Principals

1. A critical jobs report
2. McConnell staffers eye exits
3. Staffing the next admin
4. Hunter Biden plea
5. Blaze fires contributor
6. Trump’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ pitch
7. Grover Norquist in Europe

PDB: Kamala Harris nearly triples Donald Trump’s fundraising haul in August

Biden in Michigan … Bloomberg: Trump, Harris economic proposals are popular in swing states … WSJ: Meet Putin’s propaganda chief

Why the jobs report matters so much

Today’s jobs report has huge implications for the US economy. The August employment numbers, which will follow a spike in unemployment in July that rattled global markets, will show whether the earlier figures were a blip or a sign of the US sliding toward a recession, and will guide the Fed in its impending decision to cut rates. Some believe the Fed will decide on a more aggressive half-point cut, rather than a quarter-point reduction, due to fresh signs of decline in the labor market. “There’s a big amount of uncertainty that seems likely to be resolved by the end of this week,” one analyst told Bloomberg. For his part, former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman sounded an optimistic note. “We’re switching from job growth supporting the economy to real wage growth supporting the economy. That’s a sustainable thing,” he told Semafor’s Liz Hoffman.

Senate staffing shakeup

Republicans will select Mitch McConnell’s successor as Senate GOP leader after Election Day. Whoever wins will have to quickly build a staff to go toe-to-toe with Chuck Schumer. McConnell is sticking around for the rest of his term, which expires in 2026. But knowledgeable sources told Semafor that his longtime chief of staff Sharon Soderstrom (who has worked for multiple GOP leaders) is likely to leave the leadership office at the end of the year, as are top staffers Scott Raab and Stefanie Muchow. That spells a big change for the Senate, especially if it flips to the GOP: McConnell’s top trio does a lot to help the place run on a daily basis, though his potential successors have ample talent networks to draw from. Schumer will have an immediate edge in experience over the next Republican leader after eight years in his job as top Senate Democrat. The New Yorker’s top aides, chief of staff Mike Lynch and state director Martin Brennan, have worked for Schumer since his first Senate campaign.

— Burgess Everett

The next president can’t hire from Congress

Lawmakers who are hoping to leave the Hill for either a Trump or Harris administration should temper their expectations. Chances are that both chambers of Congress will be narrowly divided after the November elections, leaving little room for either party’s presidential nominee to raid the House and Senate for Cabinet members, Kadia Goba and Burgess Everett report. And neither party wants to deal with an immediate flurry of risky special elections (a Trump win would immediately prompt one in Ohio to replace JD Vance). But that hasn’t stopped the rumors about possible executive branch draft picks. In the Senate, Tom Cotton and Chris Coons are viewed as contenders, as are Elise Stefanik and Joyce Beatty on the House side. But some are already warning against pillaging Congress to the point of losing power. “It would be unfortunate if we sought to mess up our [potential] majority because of ambition and asininity,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., told Semafor.

Hunter Biden pleads guilty

Hunter Biden will avoid the harsh light of a federal tax trial, after he said he would plead guilty to the charges filed in California as jury selection got underway. Prosecutors objected to Biden’s earlier offer to enter a so-called Alford plea in which a defendant agrees to be convicted of the charged crime but still maintains innocence. The president’s son was “desperately seeking a way to avoid dragging his family into the humiliation of a second trial three months after his conviction on gun charges,” according to The New York Times, and in particular worried about his daughters being called to testify. A guilty plea means he’ll serve jail time, but some of his allies still hope that President Biden will change his mind about pardoning his son after the November election, according to The Washington Post. “No, it is still very much a no,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Blaze fires contributor linked to alleged Russian operation

The conservative media company Blaze Media fired a contributor who was implicated in an alleged covert Russian influence operation revealed by US prosecutors, Semafor’s Ben Smith scooped. The company said it terminated a contract belonging to Lauren Chen, a contributor to BlazeTV who, with her husband, founded a media company that prosecutors say paid right-wing influencers large sums of money to produce videos that echoed Russian propaganda. Chen was not charged in the scheme; the Justice Department indicted two RT employees with illegally funneling $10 million to her company, Tenet Media, which is identified as only “Company 1” in the indictment. Conservative influencers Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin have said they were victims of the scheme.

