Principals

☞ White House: President Biden said he took a “hard look” at his age before deciding to run for a second term and would respect voters for scrutinizing him, too. “I feel good,” Biden told reporters yesterday at a press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. He’s easing into campaign mode, participating in a virtual call with grassroots supporters this evening.

☞ Senate: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer met with Elon Musk on Wednesday evening in the Capitol. Musk told reporters that they talked about AI and the economy. Schumer said the meeting was “very good” and that the conversation also turned to Buffalo, which is home to a Tesla plant. The Senate also welcomed the Indy 500’s human-sized Borg-Warner trophy (photos courtesy of Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.).

☞ House: Republican House members are getting a breather after finally passing their debt ceiling bill. Yoon will address a joint session of Congress later this morning. Paris Hilton will be back on Capitol Hill later on today to promote the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act.

The trial began in E. Jean Carroll’s rape and defamation civil suit against former President Trump. “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m here to try to get my life back,” Carroll said in her opening testimony, adding that she was fired from Elle magazine over her accusations. Trump denies that he raped Carroll, saying in 2019 that she wasn’t his “type.”

A bipartisan group of Congress members plan to introduce the Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Act, which looks to head off any Skynet-esque doomsday scenarios by ensuring that an actual human being must be involved in firing off nukes. Technically, the bill only reinforces existing Department of Defense policy by prohibiting any federal funds from being used to change the Pentagon’s current safeguards.

In another intriguing bipartisan collaboration, a group of Senators introduced legislation that would bar children under 13 from social media platforms and require parental consent for those ages 13 to 17.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal report that Tucker Carlson’s offensive and crude text messages about colleagues that were revealed (and ultimately redacted) in the Dominion proceedings contributed to his abrupt ouster earlier this week. Carlson railed against the media and claimed the U.S. is becoming a “one-party state” in a message to Twitter Wednesday, his first public comments since leaving Fox.

“We made clear that in Florida, BDS is DOA,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a keynote speech at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on Thursday morning. He touted his ties to Israel and the Jewish community back in Florida — even taking time during a press conference afterwards to sign into law a new anti-hate speech bill. DeSantis told reporters afterwards that the U.S. “should not butt into” Israel’s internal affairs, referencing the increased tension with the U.S. over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s now-paused efforts to change the country’s judicial system, which generated mass protests in the country.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke businessman who is running for president, is pitching himself as the man who could take “the America First agenda further than Donald Trump ever did, because I will do it based on first principles and moral authority — not based on vengeance and grievance.” Check out this dispatch from Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, who joined him on a recent campaign trip through Iowa.

— Morgan Chalfant, Shelby Talcott, and Kadia Goba

Punchbowl News: Kevin McCarthy got phone calls from some Senate Republicans last night who congratulated him on House Republicans passing their debt ceiling bill.

Playbook: Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said McCarthy told conservatives the bill passed yesterday was a floor rather than a ceiling for Republicans in the debt ceiling fight and that he would oppose an agreement that doesn’t include the “red meat” provisions of the GOP’s bill. Norman is among a handful of hardline members who have warmed to McCarthy since the speaker fight, but as Politico notes, it’s unclear how long that will last.

The Early 202: Democrats haven’t united behind an approach to try to get the Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said he won’t subpoena Chief Justice John Roberts to testify on the issue, despite some calls for him to do so.

Axios: The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times are running full-page ads in their newspapers today calling on the Biden administration to keep pressing Russia to release Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Republicans passed their debt ceiling bill. What now?

THE NEWS

Led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans passed their party-line debt limit plan in a 217-215 vote on Wednesday, squeaking by with four defections from their right-flank past unanimous Democratic opposition.

So what now? Republicans hope that by muscling through their own legislation, they can put pressure on President Joe Biden to sit down and negotiate a deal to lift the borrowing limit that includes significant concessions on spending and other conservative priorities.

But Biden maintains he won’t haggle with McCarthy over the debt limit. “I’m happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,” he said Wednesday. “That’s not negotiable.”

JOSEPH’S VIEW

I wouldn’t take the White House’s public refusals too literally.

With the so-called X-date for default potentially creeping up on Washington as soon as early June, the stage seems set for a two-track negotiation that gives both Republicans and Democrats a feasible off-ramp to prevent economic catastrophe while still saving face.

Yes, Democrats insist they will never negotiate over the debt ceiling, arguing Republicans should raise it without conditions as they did three times under the Trump administration. They still feel burned by how the GOP leveraged the borrowing limit to extract cuts during Barack Obama’s presidency and many believe that even coming to the negotiating table would amount to giving into hostage tactics.

But the White House has also made it clear that while they don’t want to talk about the debt ceiling with Republicans, they’re happy to discuss an annual budget deal. “It’s the regular order of business to pass a budget,” a White House official told Semafor. “We’ll have a conversation with Congressional leadership that includes McCarthy, McConnell, Schumer, and Jeffries. There are different ways forward for that.”

It’s not quite a wink and a nudge — but the path forward does seem to be budget talks that, you know, just might happen to unlock a debt ceiling hike on the side.

Biden is already facing calls to engage from some members of his own party, including moderate members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. There’s also pressure from the business community. “With Democrats and Republicans agreeing default is not an option, now is the time for them to come together to find a solution that can pass the House and Senate,” Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten said in a statement following passage of the GOP debt limit bill.

Jim Manley, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide, told Semafor he thought there would be even more “pressure on the administration to sit down and finally talk to these guys” now that Republicans had moved their own bill through the house.

