Principals

1. US reviews Rafah strike
2. Trump trial closing arguments
3. Alito flag controversy
4. Libertarian presidential nominee
5. Western worries over Iran
6. Dueling Memorial Day messages

PDB: Witness accounts of Rafah camp strike

Zelenskyy presses Biden to attend peace summit … FT: Western businesses backtrack on plans to leave Russia … Politico: Dems in 2024 freakout mode

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

After Rafah strike, Biden faces new pressure on Gaza

The US relationship with Israel faces another stress test following this weekend’s deadly strike on a civilian camp in Rafah. A White House National Security Council spokesperson called images of the aftermath “devastating,” and said the administration is “actively engaging the IDF and partners on the ground to assess what happened.” American officials are still trying to determine whether the strike, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mistake,” violated President Biden’s “red line” on Rafah, Axios reported. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued on X that it did, pressuring Biden to “live up to his word and suspend military aid.” European capitals expressed outrage, too: French President Emmanuel Macron called for “an immediate ceasefire” and EU foreign ministers are weighing possible sanctions on Israel if it fails to abide by international humanitarian law.

Trump trial nears jury deliberations

Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial will wrap up this week, with closing arguments from the defense and prosecution beginning today. Prosecutors have a tall task of summing up five weeks of testimony and their closing remarks could last hours, per CNN. The jury will then enter deliberations, and the jurors’ decision will ultimately turn on a handful of questions, Politico writes, including whether the jurors buy into the prosecution’s argument that the files at issue were business records and whether they believe Michael Cohen’s testimony about Trump’s role in the scheme. Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb predicts to Semafor they’ll reach a guilty verdict (more on that below). Trump’s response — regardless of the outcome — is expected to be anger and vengeance, according to the New York Times.

Why the Post passed on the Alito flag story

The Washington Post is explaining why it didn’t publish a story three years ago after it discovered the upside down flag waving outside Justice Samuel Alito’s house. There was “consensus” that it wasn’t worth reporting at the time “because it seemed like the story was about Martha-Ann Alito and not her husband,” former Post senior managing editor Cameron Barr told Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani. The Post wrote over the weekend that, in January 2021, Martha-Ann Alito told one of the paper’s reporters that the flag — now widely associated with the Jan. 6 rioters — was “an international signal of distress” she hung in response to a neighborhood dispute. The flag, as well as a separate “Appeal to Heaven” banner at Alito’s beach house, has attracted intense scrutiny among Democrats after the New York Times reported on it this month.

Meet the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee

The Libertarian Party tapped Chase Oliver, the “armed and gay” sales account executive who made a third-party run in the 2022 Georgia Senate race, as its presidential nominee. In doing so, delegates rejected overtures from Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., each of whom addressed their weekend convention. Despite promising to tap a libertarian for his Cabinet and commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, Trump was met with boos and only received write-in votes from six delegates (the party chair determined he didn’t file the right paperwork to qualify). “Nothing that he did during his term was remotely libertarian,” one delegate told Semafor’s David Weigel. Kennedy was eliminated in the first round and received votes from 19 delegates. Oliver told Politico the party would target young voters upset over the Gaza war, immigration, and cost of living.

US tries to avoid Iran confrontation

The US is reportedly pressing European allies to hold off censuring Iran over its nuclear program, even as a new report showed Tehran had grown its stockpile of near-weapons grade uranium. According to The Wall Street Journal, the move by Washington is designed to lower tensions with Iran, which the US fears could be more unpredictable following the death of its president in a helicopter crash this month. But concerns are growing over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, which the Islamic Republic has insisted are solely peaceful: A new report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, seen by the Associated Press, showed Iran had significantly increased the amount of highly enriched uranium at its disposal.

— Prashant Rao

Biden v. Trump on Memorial Day

President Biden used his Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery to focus on one of his favorite themes — the battle against authoritarianism at home and abroad. “Freedom has never been guaranteed,” Biden told the audience. “Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, defend it in battle between autocracy and democracy, between the greed of a few and the rights of many.” Donald Trump struck a different note on Truth Social, wishing a “Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York.”

Today’s trends and tomorrow’s tactics for empowering a global workforce: Join us for a first look at the survey data from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report. Alongside policymakers and business leaders, we’ll explore the current priorities and concerns of the workforce, discuss its impact on economic growth, business investment, public health, and the role of leadership in promoting a healthier work-life balance.

Wednesday, June 12 | 9:00 am to 11:00 am | Washington, DC

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Introducing Mixed Signals, a new podcast from Semafor Media presented by Think with Google. Co-hosted by Semafor’s own Ben Smith, and renowned podcaster and journalist Nayeema Raza, every Friday, Mixed Signals pulls back the curtain on the week’s key stories around media, revealing how money, access, culture, and politics shape everything you read, watch, and hear.

Whether you’re a media insider or simply curious about what drives today’s headlines, Mixed Signals is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Beltway Newsletters

Playbook: Several factors will affect the final stretch of Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial: Could he face further punishment for violating the judge’s gag order? What will the jury instructions look like? What happens if there’s a partially hung jury? Could Trump go to jail if he’s convicted?

WaPo: Housing is emerging as a key issue on the campaign trail due to high rental costs and mortgage rates.

