Principals

1. Dems’ debt ceiling dilemma
2. DC funding fix stalls
3. Trump backs Waltz
4. Republicans target courts
5. Congress’ CFPB clash
6. Dems flip PA seat
7. Execs pitch security to DC

PDB: Clean energy jobs stall under Trump

Noem visits El Salvador … Anti-Hamas protests erupt in Gaza … Bloomberg: Trump may move early on copper tariffs

Democrats ready for debt ceiling dogfight

House and Senate Democrats still recovering from a bruising shutdown skirmish are already facing a fresh threat to their united front: what to do about the debt ceiling if GOP colleagues can’t hike it as part of their reconciliation package, Semafor’s Burgess Everett and Eleanor Mueller report. Republican leaders returned from a Tuesday meeting increasingly optimistic they can come together to avoid a default without the left: “There’s consensus forming there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. But other GOP colleagues remained skeptical of the plan — including Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who said afterwards, “There’s a large enough group of us who are going to insist on a reasonable spending level that is not on the table yet.” “We will need a strategy, and we need to be unified,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “We have leverage. And we should use it.”

DC funding fix stalls in House

The House appears in no hurry to pass the DC funding fix that sailed through the Senate more than a week ago, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reports. GOP leaders have been noncommittal about the measure, which would free up about $1 billion for the capital city. “Stay tuned,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Semafor. “I’m not sure yet. We’re working through a bunch of stuff, and that’s one of them.” The White House has supported the bill, but President Donald Trump has yet to make a post on social media nudging the House or potential holdouts to get on board. Meanwhile, conservatives who oppose the text as written are discussing amending certain provisions. “We should have a say in some of the crazy things that DC does,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told Semafor.

White House backs Waltz

The White House defended national security adviser Mike Waltz amid scrutiny of his and other top officials’ use of a Signal chat to discuss strikes on the Houthis in Yemen. “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC. Later, Trump told reporters he didn’t think Waltz, who inadvertently added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal group, should apologize. But he conceded of the app: “We probably won’t be using it very much.” The White House batted away reports about Waltz’s position being in jeopardy, and Waltz himself took “full responsibility” on Fox News, while intelligence leaders faced a barrage of questions. In Senate testimony, CIA Director John Ratcliffe defended his use of Signal as “entirely permissible” and insisted the chat did not include classified information. That won’t be enough to satisfy Congress, which is eyeing investigations.

GOP floats plans to rein in federal courts

House Republicans are weighing plans to push back on federal judges who rule against Trump. Speaker Mike Johnson floated an aggressive approach on Tuesday, observing that Congress could “eliminate an entire district court.” Johnson later walked back the idea, telling reporters that he was making a point about the “broad authority” Congress has over the federal judiciary. Over in the Senate, Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned what eliminating district courts would accomplish. Instead, he told Semafor’s Burgess Everett, “you’ve got to increase the number of judges” in existing district courts. Johnson also backs legislation set to come to the House floor that would limit the scope of injunctions issued by district court judges (something Senate Republicans seem open to), but he’s privately been unsupportive of efforts to impeach James Boasberg, the judge who’s handling the challenge to Trump’s deportation flights.

Lawmakers gird for battle over CFPB

Memos sent privately to staff ahead of today’s House hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and reviewed by Semafor provide a helpful road map for how Republicans and Democrats are digesting the administration’s efforts to overhaul the regulator. Democrats’ memo urges lawmakers to boost recently dropped lawsuits. And it points the finger at GOP members for their role, including a push to scrap a cap on overdraft fees, set to advance this week, that “would give banks the green light to rob consumers blind.” Republicans’ memo asks members to tout reasons to reform the agency, including “excessively burdensome” rules. In signs of possible changes to come, it suggests members ask about the benefits of putting a commission in charge, conducting cost-benefit analyses of rules — and whether CFPB can “continue to protect consumers in a robust and efficient manner without its supervisory authority.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Democrats flip GOP seat in Pennsylvania

Democrats flipped a Republican seat in Pennsylvania’s state Senate, continuing their run of overperformances in special elections. James Malone, a mayor in the Lancaster County district that was vacated by now-Sen. Dave McCormick’s new chief of staff, narrowly beat a Republican county commissioner; the same district voted for Trump by 15 points last year. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made a quiet push for the district; his party easily held a state House seat and regained its majority there. “I know that these are challenging times,” Shapiro said in a robocall that went to Democratic voters, “and I know that folks are often casting about trying to figure out: What is it that I can do to help in this moment?” It was the second Democratic gain in a state legislative race this year, after a January victory in eastern Iowa.

