Principals

☞ White House: As President Biden heads to campaign fundraisers in Chevy Chase, Md., he’s got a bit of good news: a new Gallup poll puts his approval rating at 43%, Biden’s highest rating in that survey since last August. He addressed the aborted mutiny in Russia for the first time yesterday, emphasizing that the U.S. “had nothing to do with it” and that his focus continues to be on supporting Ukraine.

☞ Senate: Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla. challenged Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien to an MMA fight, after the union leader tauntingly tweeted out a picture of him standing on a box behind a podium during a debate. The two have been bickering since a tense exchange at a hearing back in March over worker organizing. O’Brien called Mullin a “greedy CEO” at the time.

☞ House: Congressional offices should only use the paid version of ChatGPT and make sure to keep its data privacy features enabled, the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer is advising.

☞ Outside the Beltway: New York City has been cleared to implement a first-in-the-nation “congestion pricing” program that will charge people driving below 60th Street in Manhattan.

CNN published the audio quoted in former President Trump’s federal indictment that appears to capture him showing off a “highly confidential” document containing Pentagon attack plans and admitting that he did not declassify it while in office. In the recording, Trump can be heard saying “these are the papers” and that “this was done by the military and given to me,” possibly undercutting his recent claim to Fox News that he had been referring to newspaper and magazine stories. Trump claimed on Truth Social late last night that the tape “is actually an exoneration” for unspecified reasons, seemingly confirming its authenticity.

The federal judge overseeing Trump’s criminal prosecution in Florida denied the government’s bid to keep secret a list of 84 witnesses with whom Trump has been barred from discussing the case, after a group of news outlets filed a motion to make it public. The government did “not offer a particularized basis to justify sealing the list from public view,” Judge Aileen Cannon wrote. The individuals are likely aides and other people close to Trump.

Businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy is entering the Montana Senate race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. He receives backing from NRSC Chairman Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., but is likely to face a primary fight against Montana GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale, who was the nominee in 2018.

It’s a big week for the Supreme Court, which yesterday took up a case that could prevent Congress from imposing a federal wealth tax and dismissed a lawsuit brought by Democrats in an old dispute over the former Trump International Hotel in Washington with implications for future congressional investigations. Still to come this week as the justices wrap up their term: rulings concerning student loan forgiveness, affirmative action, the “independent state legislature” theory of elections, and LGBTQ rights and the First Amendment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his immigration plan during a trip to the U.S. southern border. DeSantis said he would end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, deploy the military and deputize local officials to police the southern border, and reinstitute the “remain in Mexico” policy. DeSantis’ plan, which also includes building a wall at the border, closely mirrored what Trump has done in the past, but he told reporters the approach would be “more aggressive.”

— Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: Republicans don’t know if they have the votes to pass a resolution introduced last week that would expunge Trump’s second impeachment.

Playbook: Former Clinton adviser and political strategist Doug Sosnik has a new memo assessing the 2024 presidential election. According to Politico, Sosnik argues that four categories of swing voters in eight states will decide the next presidential election, and that if he’s the GOP nominee Trump can’t win without a third party candidate.

The Early 202: A new Senate report faults the FBI and Department of Homeland Security for failing to “fully and accurately assess” intelligence on threats leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The Washington Post also has an update on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, reporting that federal investigators are examining fundraising efforts that cited election fraud.

Will ‘deep state’ fears kill a key surveillance tool?

THE NEWS

Efforts to reauthorize a key tool that allows the government to surveil foreign suspects face a difficult road ahead as lawmakers from both parties raise concerns about implications for Americans.

Many Democrats have been suspicious of the program, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, since the Bush-era on civil liberty grounds. Some Republicans have raised similar concerns in the past, and are now citing botched surveillance applications in the Trump-Russia investigation that do not deal directly with the 702 statute.

“It’s my intent and I hope the intent of my colleagues that we do not reauthorize Section 702 because the FBI cannot be trusted,” Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Tex. said at last Wednesday’s hearing with special counsel John Durham.

The growing skepticism could create an unlikely bipartisan alliance to reform the post-9/11 program — or kill it altogether. Lawmakers must reauthorize it by the end of the year before the law sunsets.

“I think it’s a very heavy lift,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Semafor when asked about reauthorizing the section. “It was always going to be hard and it’s gotten harder.”

Himes pointed to a finding by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recently made public that the FBI improperly queried a database established under 702 278,000 times over the course of several years — a revelation that has spurred outrage among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The searches included improper queries in the course of investigations into both the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the protests following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.

“I will only support the reauthorization of Section 702 if there are significant, significant reforms,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said at a hearing earlier this month. He said the reforms would need to impose new safeguards to prevent future abuses and allow better oversight by Congress and the courts.

MORGAN’S VIEW

Section 702 is likely to be reauthorized — there just will need to be changes to get there.

