Principals

1. Trump woos autoworkers
2. Insulin talks threaten to stall
3. Biden’s ’60 Minutes’ ad
4. Tuberville hold blowback
5. New border plan?
6. Huawei phone alarms US

PDB: The end of “pro-life”?

Biden en route to India … AP: Climate protests halt U.S. Open … CNN: Hurricane Lee hits Category 5

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Trump’s pitch to UAW members

Donald Trump’s campaign sees an opportunity to siphon auto workers, on the brink of a strike and unsettled by the rise of electric vehicles, off of the coalition that narrowly elected Joe Biden in 2020. The UAW has conspicuously declined to endorse Biden so far, in part due to concerns about how labor will fare in the transition to EVs that the White House has made one of its top priorities. The situation “shows there’s a disconnect between blue-collar workers and Democrats,” a person close to Trump told Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, adding that the Trump campaign believes that auto workers and other union members have been “disenfranchised by what’s going on with the economy.” UAW President Shawn Fain wasn’t buying it in a CNBC interview, dismissing Trump on Thursday as “part of the billionaire class.”

Chuck, grab your gun

It may take a “shotgun wedding” for the Senate to reach a deal on insulin costs this year, Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig reports. That’s according to Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican who co-authored one of the two bipartisan bills aimed at capping the price of diabetes meds that are now competing for passage in the Senate.

“We tried to marry those bills,” Kennedy told Semafor. “We haven’t been able to.”

The main sticking point, according to Kennedy, is what to do with the uninsured. His legislation, co-sponsored with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., would lower the cost of the drugs to $35 for Americans with and without private insurance (the Inflation Reduction Act already set a cap for Medicare patients). A rival proposal from Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. would just limit costs for those with health coverage.

Kennedy warned talks will stall out unless Majority Leader Chuck Schumer steps in to force a compromise bill that would let them “go pass the damn thing.” Schumer’s take? “We are working as hard as possible to get a bill done,” he said in a statement to Semafor.

Joe Biden, action hero

Look how active he is! That seems to be the theme of Biden’s new ad airing during “60 Minutes” this weekend, which highlights his “quiet strength” visiting Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. Entitled “War Zone,” its heavy subtext comes through in clips from news coverage of the event: “A nearly 40-hour journey in and out of Ukraine… left Washington, D.C. at 4 a.m. on Sunday... took a nine-and-a-half hour train to Kyiv…” Yep, it’s the campaign’s most direct engagement with the age question so far, repeatedly touting Biden’s stamina in an action hero setting — the ad notes he’s the first modern president to tour a “war zone not controlled by the United States.”

— Benjy Sarlin

Abigail Spanberger rages over Tuberville blockade

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va. says her vet-heavy district is fuming over Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s “outrageous” hold on hundreds of military promotions in protest of a Pentagon abortion policy, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant writes. Spanberger, whose district includes the Marine Corps Base Quantico, said Tuberville’s blockade has come up at town halls and veterans events over the recess period. “In the event that he would better understand it in a football analogy: If we were to take his quarterback and his entire offensive line off the football field, would he still be ready to win games?” she told Semafor. Tuberville spokesman Steven Stafford dismissed the notion that the hold impacts national security. “The analogy doesn’t work because acting officials are in all these roles. No jobs are open. We still have an offensive line, and in many places they’re the same people who have been nominated to fill the role permanently,” he told Semafor.

‘Remain-in-Texas’

Facing a blue-state revolt over incoming migrants, the Biden administration is considering forcing asylum-seeking families to stay near the Texas border after crossing, the Los Angeles Times reports. The goal would be to more quickly deport families who don’t pass initial screenings, rather than having to coordinate removals after they’ve dispersed throughout the country. Biden, like Trump before him, faces court-imposed limits on how long officials can detain families with children. One reported idea under consideration is to allow migrants to stay in the border region with ankle monitors during the process. The plan could spark an outcry from human rights activists, but pressure is also rising in major cities struggling to house new migrants. In the most dramatic example, New York City mayor Eric Adams told a town hall this week that the ongoing influx “will destroy New York City” and that he was getting “no support” from federal officials.

Lawmakers raise alarm over new Huawei phone

Top lawmakers believe the Chinese chip-maker SMIC could only have achieved a key technology breakthrough by violating U.S. sanctions, Morgan Chalfant reports. The accusations came after the phone maker Huawei debuted a 7-nanometer chip in its powerful new Mate 60 Pro. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who chairs the House select committee on China, called for ending “all U.S. technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC” in response, while Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. suggested “additional sanctions.” SMIC and Huawei both continue to license some technology from U.S. companies. The Huawei news has raised doubts about the effectiveness of the U.S. effort to curb China’s access to advanced chips used in weapons, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technology.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: A government shutdown is “more likely than not at this point,” John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio write. “It’ll be House Republicans versus the Senate and the White House, and no one is sure how it all will get resolved.”