— David Weigel

Everything is national security now

Companies across disparate sectors — including cryptocurrency, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and energy — are recasting initiatives as national security imperatives in the hopes of steering deals through the Trump administration, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami and Liz Hoffman report. That includes Tether, the crypto giant that’s on a charm offensive in Washington to push stablecoin legislation and assuage concerns that its products are used by criminals and terrorists. CEO Paolo Ardoino has pitched his company’s product as a way to keep America’s ballooning debt out of unfriendly or unstable hands. “There will be a huge attempt to de-dollarize the world” led by BRIC nations like China, Ardoino told Semafor. “And Tether is the only company that is trying to slow down that event.” Google, meanwhile, framed its proposed acquisition of Wiz — which awaits antitrust approval — as strengthening national security by protecting it against cyberattacks.

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Blindspot: Broadcasters and kids

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: President Trump expressed a desire to end funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS.

What the Right isn’t reading: A Florida state Senate panel advanced a bill that would relax child labor laws, which could help fill positions vacated by deported immigrants.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist sent a letter to members of Congress warning them against capping companies’ state and local tax deductions unless it’s used to slash the corporate tax rate.

Playbook: President Trump’s big concern with the Signal controversy that he’s raised with national security adviser Mike Waltz has been why Waltz would have Jeffrey Goldberg’s number on his phone.

Axios: Trump’s shrugging off of the Signal debacle is the latest chapter in his “legacy of indifference toward America’s secrets.”

WaPo: Hispanic Republicans in the House have been particularly vocal in pushing back against potential Medicaid cuts in the reconciliation process.

White House

• Vice President Vance said he would join his wife, second lady Usha Vance, on a trip to Greenland later this week, after Greenland and Danish leaders criticized the trip. But the US also narrowed the visit, which was welcome news to Denmark.
• The White House said that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to limit attacks in the Black Sea, though Moscow laid out a series of conditions for Russia to implement the deal.

Congress

• A group of Senate Democrats led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to Trump administration officials expressing “extreme alarm” over their use of a Signal chat to discuss military operations and asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to conduct a “thorough and impartial investigation” into the situation.
• President Trump’s memo cutting $3 billion in spending (which Semafor reported first) is causing a stir on Capitol Hill. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said it’s “wrongheaded, counterproductive, and unlawful” because it cherry-picks what counts as emergency spending.

Executive Orders

• President Trump signed a sweeping executive order attempting to require all Americans to produce proof of citizenship, such as a passport or REAL ID, before registering to vote, and directing the Department of Justice to prosecute “election crimes” like voter fraud, which is extremely rare and has not occurred at scale in a modern election.
• Trump signed an order retaliating against the law firm Jenner & Block over its work challenging his executive orders.

Health

• The Senate confirmed President Trump’s nominees for the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, Jay Bhattacharya and Marty Makary, respectively.
• The Department of Health and Human Services is considering freezing millions in federal grants for family planning while officials assess whether the funds were used for diversity efforts. — WSJ

Outside the Beltway

• Los Angeles’ district attorney will allow prosecutors working under him to seek the death penalty, in a reversal of the district’s progressive trend.

Economy

• The Treasury Department is planning major layoffs.
• US consumer confidence fell to a four-year low.

Courts

• A federal judge has blocked the deportation of Yunseo Chung, a Columbia student and legal permanent US resident born in South Korea.
• The judge facing attacks from President Trump over his rulings on the Alien Enemies Act case, James Boasberg, is a friend and former roommate of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. — Bloomberg

National Security

• The Trump administration has stopped processing certain green card applications “as part of a broader effort to more aggressively vet immigrants.” — CBS
• Active-duty troops will soon be dispatched to the US southern border to conduct surveillance. — Politico

Foreign Policy

• The Trump administration added Chinese firms to a list meant to curb Beijing’s development of AI chips.
• Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal was released from Israeli custody after being attacked by Israeli settlers.

Environment

• The green group Climate Power says that more than 50,000 clean energy jobs have been “lost, delayed, or threatened” since the election of President Trump, who has prioritized oil and gas while undoing the clean energy policies of the Biden administration. According to the group’s analysis, first shared with Semafor, more than $56 billion in clean energy investments have been scrapped or stalled in the US since last November.

Technology

• Leading tech companies and foreign governments are urging the Trump administration to make changes to a Biden-era regulation on global AI chip curbs. — Bloomberg
• A Chinese tech company is secretly using a network of fronts to recruit laid-off US government workers. — Reuters

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

Tim Burchett is a Republican congressman from Tennessee.