Principals

1. Trump’s next 100 days
2. Senate v. House on Medicaid
3. GDP report out today
4. China ambassador confirmed
5. Dem debut housing bill
6. “Crypto champions” list
7. Hogg faces challenge
8. Johnson’s rental

PDB: House Financial Services marks up GOP tax bill

Trump participates in NewsNation town hall … Tariffs cause China’s export orders to plunge … S&P 500 futures ⬇️ 0.14%

Trump’s next 100 days will be harder

President Donald Trump flew to Michigan Tuesday to tout 100 days of aggressive executive action. His next 100 will be a heavier lift because he will have to rely on the rest of his party, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, Burgess Everett and Eleanor Mueller report. Successfully corralling the GOP’s narrow House and Senate majorities into delivering the next chunk of his agenda by passing his tax plan — “the big prize,” as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., described it to Semafor — will require the president to tap new depths of patience and focus. Already, Republican lawmakers are urging the president to help them navigate outstanding differences over the depth of spending cuts. “He’s just got to stay on offense,” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, told Semafor. Cryptocurrency legislation and GOP resistance to his tariffs are poised to similarly test Trump’s sway.

Senate takes on House over Medicaid

Trump’s allies in the Senate aren’t having it when it comes to House Republicans’ effort to shrink federal spending on the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, whether it’s by decreasing the federal share of the program or capping spending. Both amount to “cutting benefits,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “We don’t need to cut benefits. And it actually really infuriates me to hear people here talking about that, because it stresses people out. This is life and death for them.” Trump made clear to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., that he doesn’t want to cut benefits. Senate Republicans do support installing work requirements, ending benefits to undocumented immigrants and trying to find other savings — but that might be it. In the Senate, there aren’t “50 votes for any kind of cuts in benefits, that’s just a fact,” Moreno said.

Trump gets gloomy economic news

Trump is facing a potentially gloomy first-quarter GDP report later today. Data released by the Commerce Department showed the US goods trade deficit reached a record in March, as companies stockpiled goods ahead of Trump’s tariffs, prompting economists to downgrade their GDP projections. A key consumer confidence index also fell to its lowest level since May 2020 — during the COVID-19 pandemic — in the latest sign of how tariffs are weighing on Americans. Trump did offer a reprieve from tariffs on auto parts to manufacturers assembling cars in the US, while moving to stop the auto tariffs from being “stacked” on other levies via an executive order. General Motors postponed a planned earnings call and withdrew earnings guidance until it could assess the impact of the tariffs. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index, also comes out later today.

David Perdue steps into difficult role

The Senate confirmed David Perdue as Trump’s ambassador to China, sending him to one of the most consequential — and difficult — overseas postings, given trade and national security tensions. Perdue, a former GOP senator from Georgia, received bipartisan support thanks in part to his days on Capitol Hill. “I think he’s a capable guy,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine. Perdue could help stabilize the US-China relationship, said the German Marshall Fund’s Bonnie Glaser, but that depends on whether Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agree to try to move past trade tensions. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., called Perdue “the right guy at the right time,” citing his experience doing business in China as a top executive for Sara Lee and Reebok. “David will be in a unique position to help open up that dialogue between our two countries,” Daines said.

— Morgan Chalfant

Dems debut bill on housing

The top Democrats on the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees, Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, will announce a new bill today that would insulate the Department of Housing and Urban Development against Trump’s deregulatory agenda — including by reinstating a rule requiring recipients of federal funds to address housing discrimination and creating a database of housing discrimination complaints, according to text shared with Semafor. “As our nation faces the worst affordable housing and homelessness crisis in history, we cannot afford to lose protections,” Waters said. The bill isn’t going anywhere, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller writes, but it’s still a notable opening salvo as lawmakers negotiate bipartisan housing proposals. Banking Committee members have been told to prepare for a housing markup next month, a person familiar with the planning said, though another person said there’s a chance legislation won’t be ready until June.

In first, key crypto group backs specific lawmakers

Stand With Crypto will name eight members of Congress as its first-ever “crypto champions” today in the advocacy group’s first concerted effort to elevate specific politicians this election cycle, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports. The list includes Reps. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who founded the bipartisan Congressional Crypto Caucus last month and are slated to appear together this afternoon in a new series of fireside chats the group is also launching today. It also includes Reps. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., and French Hill, R-Ark., and Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. Stand With Crypto, whose ratings helped crypto super PACs decide how to spend millions of dollars last year, plans to tap new lawmakers each quarter — and eventually expand its consideration to congressional candidates, the spokesperson said.

