Washington, DC

1. Cornyn’s PEPFAR threat
2. House votes tonight
3. More tariffs on deck
4. Pickaxe plans
5. Trump softens on China

The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index ▲ 5.2% ahead of Alphabet, Tesla, and Intel earnings.

Cornyn threatens to sink Trump nominees over PEPFAR

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn is threatening to vote down the ambassadorial nominations of two top Trump allies tomorrow unless the Trump administration releases money aimed at fighting the spread of AIDS in Africa, Semafor’s Burgess Everett and Adrian Elimian scoop. Cornyn told Semafor that he would not support committee action on Kari Lake’s nomination to be ambassador to Jamaica or Doug Mastriano’s bid to become ambassador to Slovakia without confirmation that the administration will distribute money from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to take up Lake’s nomination on Wednesday, and Mastriano is likely to be added to the slate. “The only way it seems like you can get the administration’s attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees,” said Cornyn.

House to vote tonight on defense bill and stopgap funding

House Republicans cleared the “rule” vote Tuesday afternoon, setting the stage for votes tonight on an annual defense authorization bill and a stopgap funding bill that would delay a bigger spending debate until after the midterms. Both are expected to get only a few Democratic votes. Democrats plan to oppose the defense bill in protest of the Iran war, and reject government funding legislation over immigration enforcement. Absences could complicate passage. Even if both pass, Republican leaders have more on their plate: They need to tamp down on opposition to the $95 billion budget blueprint expected to come to the floor as early as Wednesday, even after White House budget director Russ Vought huddled with the conference Tuesday morning. “I’ve said from the beginning that I’m skeptical about going down the reconciliation path on this,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley, I-Calif., who caucuses with Republicans.

— Nicholas Wu

White House prepares new tariffs for dozens of countries

The Trump administration is hinting that it plans to hit 60 more countries with new tariffs imminently, as top officials defend a 50% levy on Canadian goods announced yesterday and a 25% tariff on Brazilian imports takes effect at midnight. “We expect to see some action soon,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on CNBC this morning, when asked about a report in the Financial Times that 10-12.5% tariffs are in the works for dozens of countries as soon as this week. Greer said the tariffs are a justified response to “forced labor” in dozens of countries, plus Canadian trade practices. “We have always had trade issues with Canada,” he said. Greer declined to say when the new tariffs will take effect, noting he needs to brief Congress first; he is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow.

Trump pledges to strike Pickaxe Mountain

Trump suggested today that near-term peace talks are off the table until Iran is willing to hold them in a “meaningful way.” Instead, the president said he would soon direct the US military to bomb Pickaxe Mountain, an underground facility where Israeli intelligence believes regime forces moved uranium enrichment centrifuges, The Wall Street Journal reports. “We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” Trump said this afternoon. The plan would further escalate a war that has moved into Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain in recent days. Today the Houthis extended their threat to target all ships entering or exiting Saudi ports through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which has driven up oil prices. Despite the political risk, Trump said the midterms won’t affect his decisions. “I’m just going to do the right thing. I don’t view it as, ‘Gee, we’re having an election.’”

Trump pulls China punches

Trump made clear today that his administration will not come down hard on China after he laid out Beijing’s efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election in a primetime speech. “We’ve talked to them about it. It took place a long time ago,” Trump told reporters, describing China as “maybe a little bit different today than it was then.” Trump’s posture reflects his desire to keep tensions with China on the lowest setting; Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting his Chinese counterpart in Manila as both sides prepare for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s September Washington visit. And with all the scrutiny of Chinese open source AI models, the administration is taking the middle ground. On Fox News, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to sanction Chinese AI companies that steal IP from US models, but stopped short of the wider ban some had feared.

White House

• The Trump administration announced it was withholding more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota over alleged fraud.
• After meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the White House, President Trump announced that US airlines would be allowed to resume direct flights to Lebanon.

Courts

• A federal appeals court rejected former President Joe Biden’s request to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with his memoir’s ghostwriter.
• A federal appeals court upheld White House adviser Peter Navarro’s convictions for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 rioters.

Congress

• The Senate Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to approve Jay Clayton for director of national intelligence, advancing his nomination to the full Senate for a vote.
• Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the late Sen. Lindsey Graham will receive a congressional tribute next Tuesday in the rotunda.
• During a Senate GOP lunch, Republicans announced that they are recommending that Sen. Darline Graham take over most of her late brother’s committee assignments, including on the Judiciary, Appropriations, Environment and Public Works, and Budget committees.
• The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., who is also mired in a House Ethics Committee probe over alleged financial violations and sexual misconduct. — MS NOW

Campaigns

• The likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, Troy Jackson, said he would not support Chuck Schumer as Senate Democratic leader and is uncertain he wants Schumer’s endorsement. — NYT
• New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement that a software error led to about 6,600 non-US citizens being registered to vote, and about 400 noncitizens voted.

National Security

• The Pentagon is rapidly running out of money due to the ongoing Iran war, forcing cuts to military readiness while Congress remains deadlocked over funding. — WaPo
• The US will begin manufacturing Ukraine’s battle-tested drone boats through a new defense partnership aimed at expanding autonomous military capabilities. — WSJ

World

• A shipowner is offering crews an extra six months’ pay if they are willing to sail through the Strait of Hormuz. — Bloomberg
• Mexico’s health minister said there is no evidence yet that lettuce sourced from Mexico caused a cyclosporiasis outbreak in the US.

Technology

• Google released three new artificial intelligence models.
• A federal judge approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement requiring Anthropic to compensate authors for books it obtained through piracy to train its Claude chatbot.

— Right-wing commentator Laura Loomer, a former critic of US aid to Ukraine, posts on X from Kyiv.

Laura McGann, editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor, and Morgan Chalfant, Washington briefing editor

Graph Massara and Lauren Morganbesser, copy editors

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, Nicholas Wu, David Weigel