Principals

1. Trump’s foreign policy pivot
2. WH defends Gaza idea
3. Trump agenda unstuck?
4. Bipartisan firefighting
5. Resignation deadline
6. OMB vote
7. Buttigieg for Senate?
8. #MeToo suit

PDB: Trump to unveil plan to end Russian war in Ukraine

Trump to speak at National Prayer Breakfast … Trump USTR pick Greer sits for confirmation hearing … WSJ: Bipartisan bill would ban DeepSeek on govt devices

Republicans debate Trump’s foreign policy

President Trump’s foreign policy is having an identity crisis: Does “America First” mean avoiding overseas engagements — or pursuing them when they further US interests? Semafor’s Kadia Goba spoke to Republican lawmakers about Trump’s expansive foreign policy as he floats US control of Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and Gaza, though only a few in the GOP publicly acknowledged the tension. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., posted on X after Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza that “I thought we voted for America First,” adding on Wednesday that “we should not have any American presence in Gaza.” Many others defended Trump. He “takes great pride in the fact that he’s kept us from really being engaged in war,” said Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., who described Trump’s Gaza ownership talk as a strategy to put Hamas on notice about permanently ending its conflict with Israel.

Trump officials walk back Gaza plan

The Trump administration sought to defend — and carefully backtrack on — Trump’s proposal to “take over” Gaza. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stressed that the US would not pay to rebuild the enclave and that Trump “has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza” (though she declined to rule out the latter). Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who CNN reports first learned of Trump’s proposal as he watched the president’s news conference on Tuesday, said that Palestinians would live somewhere outside Gaza “in the interim” while the US worked with regional partners on its reconstruction. (Trump had suggested Palestinians be permanently resettled, drawing swift condemnation.) The controversy around Trump’s comments will bleed into next week, when he hosts Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Jordan is among the countries that have criticized any effort to displace Palestinians.

Senate prepares to move on budget

Senate Republicans are tired of waiting for the House on Trump’s stalled agenda. The upper chamber plans to move next week on a border-first-tax-cuts-later strategy. Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham is preparing to push a budget through his committee to set up a border, national security and energy party-line bill. But there’s no guarantee that the House will take that budget up once the full Senate approves it. Graham told Senate Republicans on Wednesday he ran his plan by the White House and said the president will not oppose it, though it remains the preference of both Trump and the House to pass a single tax and border bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told his colleagues the move preserves “optionality” in the conflict with the House. One Republican senator conceded it might also be a “trainwreck.” Trump is slated to meet with House Republicans later this morning on the budget.

— Burgess Everett

Padilla, Sheehy propose new wildfire agency

Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy is teaming with California Sen. Alex Padilla on a bill to organize wildfire response under a new National Wildland Firefighting Service within the Interior Department, according to details first shared with Semafor. The bill would require the Agriculture and Interior secretaries to combine their wildfire operations under the new agency, with a specific budget and plans for a Senate-confirmable director. Sheehy said the current bureaucratic organization under multiple departments has “failed” firefighters and led to towns being engulfed by wildfires. “The time is now to reshape our approach to American wildfire management and start fighting fires better, stronger, and faster,” Sheehy said. The GOP senator, who founded an aerial firefighting operation in Montana, is now on a half-dozen bipartisan fire-related bills — one of which, to improve wildfire forecasts, advanced through committee this week.

— Burgess Everett

Federals resignations rise ahead of deadline

More than 40,000 federal employees have accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer (sent to roughly 2 million eligible workers), a source told Semafor on Wednesday evening. That’s around double what it was just one day prior, and with the offer deadline coming up at 11:59pm tonight, a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said that the number continues to grow — although so far it remains below the 5-10% estimations from some administration officials. Trump’s buyout program is part of the administration’s goal to implement sweeping cuts to government agencies. On Tuesday, a similar offer was made to the entire CIA workforce, The Wall Street Journal reported — making staffers there the first at an intelligence agency to receive such an proposal.

— Shelby Talcott

Vought poised for confirmation

The Senate is about to finally install Trump’s Office of Management and Budget chief — but not without protest from Democrats. Members of the opposing party held the Senate floor all night to object to Russ Vought’s nomination to be OMB director. Vought has become a popular target for the left because of his role in crafting Project 2025, his view that the president can impound congressionally-appropriated funds, and because of his involvement in the Trump administration’s short-lived effort to impose a sweeping freeze on federal funding (a program that Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz called “creeping fascism”). Vought’s confirmation vote will take place at 7pm, after the Senate advanced his nomination along party lines Wednesday. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins has criticized the Trump administration for going too far in its early actions, but still plans to vote to confirm Vought.