Axios: AI executives warn that their technology advancements are at risk due to “old-fashion shortages” of power, chips, and talent.

White House

• President Biden has no public events today. Vice President Harris will swear in Courtney O’Donnell as the new US ambassador to UNESCO.
• Biden phoned Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday to pledge federal support following deadly tornadoes across the three states.

Congress

• A bipartisan congressional delegation traveled to Taiwan and met with its new president, Lai Ching-te, less than a week after his inauguration. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said the US is “moving forward” on delayed weapons shipments to the island, which was the focus of Chinese military drills last week.
• Lawmakers are struggling to find a path forward to regulate non-consensual AI porn. — Politico

Outside the Beltway

• Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose lambasted the Democratic Party for scheduling its convention after Ohio’s statutory deadline for candidates to get on the presidential ballot. “For now, the law requires me to uphold a deadline the Democratic Party appears willing to miss. If as a result the Democratic candidates for US president and vice president aren’t on the statewide ballot, that’s the party’s choice, not mine,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
• California’s marquee law to add more housing to neighborhoods previously zoned only for single-family homes so far hasn’t led to much new building. — WSJ

Business

• Argentine President Javier Milei is making his fourth trip to the US in five months this week for meetings with top tech executives like Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Courts

• Donald Trump’s attorneys forcefully pushed back against a request by special counsel Jack Smith for a gag order in Trump’s classified documents case that would limit what he says about law enforcement who searched his Mar-a-Lago property, casting it as an “unconstitutional censorship application” that “unjustly targets President Trump’s campaign speech while he is the leading candidate for the presidency.”
• Manhattan prosecutors never called former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg to testify in Trump’s Manhattan trial because they view him as an “unreliable narrator.” — NYT

On the Trail

• Texas will hold its primary runoffs today, as Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton try to knock off lawmakers who opposed them on key votes and remake the state’s Republican party in a more MAGA-friendly image. All eyes are on House Speaker Dade Phelan, who’s trying to survive a primary challenge after leading an impeachment effort against Paxton.
• Bill and Hillary Clinton will headline a fundraiser for President Biden in Virginia next month hosted by former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. — Axios
• Democrats want to see more empathy from Biden on inflation and the economy. — WSJ
• Three police officers who worked at the US Capitol on Jan. 6 will campaign for Biden in battleground states. — CNN
• Donald Trump told a group of donors in New York earlier this month that he would expel any foreign students demonstrating against the Gaza war and that he supports Israel’s right to continue its “war on terror.” — WaPo
• Trump endorsed Hung Cao in the crowded Virginia Senate GOP primary.
• The New York Times profiled Richard Grenell, who is pitching himself as a secretary of state in a second Trump administration.

National Security

Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin underwent a “minimally invasive follow-up non-surgical procedure” to resolve a “bladder issue” that arose from cancer surgery last year, the Pentagon said. He briefly transferred his duties to Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

Foreign Policy

• A North Korean rocket launched Monday to deploy the country’s second spy satellite exploded shortly after liftoff, according to state media.
• The US plans to lift a ban on selling offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, possibly in the coming weeks. — FT
• Nikki Haley visited Israel.
• Egypt and Israel are investigating a “shooting incident” that left an Egyptian soldier dead near the border with Rafah.
• China, Japan, and South Korea held their first three-way summit since 2019.

Climate

• The Biden administration is looking to carbon offsets to address global warming, releasing a 12-page policy statement today that takes “the controversial step of recommending that companies be able to use carbon credits to offset a portion of their so-called Scope 3 emissions, those generated by their suppliers and customers.” — Bloomberg
• Donald Trump might not be able to stop the electric vehicle boom. — NYT

Technology

• China is setting up a $47.5 billion investment fund to spur domestic semiconductor development.
• Beijing is courting more investment from South Korea’s Samsung.

Media

• Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wants the EU to set an age limit of 15 years old to use social media, in a push to better protect young users from harmful content and screen addiction.
• Vivek Ramaswamy, who disclosed a 8% stake in BuzzFeed last week, wrote to the company calling for job cuts and more conservative voices. — Bloomberg

Big Read

Witnesses to Israel’s airstrike on an encampment in Rafah on Sunday that killed 45 civilians said parents were burned alive while their children screamed for help, the Washington Post reported. Doctors told of struggling to treat gruesome shrapnel injuries with dwindling surgical supplies. Doctors Without Borders Gaza emergency coordinator Samuel Johann said its emergency trauma center treated 180 patients with severe burns, shrapnel wounds, missing body parts, and other injuries. International Medical Corps plastic surgeon Ahmed al-Mokhallalati said he and other colleagues conducted 12 hours-long surgeries. He told of a 6-year-old girl he operated on with shrapnel wounds from her abdomen to thigh, but she later died. He said they ran out of medical gloves, gowns, and other basic supplies. “We are running out of everything, literally.” The IDF said the strike killed two militants.

Blindspot

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 Biden visited his daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden, days before she is expected to testify in Hunter Biden’s gun trial.

What the Right isn’t reading: A Biden campaign official met virtually with Nikki Haley supporters on a pre-scheduled call that took place shortly after she expressed support for Donald Trump last week.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Ty Cobb is a lawyer who served as a counsel in the Trump White House during Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He is a former Assistant US Attorney for the District of Maryland.

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