Principals

1. Paul Weiss appeals to Trump
2. Britt’s childcare push
3. Rubio hones in on Venezuela
4. Skepticism on Ukraine deal
5. Fed’s holding pattern
6. US scores low on happiness

PDB: Trump to sign order attempting to close Education Department

EU holds defense summit … Trump administration faces deadline to give up deportation flight info … WaPo: Social Security numbers unmasked in Kennedy files

Paul Weiss seeks Trump’s mercy

The chairman of one of the country’s most powerful law firms visited Washington to head off attacks by the Trump administration, Semafor has learned. Trump signed an executive order last week barring lawyers from the New York firm Paul Weiss from federal buildings and forcing federal contractors to terminate their work with the firm — retaliation for Paul Weiss’ work against Jan. 6 defendants, among other things. In an apparent effort to patch things up, Brad Karp, Paul Weiss’ chair, traveled to DC and has offered to help the White House in its efforts to crack down on alleged antisemitism on the campuses of elite colleges like Columbia. The details of that proposed arrangement are unclear, but it would be a big change for the firm, which has historically leaned Democratic.

Katie Britt makes child care push in tax package

Sen. Katie Britt is pushing Republicans to address child care costs in their tax cuts package, arguing the party needs to deliver for working-class voters who helped sweep them and President Donald Trump into power, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. The Alabama Republican wants to add a bipartisan proposal to her party’s still-unwritten tax plan. It would expand the child and dependent care tax credit, making it partially refundable; increase the dependent care assistance program; and help businesses provide child care to employees. “If the Republican Party wants to make good on being the party of families and being the party of workers, I could think of no better way than helping drive down the cost of child care,” she said. Some Republicans want to simply expand the child tax credit, though, so there will be haggling over the issue.

Rubio takes control in talks with Venezuela over US deportations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is ramping up his involvement in talks with Venezuela over deportation flights, after the White House asked him to help bring “order” to the process, a senior administration official told Semafor. Rubio on Tuesday posted on X that the US would impose “new, severe, and escalating sanctions” if the Venezuelan regime doesn’t begin to accept “a consistent flow of deportation flights, without further excuses or delays.” Days earlier, the president’s special missions envoy, Ric Grenell, announced that Venezuela had “agreed to resume flights.” That promise, the official said, has apparently not materialized: Maduro’s government is “lying” about flights it had promised would happen weekly, but which have only occurred once in the last 45 days. Asked if Rubio had personally confirmed the deal Grenell posted about, the official added, “if it was said, we’re not seeing the results.”

— Shelby Talcott

Zelenskyy proceeds with caution

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy backed a partial ceasefire covering energy infrastructure in a cordial call with Trump, but there’s still deep skepticism in Europe. If Russian President Vladimir Putin adheres to the deal, one Western official remarked, it’ll likely be because he doesn’t see a lot of value in energy sector attacks now that the winter is over. Trump briefed Zelenskyy on his call with Putin, and they agreed to send teams to Saudi Arabia to discuss a broader ceasefire, US officials said. By all accounts, Wednesday’s phone call was a far cry from Zelenskyy’s disastrous Oval Office meeting three weeks ago. Trump characterized it as “very good,” while one Ukrainian official told Politico it was “indeed not bad.” Trump offered to work with Zelenskyy to get more Patriot missile defense systems and suggested the US protect Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

— Morgan Chalfant

Fed settles into holding pattern amid uncertainty

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday said the central bank is still “not in any hurry” to cut interest rates as it awaits clarity on how Trump’s policies are affecting the economy. Policymakers opted in their second meeting of the year to leave rates untouched — but revised their projections to reflect higher inflation, higher unemployment, and lower growth, an implicit judgment of the president’s trade agenda. “A good part of [the inflation revision] is coming from tariffs,” Powell told reporters, adding later that “it’s just really hard to know how this is going to work out.” The fact that the central bankers still expect two rate cuts this year signals that — for now, at least — they don’t expect tariffs to drive up prices long-term. Still, Powell acknowledged: “I don’t know anyone who has a lot of confidence in their forecast.” Trump, meanwhile, put more pressure on Powell to cut rates in a Truth Social post last night.

— Eleanor Mueller

US hits new low in World Happiness Report

The US ranks 24th in the annual World Happiness Report released today, lagging behind Canada, Slovenia, Germany, the UAE, and the UK. That’s one spot lower than last year, when the US dropped out of the top 20 for the first time since the first report was published in 2012. Finland rates as the happiest country in this year’s report, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. The annual report, by Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report’s editorial board, also explores the political leanings of unhappy people, finding that dissatisfied individuals in the US and Western Europe are attracted to the political extremes — with low-trust people gravitating toward the far right and overly trusting individuals swinging toward the left.