David Hogg faces DNC job challenge

Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg will face a challenge to his job next month, when party members will hear a complaint from a Native American activist Hogg beat out, Semafor’s David Weigel reports. Kalyn Free, a Choctaw Nation member who ran for vice chair in February, claimed that she’d lost a “fatally flawed election that violated the DNC Charter and discriminated against three women of color candidates.” Free asked the party to hold new elections, and some DNC members are looking for a way to remove Hogg, who sparked a debate by remaining head of a PAC that may challenge some Democrats in primaries. Attorneys for Hogg had told the DNC that it was “inappropriate to try to revise those rules or decisions after the fact” and a DNC spokesperson said that the “election was conducted fairly, transparently, and in alignment with the rules.”

Johnson’s new pad

Speaker Mike Johnson is renting a house from his colleague, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Semafor’s Kadia Goba scooped on Tuesday. In late February, ProPublica reported that Johnson was sharing a home with evangelical pastor Steve Berger, just blocks away from the Capitol, in a property owned by a wealthy Tennessee donor. Johnson relocated a month later. “He’s a friend and needed a place,” Issa told Semafor of the arrangement. The property has still more congressional ties: Issa purchased the home in March from Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., for a little over $1.5 million. It’s not clear how much Johnson’s paying for rent, but a spokesperson with the speaker’s office said, “Rep. Issa negotiated a fair market price for the lease of the property to the Speaker.”

Blindspot: Military and grades

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: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a review of medical conditions that disqualify people from joining the military.

What the Right isn’t reading: Forty-five percent of US adults give President Trump an “F” for how he’s handled the first 100 days of his second term — more than those who picked any other grade, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: A new NRCC poll shown to the House Republican Conference yesterday argues that Republicans “are in a strong position to defend and grow the House majority heading into 2026.”

Playbook: President Trump’s popularity is declining among swing-state voters; research from the Democratic group Navigator looks at three swing-state focus groups and shows voters “angry and disappointed at the impact of Trump’s tariff policies.”

WaPo: Kamala Harris will use her first major public address since leaving office later today to attack Trump’s economic agenda and “encourage Americans to stand up to the Trump administration and praise those who have protested against him.”

White House

• Pressed by ABC’s Terry Moran in an Oval Office interview that aired Tuesday night, President Trump downplayed the risk of economic pain stemming from his levies on China. The interview also got into an extended back-and-forth over mistakenly deported man Kilmar Ábrego García’s right to due process, and Trump insisted Ábrego’s hands were tattooed with MS-13 symbols, which experts dispute. Trump also said he “could” get Ábrego back.
• A DOGE staffer who is helping dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau owns hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in companies that would be subject to CFPB oversight. — ProPublica

Congress

• The House Financial Services Committee will mark up its portion of the GOP’s tax bill this morning, which would shrink the level of funding the CFPB can receive from the Federal Reserve and, as Eleanor scooped Friday, eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s ability to collect tax-deductible fees by absorbing it into the SEC.

Outside the Beltway

• Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer greeted President Trump warmly when he arrived in her state on Tuesday, a stark contrast to their last photo op together.
• Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is considering a run for president.

Business

• President Trump called Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to complain about a report from Punchbowl News that the online marketplace planned to highlight tariff charges in some of its listings.
• The Port of Los Angeles expects shipments to decline by 35% next week because of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Economy

• The UK and India are close to agreeing to a trade deal. — Politico

Education

• A Harvard task force issued scathing reports about antisemitism and anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias at the university, leading university president Alan Garber to apologize for the university failing “to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.”

National Security

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended the Pentagon’s participation in the Women, Peace, and Security program, an initiative codified by a law signed by President Trump in 2017. Hegseth called it “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops.”
• The State Department plans to designate Haitian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, potentially the first step in allowing the administration to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting people with alleged gang ties. — AP

Immigration

• The Post Office’s law enforcement agency is cooperating with immigration authorities to find and deport undocumented immigrants. — WaPo
• A former Customs and Border Protection official warned lawmakers in a letter not to back President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, Rodney Scott, and accused him of a “cover-up” in the death of a man in CBP custody. Scott is set to go before the Senate Finance Committee today. — The Guardian

Foreign Policy

• The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Chinese and Iranian firms that allegedly supported Iran’s ballistic missile program.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio is considering eliminating the role of US security coordinator for the West Bank and Gaza. — Axios
• China’s foreign minister told a Rio de Janeiro meeting of the BRICS bloc that Beijing’s stance against US trade pressure was in “the common interest of all countries.”

Environment

• The EPA is cancelling hundreds of Biden-era environmental justice grants.

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, Kadia Goba, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Ian Platz is the former senior program officer for security sector governance and reform at the US Institute of Peace. He was among the staffers fired from USIP by the Trump administration earlier this year, and has set up a hiring database for fired USIP workers.