Principals

1. Polling attacks on Walz
2. Obama’s seal of approval
3. US payrolls
4. US-China
5. Gen Z lacks trust
6. RFK Jr.’s options

PDB: Biden quietly updated nuclear strategy

Walz, Clinton, Pelosi to speak at convention … Blinken wraps Middle East trip with a deal on the verge of collapse … WSJ: ‘How a General’s Blunder Left Russia’s Border Vulnerable’

A Democratic pollster stress tests Tim Walz

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has had his stumbles since joining the Democratic ticket, but he remains popular, according to new research from Blueprint. A survey from the centrist Democratic firm, shared exclusively with Semafor, found 44% of registered voters had a favorable impression of Walz versus 34% who had an unfavorable one. That said, Walz is facing a relentless barrage of Republican attacks on his military career and his record as governor, and the campaign clarified yesterday that he and his wife did not use IVF treatments as he had said, but IUI instead. Blueprint tested a variety of rebuttals to popular criticisms of Walz and found the best answers tended to pivot quickly to policy attacks rather than dwell on the details. “Having survived his national introduction, Walz has an appealing record that voters still know little about, but are primed to appreciate,” Blueprint pollster Evan Roth Smith said.

Barack Obama casts Harris as his heir at convention

Barack and Michelle Obama headlined a rousing second night at the Democratic National Convention by pitching Vice President Harris as an heir to their political legacy. “This convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,” the former president said, echoing the convention address that launched his national career two decades ago. Harris’s parents had “crossed oceans because they believed in the promise of America,” he said, evoking the story he’d told Democrats in that same 2004 speech about his Kenyan father coming to a “magical place.” Meanwhile, Harris and running mate Tim Walz appeared at a packed house in Milwaukee at the same arena that hosted Donald Trump’s GOP convention last month, a moment that seemed to channel some of the same Democratic-grassroots passion that propelled Obama to victory in 2008. Obama’s speech capped appearances from a series of party luminaries including Bernie Sanders and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Delegates also cast their votes for Harris as the nominee turned the roll call into a dance party of sorts, with a DJ spinning state-themed songs inside the United Center.

US payrolls revisions to hang over Powell speech

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may be under more pressure to cut rates. Economists anticipate revisions to US payrolls data out later today will shave at least 600,000 off of the growth in payrolls in the year through this past March, which would average 50,000 fewer jobs per month, per Bloomberg. A significant downward revision — possibly up to 1 million — would fuel debate over whether the Fed waited too long to cut rates. “That’s why I think that the market is still pricing in about a 25% chance of a 50-basis-point cut in September,” one market analyst told Reuters. “People thought the Fed was behind the curve in raising rates, and now many people think the Fed is behind the curve in cutting rates.”

There’s a money story in the Arabian Peninsula. Take one look at the news, and you’ll see headlines about Saudi Arabia’s rapidly changing economy, Qatar’s investment in mass infrastructure, and the UAE’s transformation into a global tech hub. The geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting. To stay up to date on the business happening in the Gulf that impacts the world around you, check out Semafor Gulf. Each issue uncovers the economic forces shaping the region — and the world. Get early access here — subscribe for free.

Lawmakers raise concerns about US drug trials in China

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers flagged what they say is evidence of US drug companies conducting clinical trials in partnership with Chinese hospitals located in Xinjiang, where the US has accused Beijing of committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims. The lawmakers warned the Food and Drug Administration in a letter that US companies “could be unintentionally profiting from the data derived from clinical trials during which the [Chinese Communist Party] forced victim patients to participate” and asked the agency to investigate. A Chinese embassy spokesperson dismissed the concerns in the letter as baseless and suggested lawmakers were “politicizing and instrumentalizing normal cooperation” between Washington and Beijing.

The distrusting generation

Voting-age Gen Zers are even more distrusting of the presidency and the Supreme Court than their older counterparts. According to new data from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, 51% of voting-age Gen Z Americans have “very little” trust in the presidency while 44% said the same of the Supreme Court. Both results are higher than Gallup’s figures for the broader US adult population. Young American adults also don’t put much trust in large tech companies (49% said they have “very little” trust in them while only 12% said they have either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust) and their trust in the police is markedly lower than the wider population. So what does Gen Z trust? Evidently science and their teachers, which scored the highest.

RFK Jr. may “join forces with” Trump

Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, told a podcast on Tuesday that their campaign has “two options”: Staying in to form a “new party” while risking a Kamala Harris presidency, or dropping out to “join forces with” Donald Trump. The former president, whose campaign has been concerned in the past about Kennedy taking votes away from him during an already close race, quickly responded during a CNN interview: He’d “be open,” he said, to appointing RFK Jr. to a position in his administration if he dropped out — something Kennedy has been seeking, both in a discussion with Trump during last month’s RNC Convention and when he tried (but failed) to get a meeting with Harris. Many Trump allies tentatively rejoiced in the news cycle, telling Semafor that it would be good news — but some aren’t totally convinced it’ll actually come to fruition.

