Principals

1. Trump’s ‘no scalps policy’
2. Right’s spending cut push
3. Republicans go rogue
4. McConnell hits Trump on Ukraine
5. Trump pulls UN ambassador pick
6. Vance visits Greenland
7. Africa role stays open
8. Leonard Leo on Trump

PDB: Nippon Steel and US Steel’s offer to Trump admin

US awaits PCE inflation data … Earthquake hits Myanmar … Hillary Clinton in NYT: ‘This Is Just Dumb’

Trump avoids firings as pressure grows

Donald Trump has famously traded on the phrase, “you’re fired.” But he’s held off on that remark in his White House this time — even for things that might have led to sackings during his first term. Trump ally Steve Bannon believes the president has learned some lessons since then, describing a “no scalps policy” that’s in part fueled by the ghosts of term one. “The lessons of Mike Flynn are resonating in this,” Bannon said. Trump is partly reluctant to fire folks — even Mike Waltz, who’s at the center of the Signal drama — because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving opponents a win: One administration official noted that if they “smell blood in the water,” it becomes “a feeding frenzy.” The president is surrounded by hand-picked allies this term, and he’s more confident in them as a result.

— Shelby Talcott and Burgess Everett

Tea Party makes a stand

Trump came after the Tea Party and changed the GOP — but make no mistake, those fiscal conservatives are still in Congress. And there are enough of them to make a difference as GOP leaders prepare to call a budget vote as soon as next week, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is trying to assuage conservative senators like Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott and Ron Johnson with a bid to boost spending cuts to $2 trillion, but they want more. “They say, ‘This is the first step here, we can always do more,’” Johnson told Semafor. Unless the party cuts spending now, he said: “We’re not going to do more.” Will conservatives block a budget resolution Trump supports? Probably not. But they could certainly delay things until they get their way.

Breakaway lawmakers puncture GOP’s united front

A pair of congressional Republicans broke from their party Thursday to oppose separate pushes to lift restrictions on how much banks charge for overdrafts and to crack down on colleges and universities that receive money from foreign governments. “Banks are a very, very powerful lobby,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who was the only Senate Republican to vote against scrapping the overdraft cap. “Why would we help the big banks at the expense of working people? Why would we help them charge their customers more? I just don’t understand it.” In the House, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., was the lone Republican to vote “no” on the higher education bill after hearing that it would be “very onerous” on schools in his district. He went on to say an earlier vote to give Trump expanded tariff authority was a “mistake.”

— Eleanor Mueller

McConnell warns of future headline: ‘Russia wins, America loses’

Sen. Mitch McConnell received the Star of Ukraine Award from the US-Ukraine Foundation last night — and let loose on Trump and his team. He said when it comes to deterring adversaries, some of the president’s advisers “don’t seem ready to summon the resources and national will it requires,” and warned “the outcome we’re headed for today is the one we can least afford: a headline that reads, ‘Russia wins, America loses.’” McConnell has been a steadfast backer of Ukraine but is choosing when to shoot his shots now that Trump is president. The former Senate GOP leader felt the need to respond last night, though, amid nervousness in Europe over Trump’s approach: “When American officials court the favor of an adversary at the expense of allies … [and] when they mock our friends to impress an enemy … they reveal their embarrassing naivete.”

— Burgess Everett

White House sees perils of hiring from Congress

The White House is learning the hard way that plucking members of Congress for administration positions isn’t always the best course with a slim majority, Semafor’s Congress team reports. Trump revealed Thursday that he was withdrawing Elise Stefanik as his pick for US ambassador to the United Nations, despite the expectation she would sail through confirmation as soon as next week. She’ll now remain in the House. The news came as Republicans have been fretting over an imminent special election to fill national security adviser Mike Waltz’s former seat. In the House, where there are currently four open seats, lawmakers will have to take a fresh vote on a budget proposal that unlocks Trump’s tax-cut plans after the Senate takes action, as soon as April. “The real need for votes is about to start. That simple,” a White House official explained.

Vance’s icy mission

Vice President JD Vance is in Greenland today for a scaled-back visit that had received an icy reception this week. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, are visiting Pituffik Space Base for an Arctic security briefing and meet-and-greet with US service members. The second lady scrapped earlier plans to visit historical sites and attend an annual dogsled race, which was panned by Greenlandic and Danish leaders. While Greenland and Denmark welcomed the change to the schedule, Trump’s recent comments musing about gaining control of the strategically valuable autonomous Danish territory have triggered fresh alarm. “We’ll go as far as we have to go,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “We need Greenland. And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark.” Greenlanders “have not been cowed,” Denmark’s prime minister wrote in advance of the visit.