Playbook: The coming battles over a potential shutdown and Ukraine funding mean the long-cordial relationship between Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy could “face its greatest test yet.”

The Early 202: Donald Trump has been “very helpful” in the GOP’s Senate race recruitment efforts by persuading certain prospective candidates to run, dissuading others and staying neutral in some races, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines said.

Axios: Elon Musk is obsessed with the idea of building robotaxis.

White House

• President Biden will land in New Delhi in a few hours and meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• The U.S., India, and Saudi Arabia are homing in on a major infrastructure deal linking the Gulf with South Asia that could be announced at the G20. — Reuters
• White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One he plans to brief House lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — next week on Ukraine.
• After months of speculation, Biden confirmed plans to nominate Michael Whitaker as the next Federal Aviation Administration chief. The agency hasn’t had a confirmed leader since March of last year.

Congress

• The Senate confirmed Adriana Kugler as the first Hispanic member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Anna Gomez as the fifth FCC commissioner. The latter ended a protracted partisan battle over Biden’s FCC picks.
• House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio wants special counsel Jack Smith’s office to hand over communications with a lawyer for Trump aide Walt Nauta who claims he was pressured by one of the prosecutors in the classified documents case. — NBC
• Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. unloaded on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. over her positions on impeachment, Jack Smith, and the 2020 election: “When I was teaching law school, I learned and taught certain Constitutional principles. When Marjorie Taylor Greene was teaching CrossFit, she learned a whole different set of values evidently.” — Politico

Courts

• A D.C. jury convicted former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro of contempt of Congress for evading a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.
• Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh told a judicial conference that he hoped the court would soon take “concrete steps” to address ethics issues.

Economy

Even in a hot labor market, the pay gap between workers and top CEOs continues to widen, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman reports. In 2018, “the average CEO made about 140 times what his or her average worker took home. Last year, that ratio was 186 to 1.” And among the top 20 largest firms in the Business Roundtable, which meets in Washington next week, the ratio of CEO to median worker pay jumped from 324 to 441.

2024

• Vivek Ramaswamy announced last week that he was doing a CNN town hall on September 12. This was news to CNN, Max Tani reports, which has yet to schedule an event with the candidate. Ramaswamy’s aides, who bought U.S. Open tickets in anticipation of being in New York, are not happy.
• Nikki Haley’s campaign is popping the champagne over a CNN poll showing her up 49-43 against Biden, easily outperforming the rest of the GOP field in a hypothetical matchup.

Polls

Republican candidates weren’t too interested in discussing climate change at their first debate and their voters appear to feel the same: Only 30% of likely Republican primarygoers consider climate change a major problem or crisis, versus 67% who say it’s a minor problem or none at all, according to new polling from Echelon Insights on behalf of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Gallup has also found Republican concern on the topic waning in recent years.

The Big Read

Is it time to retire “pro-life?” NBC News reports that the Senate GOP heard a presentation on polling suggesting the term has outlived its usefulness for the movement and is now a liability when discussing abortion. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind. has started using “pro-baby” in his public remarks, which he said was a “term of my creation.” Others, like Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. said “pro-life” sometimes suggests to voters “you’re for no exceptions” on abortion and requires more specificity. Of course, “pro-life” was created to be the politically friendly name for the movement — it was considered such a branding success by its opponents that the phrase “pro-choice” was popularized to counter it, according to a history of the term by Quartz.

Blindspot

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: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said officials should not try to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot using the 14th amendment.

What the Right isn’t reading: An audit from Project Veritas accused its former head James O’Keefe of improper spending (like $2,500 for DJ equipment).

Next Tuesday September 12th, Steve Clemons is hosting an exclusive live 1:1 interview with the Governor Moore at the Gallup building. RSVP here for you and your team.

What’s your top priority between now and the end of the year?

I’m laser-focused on building on the progress we’ve made to strengthen Maryland’s economy and prepare our state to win industries of the present and the future.

What Republicans are you closest with? What’s the backstory of that relationship?

One of my first trips outside Annapolis as governor was to Lonaconing in Allegany County — that’s where I met Mayor Jack Coburn. He introduced me to local firefighters who were helping distribute fresh water during a boil advisory. To this day, Jack and I keep in close touch, and I consider him a personal friend.

Favorite Annapolis haunt?

Chick and Ruth’s.

Predictions for this Ravens season?

You have a franchise quarterback in Lamar Jackson, a once-in-a-generation player. With a seasoned pro like Odell Beckham, Jr., and an already-impressive rookie in Zay Flowers, the sky’s the limit.