— Shelby Talcott

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is optimistic about holding onto the Senate despite several difficult races for Democratic incumbents. “Everyone knows unity is the most important thing for us, and to avoid internecine fights — and there have been very few,” Schumer said. “I stand by what I’ve been saying — and that is, we will keep the Senate, we may pick up a seat or two.”

Playbook: Some in the White House interpreted the beginning of Michelle Obama’s convention speech, where she lamented how hope was “a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long,” as a dig on President Biden. “It was an implicit rebuke of the Biden era,” one White House aide said.

WaPo: Vice President Harris’ campaign tried to offer olive branches to uncommitted delegates concerned about the war in Gaza, including by giving them extra passes to the convention and offering space for a news conference. Campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez also met with members of the Uncommitted National Movement before the convention.

Axios: Tim Walz outperforms JD Vance on several measures, including when Americans were asked whether each “has an authentic connection to everyday Americans” and “understands the issues affecting rural and small-town America.”

White House

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to his counterpart in the Philippines and “condemned” China’s “deliberate collision” with Philippine vessels near the Sabina Shoal earlier this week.

Congress

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants to end the cap on state and local tax deductions next year.
• Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., won his primary in the final defeat of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s revenge tour against those who forced him out of the speakership last year.
• Yassamin Ansari won the Democratic primary for Rep. Ruben Gallego’s Arizona congressional seat following a recount.

Outside the Beltway

An independent commission that reviewed deadly mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, last year concluded that the Army Reserves and local police missed opportunities to take action that could have prevented the rampage.

Economy

In response to criticism, allies of Vice President Harris insist that her plan to combat “price gouging” has been taken out of context. — WaPo

Courts

• A federal judge struck down the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements, ruling that the agency doesn’t have the authority to issue the regulation.
• The Arizona Supreme Court cleared the way for a referendum to appear on the state ballot in November to make the right to abortion a constitutional right in the state.

Polls

• Vice President Harris leads Donald Trump by 3 percentage points in Virginia, according to a new Roanoke College poll.
• Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved North Carolina from “leans Republican” to a “toss up.”

On The Trail

• Donald Trump said he wouldn’t use the Comstock Act to ban mail delivery of abortion pills. — CBS News
• Vice President Harris has raised approximately $500 million since she became a presidential candidate. — Reuters
• Trump said he would end the Biden administration’s rule designed to curb emissions from power plants.
• Michael Bloomberg donated $10 million to the House Majority PAC, House Democrats’ largest super PAC.
• Harris apparently watched her husband Doug Emhoff’s convention speech from her plane.

National Security

A member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Lindsey Halligan, was targeted by hackers. — CNN

Foreign Policy

• Hamas criticized President Biden for accusing the group of “backing away” from a ceasefire deal and said he was showing “blind bias” towards Israel. — WaPo
• Two genocide cases before the UN’s International Court of Justice related to the war in Gaza have fueled “an ongoing debate about whether the definition of genocide ought to be updated for the 21st century.” — NYT
• Ukraine mounted its biggest drone attack on Moscow since Russia’s 2022 invasion, which the Kremlin said they successfully defended against.
• Panama deported 29 Colombians who had reached the country via the Darién Gap, part of a US-funded program to reduce migration.

Technology

• Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International Chair Jonathan Bloomer, and lawyer Chris Morvillo are all presumed dead after a yacht carrying them sank off the coast of Sicily.
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he is worried about the spread of disinformation on X under Elon Musk.
• Musk’s $13 billion takeover of Twitter is the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the financial crisis in 2008-09. — WSJ
• Tesla’s Chinese-made EVs have been granted their own lower 9% tariff rate by the European Union, compared with up to 36.3% for other Chinese EVs destined for sale in the bloc.

Media

• Condé Nast announced a multiyear partnership with artificial intelligence startup OpenAI.
• Time magazine laid off more than nearly two dozen staffers.

Big Read

Back in March, President Biden secretly approved a “highly classified nuclear strategic plan” to refocus America’s nuclear deterrence strategy on China. The New York Times reports. The plan, alluded to by senior officials in recent public remarks, “is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders,” according to the Times. In addition to focusing on China’s expanding arsenal, it also aims to prepare the US to respond to simultaneous or coordinated nuclear threats from North Korea, China, and Russia.

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: The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general warned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lost track of unaccompanied migrant children released from custody, NBC reported.

What the Right isn’t reading: The New York Court of Appeals upheld the state’s mail-in voting law.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Morgan Chalfant

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

Kevin Brady is a former Texas Republican congressman and the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

• Fed officials head to Jackson Hole as interest rates loom large.
• US pressures Kenya’s President Ruto over police killings, abductions.
• Biden leaves successor with unfinished business in China, Middle East.