Plans for White House Africa job fall apart — again

The White House’s attempt to appoint a senior Africa director has fallen apart for the third time, Semafor’s Yinka Adegoke reports. Col. Jean-Philippe Peltier, a career intelligence officer who was born in Chad and raised across Francophone Africa, had been lined up for the top Africa role. But after he and the White House failed to reach an agreement on housing compensation, he will no longer be joining the administration, according to two sources. The White House’s previous candidates were Joe Foltz, a Republican congressional aide, and John Tomaszewski, a senior aide to Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch. The news comes as reports suggest that Trump is considering folding United States Africa Command into its European counterpart, and amid broader skepticism about the fate of the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade pact.

Leonard Leo on Trump, Kavanaugh

One of the most powerful but elusive figures in the conservative movement, Leonard Leo, opened up about Trump, the rocky Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process, and the mark he made on the federal judiciary through his first-term advice to the president. In a lengthy interview with the Free Press’ Bari Weiss, Leo, a conservative legal activist and longtime co-chairman of the Federalist Society, said he has little direct involvement in Trump’s current administration but denied the two had a “falling out.” Leo acknowledged he was surprised by the sexual assault allegations that nearly derailed Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Leo also defended Justice Amy Coney Barrett amid a surge of attacks on the right. And he argued that, even post-Dobbs, the anti-abortion movement is “at its lowest point in history.”

Blindspot: Regrets and texts

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: NPR CEO Katherine Maher said she regrets a tweet calling President Trump a fascist and a racist.

What the Right isn’t reading: Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated she will not pursue an investigation into the use of Signal to discuss attack plans by top administration officials.

United States Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will join top global leaders at Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit. Taking place Apr. 23-25, 2025, in Washington, DC, this will be the first major gathering of its kind since the new US administration took office.

Bringing together leaders from both the public and private sectors — including congressional leadership, finance ministers, and central bankers — the three day summit will explore the forces shaping the global economy and geopolitics. Across twelve sessions, it will foster transformative, news-making conversations on how the world’s decision-makers are tackling economic growth in increasingly uncertain times.

Apr. 23-25 | Washington, DC | Learn More

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Republicans’ compromise budget resolution will probably include two sets of instructions on budget cuts — “a minimum of $3 billion in spending cuts for Senate committees and a $1.5 trillion floor for cuts from the House.”

Axios: Foreign leaders and business executives alike are learning that they need to “come bearing gifts” — i.e., be prepared to deliver President Trump a real or perceived win — in order to avoid bumps in their relationship with his administration.

Playbook: “I think as long as Donald Trump doesn’t feel the heat, nobody will be investigated for anything and they won’t lose their jobs, at least in the short term,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said of the Signal controversy.

White House

• The Trump administration is planning for agencies to slash as much as half of their staff as part of the initial phase of President Trump’s effort to reduce the size of the federal government. — WaPo

Polls

• Black Americans, Hispanics, and young adults are all feeling more positive about President Trump than they were eight years ago, helping to drive up his approval rating higher than it was during the first three months of his first term, according to new Gallup polling.

Executive Orders

• President Trump signed an order attempting to strip collective bargaining rights from the unions of federal agencies within most of the government’s largest departments, like State, Justice, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services. AFGE, the largest federal workers union, promised a court fight.
• Trump signed an order directing Vice President Vance and other administration personnel to audit the Smithsonian Institution and its museums for “improper ideologies,” and to try to choke off funding for exhibits and national monuments that acknowledge transgender people or “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
• Trump also signed an order singling out WilmerHale, Trump investigator Robert Mueller’s former firm. Another DC law firm, Skadden, is attempting to ward off a retaliatory executive order by preemptively offering to make a deal with Trump. — NYT

Outside the Beltway

• Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill that will eventually eliminate the state’s income tax (albeit much sooner than anticipated, thanks to a typo).

Business

• Nippon Steel and US Steel are in talks with the Trump administration to salvage their $14 billion merger by offering billions more in investments from the Japanese steelmaker into outdated Rust Belt facilities, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami reports.

Health

• The Department of Health and Human Services is planning to cut 10,000 positions.

Education

• US immigration authorities detained a Harvard Medical School researcher and Russian antiwar dissident, without apparent explanation. — The Insider

Courts

• A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to preserve copies of the Signal chats published by The Atlantic.
• The Turkish Tufts University student detained earlier this week was moved to Louisiana despite a judge’s order.

National Security

• The Justice Department is considering merging the Drug Enforcement Administration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. — WaPo

Foreign Policy

• Israel provided intelligence on a Houthi military operative in Yemen who was targeted in the attack discussed by Trump administration officials on Signal. — WSJ

Media

• The wife of Pierre Zakrzewski, a Fox News video journalist killed in Ukraine in 2022, sued the network. — WaPo

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

Don Bacon is a Republican congressman from Nebraska.