Washington, DC

1. Hamas breakthrough?
2. Fetterman intrigue
3. Trump’s carte Blanche
4. Anti-crypto polling
5. Wisconsin’s Democratic panic
6. ICE boosts body cameras
7. Ebola response scrutiny

PDB: Anthropic says its AI hacked unauthorized targets

Trump holds Cabinet meeting at Camp David … U Michigan posts consumer sentiment … Chevron, ExxonMobil release earnings

Doubts over Trump’s Hamas deal

President Donald Trump said that Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to disarm and that Israel would withdraw from Gaza. The Trump-convened “Board of Peace” reportedly hammered out the details as part of the US-backed Gaza ceasefire over several months. So far neither Hamas nor Israel has confirmed Trump’s claims, although a senior Hamas official told the BBC the group had agreed. It would be a major step toward ending Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, but doubts remain: Israeli politicians have expressed skepticism, and Trump has a habit of changing his mind. Recently, after announcing a US nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, he declared that it was conditional on the country normalizing relations with Israel — something Riyadh has not acknowledged — and appeared to backtrack on recent commitments to let Ukraine produce Patriot anti-air missiles days after the announcement.

Fetterman agonizes over place in Democratic Party

Democrats are confident that Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman will remain on their side of the aisle, but they’re nonetheless showering him with praise — including from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this week. Fetterman appreciates it, but is still weighing his place in what his colleagues call the party’s “big tent,” Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. “I truly appreciate the leader’s nice words,” Fetterman said in an interview. “I don’t know if the Democratic Party is ‘big tent’ enough for proud, pro-Israel supporters that also strongly reject the warped mutation of” democratic socialists. By all accounts, Fetterman is doing nothing to suggest he’d switch parties, according to Democratic and GOP senators alike. But he’s also mixing it up with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., over the party’s primaries — and called Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed someone who “puts that seat in play while warming Hamas’ hearts.”

How to think about Blanche’s future

Trump’s offer to withdraw Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general looks like a risky escalation of his months-long clashes with the Republican senators who try to check him. After all, resubmitting Blanche to the Senate after the midterms might make a confirmation even harder, if the GOP loses seats or the majority. But beyond that immediate calculus, Trump is making the same bet he has since his first term: that he can bend the norms of Washington to assert as much power as possible. The president can walk away from Blanche, mid-confirmation, with his unprecedented IRS audit immunity intact, and possibly the power to revive his paused $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund (which Blanche verbally, but not officially, quashed). Trump won’t even lose Blanche from his Cabinet; some legal experts have suggested Blanche could serve in an acting capacity until the end of Trump’s term.

Democrats circulate anti-crypto poll

Senate Democrats are circulating previously unreported polling on their voters’ negative perceptions of cryptocurrency ahead of a key vote expected next week. The poll, conducted by the firm Normington Petts and viewed by Semafor, found that voters in Democratic primaries view crypto less favorably than oil companies; Wall Street; or data centers. It also found that 84% had an unfavorable view of candidates backed by the crypto industry. Asked for comment, Normington Petts said it surveyed 800 voters across the country — but declined to provide additional details, including who commissioned it. Lawmakers are bracing for an initial vote on the industry’s top legislative priority, a permanent overhaul of how federal agencies oversee digital assets, as soon as next week. But deals remain elusive on illicit finance, stablecoin yields — and, most crucially, how to restrict Trump and other elected officials’ ability to profit.

— Eleanor Mueller

Wisconsin governor’s race winnows down

Wisconsin Democrats got a narrower race for governor after former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes folded his campaign yesterday and endorsed no one. Barnes, who had fallen behind socialist legislator Francesca Hong, had said until Thursday that he was the strongest possible nominee. “It’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be,” he announced on social media, projecting doubt that Gov. Tony Evers would be able to lift establishment pick David Crowley past Hong. On Wednesday, polling from Marquette Law School put Crowley 31 points behind Hong, with most voters aware of Evers’ endorsement but unmoved. Republicans have immediately begun running against Hong as if she is the nominee. Her rise has been powered by more than the Democratic Socialists of America; Hong broke out of the pack with early opposition to AI data centers, an issue many left-wing Democrats are elevating in primaries.

— David Weigel

ICE to deploy body cameras nationwide

Top Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are deploying body cameras nationwide that will be worn by all ICE agents in the field, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Semafor’s Burgess Everett after attending a meeting with ICE leaders and senators yesterday. The Senate Appropriations chair attended the meeting with David Venturella, the acting ICE director, following the fatal shooting of a man in Biddeford, Maine, earlier this month. Collins said that Venturella has awarded a contract for more body cameras using the $20 million allotted for them by congressional spending bills; the cameras will begin shipping nationwide next week, he told senators. “By the end of August, body-worn cameras will be deployed nationwide and worn by all ICE agents in the field. At my request, Acting Director Venturella agreed to prioritize their delivery to Maine,” Collins said.

State pressed on aid for women impacted by Ebola

A bipartisan pair of senators is urging Secretary of State Marco Rubio to unlock family planning funding and supplies for women caught in the Ebola outbreak sweeping the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s east, warning that the Trump administration’s freeze on such aid is deepening a maternal health crisis. In a letter shared first with Semafor, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked Rubio to use $608 million in international family planning funds from the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill and release $1.7 million worth of already purchased contraceptive products which, the senators said, would otherwise be destroyed. They also pressed for a “humanitarian exemption” allowing US support for the UN Population Fund, or UNFPA, so it can resume sexual and reproductive health programming in the affected region. Trump withdrew from the organization earlier this year.

— Adrian Elimian

Debatable: Will Trump’s new tariffs be overturned?

It’s been a week since Trump imposed a new wave of sweeping tariffs, using a different authority than the levies struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year. The legal challenges to his new tariffs are already piling up. Experts say the Trump administration has a good chance of surviving them because the president relied on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, rather than a novel application of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the Supreme Court rejected. Still, those involved in the lawsuits insist they have a strong case, given the rushed and expansive nature of the tariffs. “We’re not trying to say Section 301 on its face is unconstitutional. We’re saying the way it’s being applied is,” Sara Albrecht of the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing small businesses suing over the tariffs, told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant.

From a Kobe Bryant Twitter follow in high school to a decade of courtside access, Fashion Week client work, and a branding studio in downtown Manhattan — Vic Jacobi has built one of the more unusual careers in sports media. On this week’s episode of Mixed Signals, the NBA personality and creative consultant joins Max and Ben to discuss how she earned the trust of players who keep famously tight circles, what it means to be the person between an athlete and an agency, and what former NBA star Carmelo Anthony told her about her work. Plus, who has the best “drip” in the league and why the “tunnel fit” era has peaked.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: The Trump administration isn’t reining in the Iran war in response to successful war powers votes, leading Democrats to look at the appropriations process as an alternate way to affect the campaign.

Axios: The Trump administration is looking at IP addresses of people who registered to vote online in order to “isolate cases of alleged voter fraud.”

White House

• President Trump has raised more than $800 million in his second term. — WSJ
• The Federal Aviation Administration may not fully vacate its DC headquarters, as was originally planned. — Politico