In a polarized world, where do people find happiness? Semafor, in partnership with Gallup and the World Happiness Report editorial team, will present the latest data and insights at The State of Happiness in 2025: A World Happiness Report Launch Event.

Join us virtually today at 9am ET to hear Costa Rican Ambassador to the US Catalina Crespo Sancho, Finnish Ambassador to the US Leena-Kaisa Mikkola, Icelandic Ambassador to the US Svanhildur Hólm Valsdóttir, Happiness Project founder and author Gretchen Rubin, and others explore the report’s key findings on policies that enhance well-being.

Mar. 20, 2025 | Washington, DC | Join the Livestream

Blindspot: Arrests and bans

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: A man in Florida was arrested for making threats against President Trump on social media, according to local authorities.

What the Right isn’t reading: The Trump administration removed an explicit ban on “segregated facilities” in federal contracts (federal and state civil rights laws still ban racial segregation).

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Staffers on the House select committee on China have met with tech companies “to warn them about the liability they face” under the law that institutes a ban on TikTok in the US if the company remains Chinese-owned. The meetings included one with Oracle this week.

Playbook: White House deputy chief of staff James Blair indicated the administration would defer to Congress on impeaching judges, regardless of President Trump’s public posturing. “It’ll be up to the speaker … to figure out what can be passed or not,” Blair said. “I doubt that a bunch of floor time will be spent on something if they strongly feel like they can’t get the votes.”

WaPo: Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be US ambassador to the UN is still in limbo in the Senate, as House Republicans grapple with their slim majority.

Axios: Republicans acknowledge privately that they aren’t publicly criticizing Trump because of “genuine support” for him and “genuine fear of crossing him.”

White House

• President Trump is expected to sign an order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.” Eliminating the department outright would require the consent of Congress, but the White House has already chipped away at the agency’s staffing. — USA Today
• Trump and White House allies have been looking for ways to punish ActBlue in order to “cripple the left.” — NYT

Congress

• The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees warned the Trump administration against making changes to NATO’s command structure, after reports the Pentagon is considering doing so alongside other major changes.
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said more Republicans aren’t challenging President Trump and Elon Musk because “they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down.”

Higher Ed

• The University of California system, one of the nation’s largest, will no longer ask job applicants how they plan to contribute to a diverse campus environment.
• Columbia University is “close to yielding” to the Trump administration’s nine demands for the school to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. — WSJ
• And the Trump administration plans to suspend $175 million in federal funding for UPenn because of its history of allowing transgender women to participate on its women’s sports teams.

Campaigns

• Democrats want former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to run for Senate against Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. — NOTUS
• A veterans’ group is rolling out a six-figure ad buy hitting Republicans over DOGE’s cuts to the VA and other government services.

Courts

• A federal judge said Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil’s case against the Trump administration should be moved to New Jersey.
• Another researcher, Georgetown postdoc and Indian national Badar Khan Suri, was detained by DHS under the same deportation law invoked in Khalil’s case. Suri’s lawyer said he has not been charged with a crime and argues his student visa was revoked because of his wife’s Palestinian heritage. — Politico
• A judge declined to block DOGE’s takeover of the US Institute of Peace.

National Security

• The Trump administration plans to have the US military hold migrants at the border. — WaPo

Foreign Policy

• A French scientist was denied entry to Houston after DHS officials found messages on his phone criticizing President Trump, according to France’s research minister.
• Israeli strikes on Gaza kill dozens of Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war could expand to the West Bank.

Technology

• China delayed giving approval for a new BYD factory in Mexico because of fears smart car technology might leak to the US.
• Elon Musk’s X raised some $1 billion in new equity. — Bloomberg

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

Young Kim is a Republican congresswoman from California.

Venture capital giant Sequoia is backing Elon Musk in his fight against Delaware, adding Silicon Valley muscle to a brawl that has captivated and split the corporate community, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami and Liz Hoffman report.

Sequoia said in a court filing Tuesday evening a Delaware judge’s decision last year to invalidate Musk’s $56 billion pay package from Tesla threatens the ability of “superstar CEOs” to innovate.

It’s a shot across the bow as the state’s legislature takes up debate on a key piece of corporate-friendly legislation in response to Musk moving Tesla’s legal home to Texas after his bonus was nixed.