It’s a critical tool, according to national security officials, aiding everything from counterterror operations to cybercrime investigations. But the warrantless surveillance program for foreign targets has also long raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties because it results in the government incidentally scooping up information on Americans. Reauthorizing it in 2018 was a huge lift that ended up splitting both parties — it got past a Senate filibuster with exactly 60 votes.

A bipartisan working group of members on the House Intelligence Committee is reviewing potential reforms to both FISA and 702. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., the leader of the working group who himself was the subject of one of the FBI’s improper searches, told Semafor lawmakers are exploring ways to increase accountability for the bureau, bring more transparency to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and put more “safeguards” in to guard Americans under 702.

“There will be no clean reauthorization,” he said, adding that the group plans to release a set of proposed reforms “fairly soon.”

Privacy-minded senators are also working on their own proposals. That includes Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who earlier this year secured the public release of an intelligence community report showing that the government buys up data on Americans from data brokers with little congressional oversight.

A Wyden aide told Semafor that the senator is working on a surveillance reform bill that will address 702, law enforcement surveillance activities, and executive order 12333, a broad directive governing the nation’s surveillance activities. “He expects to release it later this year with bipartisan support,” the aide said.

National security officials say that, more recently, they have implemented reforms to minimize improper searches, like putting in place mandatory training and stricter requirements for searches that involve elected officials, journalists, or religious figures. Himes suggested at a news conference last week that the potential reforms could range from codifying changes like these to adding new warrant requirements for searches involving Americans.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

While the issue has created an alliance among the right and the left, the issues motivating members of both parties aren’t necessarily the same, which could mean they have more difficulty coming to an agreement on what needs to be changed.

Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., a member of the House Intelligence Committee who described the program as a vital national security tool, told Semafor he is worried that far-right lawmakers will try to get rid of 702 or weaken it in such a way that renders it ineffective.

“There’s always a few things that you can tweak,” Quigley said. “But you reform police departments, you don’t defund them. You reform and tweak programs like FISA, 702, you don’t get rid of them, or good luck.”

Congress’s ‘Mr. No’ takes heat for finally saying yes

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has lately found himself facing down a new challenge: Defending his decision to vote yes on a bill.

For years, the Republican has been known as Capitol Hill’s Mr. No, thanks to his willingness to buck party leadership by opposing legislation. In March 2020, he drew an angry phone call from former President Trump for single-handedly delaying final passage of the first $2 trillion COVID-19 economic rescue package.

But this month, Massie disappointed many of his fellow conservatives by giving his thumbs up to the debt ceiling deal negotiated between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House, providing a key vote on the Rules Committee that allowed the bill to reach the chamber’s floor. The move earned him blowback from the right — though he says it hasn’t been overwhelming.

“On the Richter scale with 10 being the CARES Act when the President was screaming at me, that was like six or seven,” Massie told Semafor. “And by the way: Two years later, those add to your credibility.”

Chief among Massie’s Republican critics these days is Russell Vought, the former Office of Management and Budget director under Trump who has become an influential economic advisor to hardline conservatives. (He even enjoyed automatic approval for meetings with Massie himself).

“Your path to the dark side is now complete. You have become your enemy,” Vought tweeted at Massie last month. He later dubbed the deal the “McCarthy-Massie debt bomb.” When Massie shot back that Vought helped the Trump administration rack up $4.5 trillion in new debt, Vought suggested Massie should take a course in “Remedial American Government.”

“That was low-class I thought,” Massie said. “First time there was a hiccup, he’s decided everybody who’s not on his side is a sellout, which is completely ridiculous. I would never say that about anybody in here based on one vote, or even three votes.”

Massie was one of three hardline conservatives who received seats on the Rules panel as part of the deal that allowed McCarthy to become speaker. The concession gave right-wing members more hope they’d be able to control the House’s agenda, since the committee effectively decides what bills get an up or down vote.

But Massie says he doesn’t intend to use his position on the rules panel to “blow up” legislation he disagrees with. “When I got on the Rules Committee, I was resigned to voting for things that I might not vote for on the floor,” Massie said. “I’m just trying to fix the process, not imprint my ideology.”

House Freedom Caucus members vented their frustration over the debt ceiling deal earlier this month by shutting down business on the House floor. It was unclear to many what their specific demands were at the time, but there are already whispers of a potential repeat down the line.

Massie’s take, as a veteran protest vote? Find a clear ask next time.

“Their tactics were downright brutal,” he said. “I approve, but what’s the strategy?”

— Joseph Zeballos Roig

Evelyn Farkas is the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia under the Obama administration.

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: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at the Aspen Ideas Festival that he would stop using the term “ESG,” which stands for environmental, social and governance, after it became a hot-button political issue. Fink said the phrase had been weaponized by the far right and left and that he was “ashamed” to be part of the conversation.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: As many as six Secret Service agents have testified before the grand jury hearing evidence in the federal probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to NBC News.

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