Washington, DC

1. GOP infighting deepens
2. Iran hardliners ascendant
3. Mullin nomination begins
4. Intelligence officials testify
5. Nvidia’s China win
6. Palantir CTO’s warning
7. Illinois’s big-money primary

PDB: Voters say no to AI data centers

Trump participates in dignified transfer … Powell holds press conference with Fed unlikely to cut rates … Bondi, Blanche to brief House Oversight Committee

House-Senate GOP infighting intensifies

House and Senate Republicans are descending into cross-Capitol infighting at a perilous moment, Semafor’s Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu report. House GOP hardliners are trying to defeat popular Senate-passed bills to cajole the upper chamber into passing new voter ID and citizenship requirements that don’t have the votes. Even senators who support the bill are scratching their heads. “It doesn’t do any good to call out the other side of the Capitol,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. But House hardliners are furious with their Senate counterparts. “I think they’re going to get primaried,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla, accusing GOP senators of “tap-dancing.” It’s the latest sign of President Donald Trump’s party sagging under the weight of his push for the voting bill, which he sees as critical to ensuring the GOP retains power in November.

Iran regime in the hands of hardliners

Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel over the killing of a top official whose death, analysts said, narrowed the diplomatic pathways out of the Iran war. Veteran Tehran insider Ali Larijani was a pragmatist who was seen by foreign diplomats as a potential conduit for negotiations; his death leaves the surviving leadership “largely in the hands of hardliners,” Bloomberg reported. The killing came with the intensity of the war unabated: Israeli strikes hammered Iran and Lebanon, while Iran targeted military bases in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as the US embassy in Baghdad. Lebanese authorities say at least 886 people have been killed so far, including 111 children, and a million displaced.

Mullin’s DHS confirmation kicks off

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., will appear before the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee today as he looks to clinch the job of DHS secretary before the upcoming Easter recess. Democrats will have plenty of questions about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement plans but most don’t expect Mullin to divulge too many specifics, particularly with DHS still shut down. Mullin could face tough questions from Chairman Rand Paul, who was not impressed with ousted Secretary Kristi Noem’s enforcement strategies. He’s not showing his hand: “I don’t want to preempt the hearing,” Paul told Semafor. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said senators also want to hear Mullin’s vision for FEMA and that he hopes Mullin will “promise not to make a bunch of television ads with him on a horse.” The committee could advance Mullin’s nomination as soon as Thursday.

— Burgess Everett

Kent provides twist for intel hearings

Top Trump administration intelligence officials are in the hot seat as they begin two days of hearings before congressional intelligence committees. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee today carries new weight, after a top counterintelligence official under her purview, Joe Kent, stepped down over the war in Iran. Like Kent, Gabbard previously took a more isolationist tack to foreign policy when she served in Congress (then as a Democrat). She’s likely to face awkward questions from her former colleagues about her positions on the Iran war and the earlier Venezuela operation (and maybe even that whistleblower report). FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are also testifying as part of the annual hearings on threats to the homeland. The House hearing will take place tomorrow, after being postponed earlier this week.

— Nicholas Wu

Nvidia finally makes inroads in China

Nvidia’s bid to get back into China’s market seems to be turning around, with CEO Jensen Huang announcing plans to restart production of its H200 AI chips for China. “Our supply chain is getting fired up,” Jensen said at the company’s annual GTC conference in San Jose, Semafor’s Rachyl Jones reports. This represents a shift over the last few weeks; earlier, Nvidia had encountered arduous US national security reviews and wariness on the part of China to approve the imports. The news could reinvigorate bipartisan scrutiny of Trump’s decision to greenlight H200 sales to China last year, and a pair of Democrats earlier this week raised national security concerns over the sales. For now, the market is shrugging: Nvidia shares were down 1% on Tuesday as the news broke.

Palantir CTO says US has ‘lost deterrence’

Palantir’s chief technology officer, Shyam Sankar, argues that the US has “lost deterrence” necessary to prevent future global conflicts and needs to retool its defense industrial base in order to meet the moment. “What happened to the American economy after the end of the Cold War that our companies became so disinterested in freedom and so exclusively invested in prosperity?” Sankar told a small group of reporters while discussing his new book, Mobilize. Sankar also argued that it’s in the “national interest” for AI companies to work with the Pentagon, which is currently fighting with Anthropic over safety controls. “I hope we can find a way to resolve it,” he said of that debate, adding that the US should use AI to “make the American worker more prosperous” and serve “the American warfighter.” Palantir has faced its own scrutiny over its government work.

— Shelby Talcott

Illinois’ high-dollar Dem primary

Big-spending PACs got mixed results in Illinois’ Democratic primaries, as Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won the nomination for Senate, while progressive critics of Israel, AI, and crypto won nominations for two Chicago-area House seats. Stratton’s win over Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was a triumph for Gov. JB Pritzker, who put millions of dollars into her super PAC; the pro-crypto Fairshake PAC spent late to help Krishnamoorthi. Pro-Israel and pro-AI PACs helped former Rep. Melissa Bean win a comeback bid for Krishnamoorthi’s open seat, and pushed Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller past ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. in another open seat. But candidates backed by one or all those interests lost to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss in Chicago’s northern suburbs and to state Rep. La Shawn Ford in the Loop.

— David Weigel

Blindspot: Vance and VOA

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: President Trump signed an order establishing a fraud task force to be led by Vice President JD Vance.

What the Right isn’t reading: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate Voice of America employees placed on leave.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: “There are five majority-Latino counties in Texas where more Democrats came and voted in our primaries than voted in those counties in the general election,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar, D-Texas. “The Latino voters are swinging back in Texas in a big way.”

Playbook: “As proven tonight, the [JB] Pritzker machine cannot and should not be underestimated,” Democratic campaign veteran Adrienne Elrod said, after the Illinois governor’s top pick won a handy victory in a hotly fought Senate race.

Axios: Nominee for DHS secretary Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., has privately alluded to his involvement in risky private security work in the Middle East before his 2012 run for Congress, but no such public record exists.

WaPo: The head of a super PAC supporting state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate primary said the state’s MAGA base would not believe in Sen. John Cornyn’s, R-Texas, conviction on removing the filibuster until “he has success.”

White House

• President Trump said he hopes to reschedule his trip to China to take place in about five or six weeks.

Congress

• Senate Intelligence ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., wants to know if TikTok investors are paying a reported $10 billion fee to the US Treasury.

Outside the Beltway

• The United Farm Workers is cancelling its events honoring Cesar Chavez following allegations that the late labor leader abused young women and girls.

Inside the Beltway

• DOGE axed many of the State Department’s oil and gas experts and has otherwise “sidelined people with expertise.” — NOTUS
• Bloomberg chronicles FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s “Gump-like” rise from obscurity to becoming one of President Trump’s top enforcers.

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