Washington, DC

1. Senate charm offensive
2. War funding headwinds
3. Bumps in Iran talks
4. A Trumpy 250th
5. Raimondo’s new gig
6. Crypto deal faces hurdles
7. Economic mixed bag

PDB: Venezuela declares state of emergency after massive quakes

Trump meets with Speaker Johnson … Mullin testifies on Capitol Hill … Supreme Court opinion watch

Trump charms Senate GOP after Iran blowup

President Donald Trump and his allies notched a significant win in the Senate late Wednesday after mounting a charm offensive on his deal to end the war in Iran. Vice President JD Vance hosted GOP senators on Wednesday evening for dinner along with White House envoy Steve Witkoff. Skeptics of the Iran deal “came away willing to give the administration room to negotiate,” according to a person familiar with the meeting. Witkoff also hosted Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for an Iran briefing — and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., left a divisive meeting with Trump vowing to give him more room to negotiate. Paul then voted present on a resolution to rein in Trump’s war powers on Iran and Cassidy voted no, defeating the measure; Trump had castigated Cassidy hours earlier. The Senate is now in recess for two weeks, a welcome reprieve for the divided GOP.

— Burgess Everett

Iran funding request struggles on the Hill

Trump’s $87.6 billion request for Iran war funding is quickly running into skepticism on Capitol Hill from both parties. The supplemental ask is unlikely to pick up much support from Democrats, with top House Appropriations Committee Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., pouring cold water on either hiking defense funding through the appropriations process or funding the war: “It’s the biggest increase in American history in a defense bill, and then you cut the non-defense by $13 billion. Give me a break.” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top Senate Armed Services Committee Democrat, said “it’s a significant amount of money, and we have to be careful.” Still, some Democrats are open to the funding request: “There’s stuff there for farmers and other things there, Ebola, and all that. So we’re looking at it,” said purple-district Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

— Nicholas Wu and Burgess Everett

Confusion mounts over Iran talks

Talks on the technical aspects of the Iran ceasefire will continue next week, amid confusion over key parts of the agreement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Kuwait to talk to Gulf countries about the memorandum of understanding, told reporters that the US will be “completely aligned” with allies in the region. He also pushed back on the prospect of tolling the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio is focused on the Israel-Lebanon aspect of the conflict, which has presented road bumps in the US-Iran talks. On Wednesday, Israel’s defense minister insisted that the US hasn’t made a demand for the country to withdraw forces from southern Lebanon — reportedly one of Iran’s ceasefire demands. Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister criticized Rubio after he said peace cannot be obtained as long as “Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq.”

— Shelby Talcott

Trump gets political at semiquincentennial

Trump last night set the political tone for Washington’s celebration of the US’ 250th anniversary — by slamming the Biden administration, hyping domestic and foreign policy wins; and doubling down on efforts to beautify the nation’s capital during a campaign-style rally on the National Mall. “Where were we two years ago? We weren’t respected; we were a joke,” Trump told attendees at the event, which began a 16-day celebration. “We’re not a joke anymore.” He touted his administration’s work on issues like prescription drugs and Venezuela while promoting projects like the Triumphal Arc and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is under scrutiny for peeling paint and algae blooms. On Iran, Trump declared a premature victory, claiming that the recently signed agreement would ensure “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” following an afternoon spent chastising Senate Republicans who voted to end the war.

— Eleanor Mueller

Raimondo launches workforce AI project

Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Eric Holcomb, a former Indiana GOP governor, are leading a new effort to help the US workforce adapt to the economy in the age of artificial intelligence. The nonpartisan group, RAISE US, has backing from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Bank of America, and Amazon. As a first step, the organization is teaming up with red and blue states to test programs that support workers as the AI boom reshapes the US economy. Its leaders are talking to the Trump administration, too, Raimondo told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant, alluding to conversations with acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. “I’m excited about AI and all that the technology can do, but I am worried that we have to be purposeful and intentional to have a plan for America’s workforce,” she said, while shrugging off talk of 2028: “I’m full-time doing this.”

Window shrinks for Congress crypto deal

Senators are running out of time to strike a bipartisan deal on one of Trump’s top legislative priorities — an industry-friendly overhaul of how agencies oversee cryptocurrency — before midterms sap their momentum. “There’s going to be a fish-or-cut-bait time on that pretty soon here,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Semafor. “This thing’s going to have to come together fairly quickly.” Outstanding issues include how to restrict Trump’s ability to profit from digital assets and how to fill empty seats on the SEC and CFTC, Thune said. He added that lawmakers “continue to massage” language governing yields on stablecoins. “There’s a path there, it’s just that we’re kind of running out of time,” Thune said. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., one of the Democrats running point on another outstanding issue related to illicit finance, was less optimistic: “I’m pretty down on the lack of progress.”

— Eleanor Mueller and Burgess Everett

White House’s mixed-bag economic polling

On the one hand, Americans’ view of the US economy improved in June; on the other, two-thirds are facing financial hardship due to rising gasoline costs. Those mixed results from a Gallup poll out today help inform the White House’s struggle to get past the economic effects of the Iran war. The slice of American adults burdened by fuel costs is on par with past instances when gas prices spiked over the last two decades. Fifty-seven percent said gas prices have caused them to scale back driving, while 46% said they’ve led to changes in summer vacation plans, according to the June poll. At the same time, Americans’ views of the economy improved this month after sharp declines earlier this year: Forty-five percent described current economic conditions as poor, down from 49% in May. The Fed’s preferred PCE inflation measure is out today.

Progressive Christianity’s election-year boomlet

Raphael Warnock and Mike Johnson sat down one-on-one this month for a reason that was bigger than their stated topic. Publicly, the Republican House speaker was requesting time with the Georgia Democratic senator after Warnock questioned how Johnson, a devout Christian, could “say a prayer” and then vote to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid. Privately, they ended up at a respectful impasse over how they saw their respective Christian faiths. A trio of other Democratic pastors and seminarians are trying to join Warnock on the Hill next year while campaigning on linking their Christianity with their politics. Their willingness to ground progressive beliefs in faith is a mirror image of the longtime ease with which conservative Republicans have tied their Christianity to their politics. Their goal is to appeal to more conventional Christian voters in their red states, rather than the increasingly secular electorate overall.

The insider guide to the energy transition’s new order. Penned by Climate and Energy Editor Tim McDonnell, Semafor Energy delivers sharp reporting and analysis on the policies, people, and power struggles driving the energy transition. As the world reshapes how it produces, distributes, and consumes energy, each edition helps readers understand how the energy transformation is defining the new world economy.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has privately informed several GOP senators that he’s willing to take formal action to quash the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” according to sources familiar.

Playbook: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro privately met with Mark Carney earlier this month, the Canadian prime minister’s third meeting with a possible 2028 presidential candidate in a matter of weeks.

Axios: America’s population of under-18s fell by 1.8 million between 2020 and 2025, with the number of children declining in every region except the South, census data showed.

White House

• President Trump called Andy Burnham, widely expected to be the UK’s next prime minister, “extremely liberal.”
• White House adviser Stephen Miller was the “driving force” behind a Justice Department memo authorizing states to institutionalize people with mental illnesses. — Bloomberg