Are we in a supply-side sports crisis? If you feel surrounded by sports on all sides, losing the battle to keep up with new leagues (hello, pro pickleball?), athlete-influencers’ post-game podcasts, and who’s getting paid what, you’re not alone. This week on Mixed Signals from Semafor Media, Ben and Nayeema dive into the sports boom—whether it’s driven by culture or commerce, and if it’s a bubble. To help figure it out, they are joined by John Skipper, former President of ESPN and current founder and CEO of Meadowlark Media. Plus, Semafor’s business and finance editor, Liz Hoffman, joins for a blindspot from Silicon Valley: the rise of “founder mode.”

Catch up with the latest episode of Mixed Signals.

RFK Jr.’s influence shows in Trump’s new health kick

Donald Trump added “Make America Healthy Again” to his list of slogans, part of a push to court Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s supporters. Kennedy has nudged Trump to appeal to his now up-for-grabs supporters by emphasizing children’s health and investigating the cause of chronic disease, Shelby Talcott reports. “The people who follow him are all from the health movement, those are his voters, so it adds a whole separate constituency,” a person close to the Trump campaign said. Obviously, Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism — denounced by public health experts — looms large and Democrats have tried to tie Trump to it, pointing to recent measles outbreaks. But Andrew Yang told Semafor that Democrats are making a mistake by not more broadly engaging wellness circles on children’s health. After all, the Biden administration pursued stricter regulations on hazardous chemicals and nutrition standards than Trump.

The tax whisperer for the European right

Anti-tax stalwart Grover Norquist predicts that a Donald Trump victory in November would fuel European countries to more aggressively pursue corporate tax cuts. “The Europeans will take their corporate rates down further to increase their competitiveness,” Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, told Semafor on the sidelines of a conference in Berlin focused on conservative campaign strategies. Germany, which is grappling with a sluggish economy, is seen as having an especially high corporate tax burden, and the conservative opposition party is hoping to seize on the issue in next year’s federal elections. “How they phrase the tax issue, I think, will determine to a certain extent how successful they are,” said Norquist, who has become something of an adviser to right-wing parties in Europe looking to advance an anti-tax message and agenda. He said he has also worked with leaders from Italy’s populist Lega party, who are now “looking at moving towards a single rate tax.”

— J.D. Capelouto

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that, when Congress returns, Republicans are planning votes on bills that target financial institutions that use diversity, equity, and inclusion standards to guide their investments.

Playbook: Conservatives were incensed by an Associated Press tweet that took out of context comments JD Vance made about regretting that school shootings have become a “fact of life.” The AP deleted the original post and replaced it.

WaPo: Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said Kamala Harris’ entry into the race hasn’t had much of an impact on House and Senate races because those candidates were performing better than President Biden. “She’s come up to where they are,” she said.

Axios: Harris is avoiding media scrutiny by taking a page out of Biden’s playbook and “duck[ing] tough interviews and limit[ing] improvisational moments.”

White House

Kamala Harris may turn up at the UN General Assembly in New York later this month. — Politico

Congress

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, predicted Republicans would lose the House in November. — Punchbowl News

Outside the Beltway

• The father of the 14-year-old teen accused of shooting four people to death and wounding nine others in a Georgia high school earlier this week is facing murder and manslaughter charges for allowing his son to possess a gun.
• Virginia Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is running for governor in the state in 2025.

Economy

• OPEC+ is delaying plans to increase oil production.
• Donald Trump itemized big items on his 2025 tax agenda in a speech Thursday, Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig reports. “The fifth pillar of my plan is to make the Trump tax cuts permanent,” Trump said at the Economic Club of New York, listing a 15% corporate tax rate “solely for companies that make their product in America,” “expanded” research and development tax credits, and restoring 100% bonus depreciation. All are priorities for GOP lawmakers and business leaders. The latter two, though, have drawn a groundswell of Democratic support as well since they’re viewed as helpful to economic growth. Trump also said he would create a government efficiency commission led by Elon Musk if reelected.

