Washington, DC

1. Piker speaks to Semafor
2. Warsh in Jackson Hole
3. Trump touts Mars mission
4. Iran war six-month mark
5. China intensifies hacking

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to 51.7 in August from 55.2 in July.

Semafor DC will publish only in the morning until Sept. 8.

Piker considers suing Democratic critics

Hasan Piker is making no apologies to Democrats who’ve accused him of endorsing violence against American Jews. Instead, he’s considering suing some of them. “It’s intense defamation,” Piker told Semafor’s David Weigel in an extended interview publishing this evening. In a recent episode of his streaming show, Piker argued that pro-Israel American Jews are fueling antisemitism that puts all Jews at risk of violence. “I’m at least fortunate enough to have a competitive media platform of my own, so that people who scratch the surface and investigate these quotes can understand what I’m actually about.” Piker didn’t say whether he had spoken with Abdul El-Sayed since the Democratic Senate nominee from Michigan told Semafor he had “no plans” to rally with Piker again. But he thinks that candidates who have distanced themselves from him were making a mistake. “They know that there’s gonna be attacks,” Piker said.

Warsh’s hawkish turn meets its skeptics

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh surprised Fed watchers this morning when he revealed more than ever about how he thinks the Iran war, new tariffs and the AI buildout are affecting prices — but not everyone is convinced his hawkish remarks mean he’ll support a rate hike next month, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports. Short-term Treasury yields went up after Warsh, in his first speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic policy symposium, said he wasn’t sold by recent inflation data and “markets are showing few signs of policy restraint.” “We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective,” Warsh said. “Otherwise, we have work to do.” But some of the economists in the room were skeptical he’d be willing to walk the walk at the central bank’s next meeting after making similar, if more vague, comments before its last.

Trump talks up nuclear-powered spacecraft

President Donald Trump today announced the establishment of a new space-focused military academy during a visit to Houston to award the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crew of the Artemis II mission. He capped off his trip with a visit to NASA’s Mission Control Center, where he spoke with some of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Trump touted his first-term creation of the Space Force and teased a new nuclear-powered spacecraft being developed by NASA. That craft is currently eyeing a 2028 mission to Mars, he said, describing it as “among the first of what will ultimately be a massive American Starfleet, making space travel almost as common as ocean travel today.” NASA is already gearing up for an Artemis IV launch that year that’s expected to make a lunar landing, the US’ first in more than 50 years.

— Shelby Talcott

Talks remain stalled as Iran war reaches six-month mark

The war in Iran reached the six-month mark today, with few signs of a near-term diplomatic breakthrough. Iranian state news reported that local forces fired on the Strait of Hormuz after Trump claimed it was under US control in an interview with Axios. Still, Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said on social media that a return to talks “isn’t impossible.” This week, Tehran hosted visits from a delegation from Qatar and Pakistan, which has led the moderation of peace negotiations, while talks with Oman on a possible framework to reopen the strait played out in parallel. The White House has maintained a hawkish tone, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing sanctions and other economic penalties this week and Trump dismissing an Iranian demand to lift the US blockade before restarting talks.

China intensifies cyber program

The US government said this week it seized digital infrastructure behind a Chinese hacking operation that targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, and the Senate beginning in 2018, evidence, experts say, that illustrates the growing scale and persistence of Beijing’s cyber operations. The implication: China is “doubling down” on a long-suspected cyber strategy, said Lauryn Williams, former director for strategy in the White House Office of the National Cyber Director under President Joe Biden. “It both emphasizes that [China] is going to continue to find creative ways to target specific infrastructure and also, on the flip side, for the United States, that our infrastructure continues to be vulnerable,” she said.

—Lauren Morganbesser

Congress

• Exclusive: The top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, is calling on Republican state attorneys general to release the transcript of Donald Trump Jr.’s recently reported remarks on prediction markets, Eleanor Mueller reports.

Business

• Chevron and other large US energy firms are close to investing billions in Venezuela’s oil fields. —WSJ
• Executives who made contributions to President Trump are preparing for subpoenas. —WSJ

Campaigns and Elections

• Republican Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming has objected to “very odd” election monitoring by the Department of Justice. —NYT
• A judge has temporarily blocked President Trump’s mail-in ballot rules.
• Trump’s Cabinet is meeting hostile crowds while barnstorming across the country. —Politico

Immigration

• Far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. —TMZ

Environment

• The National Park Service is considering a deal that would grant a small piece of Yosemite to a private developer. —WaPo

— President Donald Trump speaking to astronauts about the International Space Station today.

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