and said he is planning to visit the area “probably on Friday.” Asked Sunday whether he still wants to phase out FEMA, Trump replied: “Right now they’re busy working, so we’ll leave it at that.” Democrats are demanding investigations of staffing cuts at the National Weather Service to determine whether they hampered weather forecasts ahead of the floods (Trump said they didn’t). Two Republican lawmakers — Texas Rep. August Pfluger and Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter — each said they had family members saved from the flooding.

NYT pushed ahead on Mamdani story

The New York Times reported last week that Zohran Mamdani — the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, who was born in Uganda and is of South Asian ethnicity — had identified his race on a 2009 Columbia admissions form as both “Asian” and “Black or African American.” The paper was in a hurry to publish, Semafor’s Max Tani writes: The conservative journalist Christopher Rufo was also chasing the story, two people familiar with the reporting process told Semafor, and the Times didn’t want to be scooped. Rufo told Max he’d been reporting out the story; The Times declined to comment on whether Rufo’s reporting had prompted the paper to publish. The story itself and the Times’ sourcing for it — leaked documents from a pseudonymous online commentator — have both spurred an explosive reaction, as Mamdani’s skeptics and supporters look to the general election.

Uncommon bonds: Speeding up transit projects

Tensions in Washington haven’t halted the bipartisan push for improving the nation’s infrastructure. As Congress assembles a package to reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation programs over the coming year, a group of bipartisan lawmakers is pitching a series of policy changes designed to speed up and reduce the cost of transportation projects that could be included in the upcoming bill. “There’s bipartisan energy around speeding up the delivery of public services,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., one of the signatories on the letter, told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. “Energy is probably the most immediate priority, but transportation because of the surface transportation reauthorization is the other big one, to me.”

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Eighty-five percent of Capitol Hill staffers believe the megabill’s cuts to Medicaid will harm Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

Playbook: Joe Biden’s aides pushed him to hold an early debate with Donald Trump last year, arguing in a six-page memo: “By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible.”

Axios: A host of possible Republican presidential contenders for 2028 “are racing to build their national profiles.”

White House

• Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies they did not have to follow Congress’ ban on TikTok because the law ran afoul of President Trump’s “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers” — in other words, that the law did not count. “For pure refusal to enforce the law as Article II requires, it’s just breathtaking,” one expert told The New York Times.
• Trump said a deal with TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the app is “pretty much” done and could come this week.

Campaigns

• Elon Musk’s proposed “America Party” is light on policy specifics, but Musk’s announcement got President Trump’s attention; he threatened to eliminate billions in federal contracts with Musk’s companies.
• Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he’ll “think about” a 2028 presidential run.

Outside the Beltway

• Texas and California bear the brunt of the financial impact from President Trump’s tariffs, per one analysis. — Axios
• Some American conservatives are moving to Russia on an “anti-woke visa.” — WaPo

Business

• TSMC, the Taiwanese semiconductor giant, is putting off building a planned plant in Japan due to concerns about Trump tariffs. — WSJ

Economy

• China restricted the sale of medical devices in Europe, retaliating in response to Brussels’ own such curbs. The move is largely symbolic, but points to worsening ties between the two.
• Major oil producers agreed to ramp up output by more than expected despite falling crude prices.

Education

• Columbia University is in talks with the Trump administration over at least a partial restoration of federal funding. — WSJ

National Security

• The Department of Justice and FBI announced that there is no evidence that financier Jeffrey Epstein was murdered or maintained a “client list” — an official White House denial of the conspiracy theory that underpinned the QAnon movement and still animates the far right. — Axios
• The Secret Service is stepping up its investigations into international crypto scams. — Bloomberg

Foreign Policy

• Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made his first public appearance for the first time since Iran and Israel concluded their war.
• The BRICS summit over the weekend was tense, even if the joint resolution decrying tariffs didn’t name the US or President Trump directly.

Immigration

• The Trump administration deported eight men to war-torn South Sudan; only one of them had ties to the country.

Technology

• TikTok is building a US-specific version of its app. — The Information

Media

• Punchbowl News has a new video show, Semafor’s Ben Smith scoops.
• Tucker Carlson said he will publish an interview he conducted with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

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

A man searches a flood-damaged area in Hunt, Texas.

The media business is facing a crisis brought on by artificial intelligence. Since the dawn of the internet, people have had to click links to read articles. Now, they can just ask a chatbot what’s going on in the world, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti writes.

But the advent of AI also brings an opportunity for entrepreneurship in local and niche publishing. AI moves us past the era of platforms and into something new: The technology will reduce almost every barrier to media creation, negating the need for a one-size-fits-all platform.