Buttigieg eyes Senate run

Democrats are welcoming Pete Buttigieg to his new home state of Michigan with what looks like an invitation to jump into its Senate race, Semafor’s David Weigel and Burgess Everett report. Buttigieg, the former presidential candidate turned transportation secretary, moved to the state less than three years ago, but Democrats in both Michigan and DC are open to the idea of him running to replace Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. He would be starting with an advantage: a Blueprint circulating with Michigan politicos this week shows Buttigieg is the best-liked potential candidate among likely Democratic primary voters. “Certainly he’d be very strong,” Peters told Semafor. It’s high stakes for Democrats, given Michigan is one of Senate Republicans’ top targets in 2026. Buttigieg, who is also one to watch for the 2028 presidential contest, hasn’t made a decision.

Dems move on from #MeToo

Whither #MeToo and politics? Eight months after sexual misconduct allegations doomed his congressional campaign, Virginia state legislator Dan Helmer is suing a group of Democratic Party activists for defamation, conspiracy, and $15 million in damages. Semafor’s David Weigel writes that the lawsuit, filed last week, resurrects a controversy that briefly panicked Democrats last year. He’s bringing his case at a moment when allegations of sexual misconduct have lost some of their power to disrupt. Trump won his new term after losing a defamation case against E. Jean Carroll, and allegations against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not pry off many Republican votes for his nomination. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, felled by allegations he harassed 13 women, is inching closer to a run for New York City mayor.

Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit will bring together US Cabinet officials, global finance ministers, central bankers, and over 200 CEOs from the world’s largest companies. Coinciding with the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, the annual summit will feature on-the-record discussions with top executives, including: Nandan Nilekani, Co-Founder and Chairman, Infosys; Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal; Anthony Capuano, President and CEO, Marriott International; Tim Wentworth, CEO, Walgreens Boots Alliance; Ynon Kreiz, Chairman and CEO, Mattel; and Beth Ford, President and CEO, Land O’Lakes Inc.

Apr. 23-25, 2025 | Washington, DC | Join Waitlist

Blindspot: Rogan and Esper

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: Joe Rogan denied an account in a forthcoming book that he sabotaged plans for an interview with Kamala Harris.

What the Right isn’t reading: The Trump administration revoked former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s security detail, according to The New York Times.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Speaker Mike Johnson will lead a group of House Republicans to the White House today to meet with President Trump on the path forward for his agenda, after conservative members told their colleagues during a closed-door meeting Wednesday that they prefer two reconciliation bills instead of Johnson’s one-bill approach.

Playbook: Federal employees are grappling with Trump’s deferred resignation offer, with some “growing defiant and vowing not to take the offer because they fear it won’t be honored anyway.”

Axios: The Trump administration has already released 461 undocumented immigrants through the “catch and release” program due in part to limited detention space.

White House

• President Trump signed an executive order barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.
• Trump’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, Howard Lutnick, advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Congress

• The Senate confirmed Scott Turner, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in a bipartisan 55-44 vote.
• Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, wasted no time filing impeachment articles against Trump after he said the US would “take over” Gaza.

Outside the Beltway

• The US Postal Service quickly reversed course and resumed acceptance of packages coming from China and Hong Kong.

Economy

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent kept in place the agency’s long-term debt plan left over from the Biden administration.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sided with Trump by accusing major banks of engaging in discriminatory practices.

Health

• Aides with Elon Musk’s DOGE have been accessing data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in an attempt to uncover fraud. — WSJ

Courts

• A federal judge indefinitely paused President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.

National Security

• The Pentagon is developing plans to withdraw all remaining US troops from Syria. — NBC
• Guatemala agreed to accept migrants from elsewhere that are deported by the US (though not American citizens).

Foreign Policy

• The first of the 10,000 border troops Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum promised President Trump have been deployed to the Mexico-US border.
• The Trump administration is expected to unveil a plan for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference next week. Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine, will also travel to Ukraine and other countries in Europe later this month. — Bloomberg

Technology

• TikTok owner ByteDance is slow-walking talks about a possible sale of the app “while waiting for a green light from the Chinese government.” — WaPo
• Google is eliminating its diversity hiring targets. — WSJ

Media

• Lara Trump is getting her own weekend show on Fox News.
• CBS released the full transcript of the “60 Minutes” segment at the heart of a lawsuit filed by President Trump against the network.

Principals Team

Edited by Morgan Chalfant, deputy Washington editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Kadia Goba, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Madeleine Dean is a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania.