Principals

1. GOP’s Fed divide
2. Dems undecided on funding
3. OpenAI’s DC office
4. EU defense official in DC
5. Garbarino rises
6. Hunter Biden resurfaces

PDB: One in seven Americans own cryptocurrency

Trump hosts Philippine President Marcos … Powell speaks at conference … Politico: Macron tells EU to stop playing nice with Trump on trade

GOP divide over Fed renovation grows

The GOP schism over the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation continues to grow as House Republicans consider a new investigation, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller and Burgess Everett report. While Republican senators are largely downplaying the prospects that President Donald Trump might seek to remove Chair Jerome Powell over the project, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee’s oversight panel told Semafor Monday that he’s weighing his own probe. “I’m going to talk to [Chair] French Hill and see,” said Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., adding that committee Republicans discussed the project “anecdotally” at the White House on Friday during a bill signing: “I mean, $2.5 billion.” While Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott has played a lead role in pressing the Fed, Hill has opted to watch from afar: The Arkansas Republican has said he does not believe Trump has the power to fire Powell.

Senate Dems wrestle with funding vote

Senate Democrats aren’t set on whether they will vote to advance a Veterans and Military Construction spending bill today — a key test of Congress’ ability to fund the government on a bipartisan basis — and they’ll discuss the vote at lunch. There’s plenty of skepticism in the caucus after Republicans unilaterally pushed through a $9 billion spending-cuts package. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said that amounted to a “switcheroo” on funding. “I’m skeptical about, ‘Please work a deal with us that we can undo one minute after we vote on it,’” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told Semafor. Starting with the veterans bill is intentional by the GOP: It’s among the most popular spending measures. “The bill came out of committee 26-3,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Semafor. “This is a test of whether senators are serious.” (She opposed the cuts package.)

— Burgess Everett

OpenAI makes inroads in Washington

OpenAI plans to open up its first office in Washington, DC, which will serve as both a hub for the company’s policy ambitions and a showroom for visitors to learn about the company’s products, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti scooped. “One of the things that we’ve discovered is that our technology is our best advocate, our best educator, our best lobbyist,” Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer for OpenAI, told Semafor. The office, which the company has dubbed “The Workshop,” will be headed by Chan Park, the company’s head of global affairs for the US and Canada, and Joe Larson, who is leaving the defense tech firm Anduril to join OpenAI at the end of the month. The announcement coincides with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s swing through DC. Trump is also expected to unveil executive orders on artificial intelligence later this week.

Europe prepares to spend big on defense

A top EU defense official insisted Europe is ready to ramp up defense spending to become less reliant on the US while dealing with “clear and present danger” from Russia. The US has “the right and the reason” to turn away from European conflicts and “to shift more and more towards the Indo-Pacific, in order to mitigate Chinese rising military power,” European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said at the EU Defense Night Monday evening. Kubilius’ visit — his first to Washington as commissioner, a new role — also comes at a time of heightened transatlantic trade tensions. “It does not help,” he told Semafor when asked about trade conflicts’ effects on broader relations. “Allies are allies, and allies should also be treated in a different way when it comes to trade,” David McAllister, a member of the European Parliament, said during one panel discussion.

— Morgan Chalfant

Garbarino to lead Homeland Security panel

The House Republican Steering Committee selected Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York as its pick to chair the Homeland Security Committee Monday after former Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee resigned for a job in the private sector. Garbarino, who serves on the steering committee himself and currently chairs the Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity panel, beat out three other lawmakers for the gavel — Reps. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Carlos Giménez of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana — after all four gave presentations on their plans. In his, Garbarino touted his experiences helping impeach former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and representing New Yorkers affected by 9/11. The full conference must vote to confirm Garbarino, whose predecessor also served as Homeland Security chair, before he can assume the role. Green’s departure leaves his conference with just a seven-seat majority.

— Eleanor Mueller

Where’s Hunter? Skewering Clooney

Hunter Biden is reopening old wounds the Democratic Party is desperate to heal. In an interview with former DNC chair Jaime Harrison and a separate three-hour conversation with journalist Andrew Callaghan, he attacked George Clooney and the hosts of Pod Save America as Democratic “elites” who kneecapped his father, Joe Biden. The younger Biden also insisted that his father could have won the 2024 election had fellow Democrats not demanded that he quit after his final debate with Trump. Democrats largely ignored the interviews, both released on the one-year anniversary of Joe Biden ending his campaign and clearing the path for Kamala Harris. “Barack Obama never got more than 69 million votes. My dad got 81 million votes,” Hunter Biden told Harrison. An after-action report of the election, prepared by the DNC, is expected to ignore Biden’s decision to run again.

— David Weigel

Blindspot: Arrests and detentions

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 acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, said the agency is cracking down on companies that employ people not authorized to work in the US.

What the Right isn’t reading: A Human Rights Watch report found staff at three migrant detention centers subjected the people held there to “substandard medical care, overcrowding, abusive treatment, and restrictions on access to legal and psychosocial support.”

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged that the Senate is unlikely to pass 12 appropriations bills as a basis for a bipartisan government funding agreement. “It’d be great if we could. But it would take a high level of cooperation. So we’ll see,” he said.

Playbook: President Trump’s suit against The Wall Street Journal could backfire if it moves to discovery and gives the paper’s lawyers a chance to depose him about the alleged Jeffrey Epstein letter.

Axios: The Trump administration plans to highlight a little-noticed piece of federal data — production of industrial goods — that surged in the first half of this year. They will argue it shows business investment is rising.

White House

• The Trump administration released nearly a quarter-million documents related to the government’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as its probe into his assassination.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the latest and highest-ranking Trump administration official to call for a review of the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation project, though he also stressed the importance of protecting the Fed’s independence.

Congress

• House Republicans on Monday abandoned efforts to prep a slew of bills for floor votes this week after Democrats on the Rules Committee sought again to put members on the record on a bipartisan proposal that would force the release of materials in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports.
• The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit and cause an estimated 10 million Americans to lose health care coverage by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Outside the Beltway

• The 700 active-duty Marines the Pentagon dispatched to Los Angeles to quell anti-ICE protests will be withdrawn from the city.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a plan for ICE to detain migrants at military bases in Indiana and New Jersey. — NPR

Polling

• Fourteen percent of American adults say they own bitcoin or another type of cryptocurrency, according to new Gallup polling, while a much larger share — 60% — said they will never be interested in buying it. Ownership is higher among conservatives, younger men, and high earners.

Campaigns

• Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, Sen. John Cornyn’s leading GOP primary rival, has lost some conservative support after his wife filed for divorce and accused him of adultery.
• Sens. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, and Ashley Moody, R-Fla. — the appointed replacements for Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, respectively — seem unlikely to face serious primary challenges.

Business