KNOW MORE

Some Republicans already seem to be acknowledging that it’s unlikely a final debt ceiling deal would look remotely similar to the legislation their party just passed, which among other things would slash discretionary spending, repeal most of Biden’s signature climate program, and put new work requirements on safety net programs.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon told reporters he thought it would be possible to craft legislation that passed without hard right Republicans. “We may lose some folks on the ends, but if the president negotiates in good faith I think we can get a bipartisan bill,” he said.

At the same time, some Democrats are still skeptical that McCarthy is a viable negotiating partner. Yes, he passed a bill, they say, but only by caving to demands from his conference’s fringe. Some are publicly hoping that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will step in to negotiations, as a sort of adult in the room. “I think there’s a role for a bipartisan resolution of this in the Senate,” Senate Budget Chair Sheldon Whitehouse told Semafor. “And bipartisan resolutions in the Senate require the participation of the Republican leader.”

For now, McConnell is emphasizing that he’s not interested in sidestepping McCarthy and starting talks with the White House on the debt limit. “The agreement needs to be reached between the speaker and the president,” he told reporters Wednesday. But the bigger point is that, even high-ranking Dems like Whitehouse are acknowledging that it’s time for someone to negotiate.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s been one of the Democrats most vocally opposed to negotiating on the debt ceiling, still doesn’t sound interested in any bargaining sessions. “The GOP’s Default on America Act does not bring us any closer to avoiding the first-ever default,” he said in floor remarks Wednesday. “In fact, it only brings us dangerously close to default.”

DeSantis vs. Disney is heading to court

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Walt Disney sued Gov. Ron DeSantis while he was out of the country — and while Florida Republicans were trying to widen his path to the White House.

The company’s case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, accused DeSantis of leading a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” after it criticized the passage of a bill that prevents K-4 teachers from discussing sexual and gender identity in schools.

Republicans in Tallahassee voted to eliminate the special district the state had created for Disney to lure its flagship theme park. After realizing that the shut-down district’s board had let Disney retain control, a new, DeSantis-appointed board invalidated that agreement. Disney filed its lawsuit moments later.

“This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional,” Disney’s attorneys argued in the brief, taken up on Wednesday by an Obama-appointed judge. “But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop.”

At the very same time, the Republican-led state Senate was discussing whether to amend Florida’s “resign-to-run” law, and clarify that the governor could stay in office if he seeks the presidency and loses. State Senate President Kathleen C. Passidomo told reporters that the change was “not necessary,” and, to some skepticism, that DeSantis’ battle with Disney wasn’t retaliatory.

DeSantis, in Jerusalem on a multi-country trip, defended his actions against Disney to reporters. “The days of putting one company on a pedestal with no accountability are over in the state of Florida,” he said, while adding that “a lot of Floridians were upset, particularly parents” with the company’s involvement in the debate over the education bill.

Democrats celebrated the lawsuit, and a possible comeuppance for a governor who’d talked about fighting “woke corporations” at rallies across the country. An Ipsos poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found 64% of all voters agreeing that DeSantis made the move to “punish Disney.” But Republicans disagreed, and 64% of them said that the governor was trying to end one company’s “special treatment.”

Florida state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, a Democrat whose district includes Disney World, said she was “glad that Disney is standing up,” and that the governor’s attempt to dictate its policies was “the definition of socialism.”

“This is not the way to govern,” Thompson said. “You’ve got to think about what’s good for the state, not what’s good for your ego.”

There were some Republican shots as well. Nikki Haley invited Disney to come to South Carolina instead, where the politicians were “not woke” but “not sanctimonious about it either” — a nod to Donald Trump’s favorite DeSantis sobriquet. The pro-DeSantis Never Back Down PAC responded with a video slamming LGBT representation in Disney entertainment and labeling her “Mickey Haley.”

Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for DeSantis, said in a statement that Disney was trying to “undermine the will of the Florida voters” with its resistance and its lawsuit, and was not entitled to “maintain special privileges” other companies did not have.

—David Weigel

The Senate is keeping up its scrutiny of TikTok as policymakers weigh a potential ban. Members received a classified briefing from a top Commerce Department official on Wednesday about national security risks posed by the app, multiple sources told Semafor.

The briefing was organized by Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “to understand threats posed by TikTok and other foreign technology and to inform policy discussions and decisions,” a committee spokeswoman said. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. said after leaving the briefing that it covered TikTok as well as threats posed by China.

Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez, who oversees the administration’s export controls, was among the officials who spoke to lawmakers. Estevez is a key player in the Biden administration’s China strategy, which is partly aimed at curbing sales of advanced technologies with defense applications, such as high-end semiconductors and tools used to make them, to Beijing.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., who isn’t a member of the Commerce Committee, also took part in the briefing. Warner is a lead sponsor of the RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan bill gaining steam in the Senate that would give the Commerce Department power to crack down on foreign tech products and social media platforms in the U.S. that are deemed to pose a national security threat. The legislation, if passed, would give the administration the power to force a sale of or ban TikTok.

The RESTRICT Act needs to be advanced by the Commerce Committee in order to reach the Senate floor for a vote.

— Morgan Chalfant

Alex Conant is a Republican strategist and founding partner at the public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies. He served as communications director for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: The director of a school board in Washington state suggested that string and instrumental music classes help contribute to “white supremacist culture” as the board voted to cut the courses for fourth-grade students amid a significant budget shortfall.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Fox News agreed to hand over additional documents about top executives to the voting system company Smartmatic in its defamation lawsuit against the company.

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— Steve Clemons