Business

• Verizon is acquiring Frontier Communications in a $20 billion cash deal to bolster its fiber network.
• Salesforce will pay $1.9 billion in cash for data-security startup Own Co.
• Bank of America is investigating allegations that employees in Asia shared nonpublic information with investors in India. — WSJ

Courts

• The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 trial signaled that prosecutors will be able to lay out evidence in the coming weeks, which his attorney criticized given the proximity to the election.
• Through his attorneys, Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in a revised federal indictment accusing him of election interference.
• The judge overseeing Trump’s criminal case in New York will decide today whether to delay his sentencing until after the election.
• The Justice Department charged Dimitri Simes, a former adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, with working for a sanctioned Russian TV network. He and his wife were also charged with laundering his illegal payments.
• Federal officials raided the homes of two close associates of New York Mayor Eric Adams. — Politico
• Texas sued to block a new Biden administration rule to protect the privacy of women who live in states that ban abortion but travel out of state for the procedure.

Polls

Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy leads Sen. Jon Tester by 6 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup and by 8 points in a race with third-party candidates, according to a new AARP poll.

On the Trail

• In an interview with Michigan public radio station WCMU, Tim Walz said Israel has a right to defend itself, but also that “we need to continue, I think to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two-state solution” and that “we need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction.”
• Meanwhile, Donald Trump told the Jewish Republican Coalition that “Israel is gone” if Kamala Harris wins the election and that Jewish Democrats who support President Biden need their “head examined.”
• The Teamsters said Harris will meet with union General President Sean O’Brien and its membership on Sept. 16 as the organization considers who it will endorse in the presidential election.
• Matt Damon and Lin-Manuel Miranda are appearing at a high-dollar fundraiser for Harris in New York later this month. — Bloomberg
• EMILYs List announced a $2.2 million broadcast and cable TV ad buy in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore markets to support Maryland Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks and attack GOP candidate Larry Hogan focused on his abortion stances.

Fundraising

Democrats raised $361 million in August, as Kamala Harris’ campaign and DNC nearly tripled Donald Trump’s total, Semafor’s David Weigel reports. The Democratic ticket also entered September with $404 million left to spend, compared to the $295 million claimed by Republicans — helped, it said, by 1.3 million new donors. Neither campaign matched the record totals set by the Clinton and Trump campaigns in August 2016, but Democrats said in a statement that they’d beaten the record for grassroots small donations in a single month.

National Security

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro violated the Hatch Act by endorsing President Biden’s reelection and criticizing Donald Trump on official trips, the Office of Special Counsel said.

Foreign Policy

• French President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier, a conservative and the EU’s top Brexit negotiator, as prime minister.
• Chinese authorities arrested current and former employees of the British drugmaker AstraZeneca in investigations related to potential violations of China’s data privacy laws and possible illegal drug imports. — Bloomberg
• Japan’s digital transformation minister criticized an apparently imminent move by the White House to block Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of US Steel.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he prefers Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the 2024 US election. “Mr. Putin ought to stop talking about our elections, period,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in response. “He shouldn’t be favoring anybody one way or another.”

Technology

The Biden administration will impose new export controls on quantum computing and semiconductors to China. — Bloomberg

Big Read

Billionaire Howard Lutnick is Donald Trump’s “Wall Street cheerleader,” Bloomberg writes. The Cantor Fitzgerald CEO has traveled with the former president on Trump Force One, appeared with him at recent campaign stops, hosted a high-dollar Trump fundraiser at his estate in Bridgehampton, and now will help lead Trump’s transition team for his potential second term. While Lutnick may be attracted to Trump due to his pledge to cut taxes and regulations, the two have something else in common. “For decades, white-shoe bankers curled their lips at Lutnick, in the way high-caste Manhattan looked down on Trump,” Bloomberg writes. “Both were brushed off as outsiders, to be tolerated but never fully accepted.”

Blindspot

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: China’s New York consulate said its top diplomat was continuing his duties “as usual,” contradicting a claim from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that he’d left the post after her former aide was charged with aiding the Chinese government.

What the Right isn’t reading: The FDA has built up an enormous backlog of factory inspections since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Elana Schor, Morgan Chalfant

Reporters: Burgess Everett, Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Rep. Robert Aderholt is a Republican congressman from Alabama.