Washington, DC

1. Warrantless surveillance set to expire
2. Trump cancels strikes
3. Shaheen probes Board of Peace
4. State defends Ebola response
5. Corruption message testing
6. Trump Accounts primary

S&P 500 ▲ about 2% in a Trump-relief-fueled rally.

Surveillance powers set to lapse

The House and Senate failed to pass an extension of a warrantless surveillance law today, putting it on track to lapse tomorrow night, as Democrats protested President Donald Trump’s plan to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. A few hours later, Trump announced he’d nominate Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, for the permanent intelligence job — a move that could clear the impasse. “He’s very qualified,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told Semafor. But Trump’s announcement may have come too late to prevent the law from expiring, as the House already left town until June 23. “I have no idea why the president didn’t nominate him yesterday,” Warner said. “We could have found a path and Director [Tulsi] Gabbard could have stayed on until he was confirmed. Now the House is out of session.”

— Nicholas Wu and Burgess Everett

Trump says deal reached to end Iran war

Trump canceled scheduled strikes on Iran and announced he’d reached a deal with Tehran to end the war, with only details left to be resolved. “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran,” Trump said at the White House today. In a post on Truth Social, the president said the contours of the agreement have been approved by the US, Iran, Israel, and at least nine other countries involved in negotiations. The developments were welcomed by the markets, which surged after sliding in recent days as the US retaliated against Iran for downing an Apache helicopter. Trump — who has predicted a deal was close dozens of times — said the details and finalized documents “should get done over the next few days.”

State pressed on Board of Peace oversight

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is pressing the State Department for answers about Trump’s Board of Peace. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio first shared with Semafor, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said Congress has remained “largely in the dark” about the board’s work since its launch in February, when Trump pledged $10 billion in US funding. “While I strongly support serious and accountable reconstruction efforts in Gaza, the Board’s apparent lack of accountability, standards and sound legal standing raises serious concerns over the responsible use of American taxpayer dollars,” Shaheen wrote. She asked whether the board’s funds can be used to compensate Trump during or after his presidency, and who oversees the operating funds and money donated by other countries; the latter are reportedly being deposited in a JPMorgan account, rather than a planned World Bank fund.

— Morgan Chalfant

State Dept memo says US Ebola response beats China’s

The State Department circulated a memo internally making the case that the US response to the Ebola crisis in Africa has been better than China’s, according to a copy of the document shared with Semafor. The June 5 memo states that the US “has become the single largest financial contributor to the Ebola response effort,” while China “only recently pledged assistance after previously issuing precautionary measures and general statements of intent.” It also asserts that the Chinese narrative “wrongly points out that they are on the ground when the United States is not.” The US response to the crisis has been criticized, particularly in the context of USAID cuts under Trump. The New York Times recently ran a story suggesting China could fill a void left by the US, while the South China Morning Post quoted experts saying Beijing already had done so.

— Shelby Talcott and Morgan Chalfant

Democrats try to tie corruption to affordability

A Democrat-aligned group is pushing party leadership to link affordability and corruption through a “Cost of Corruption” messaging plan. “You have to marry the overwhelming and excessive costs that Americans are facing — you have to marry that with corruption in government,” Defend the Vote executive director Brian Lemek said. This week, the group briefed the party’s campaign arm and purple-district candidates on a poll of 1,000 voters in battleground districts from mid-May and focus groups from April on the issue. Although the polling found voters viewed both parties unfavorably, and about a quarter of voters said they trusted neither party to tackle corruption, respondents still ranked the cost of living and corruption in Washington as their top two issues. That has some Democrats hoping they can fill the trust vacuum and ride it to midterm gains.

— Nicholas Wu

Utah Republican runs on Trump Accounts

Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah is in the homestretch of a tough primary. One of his arguments to voters for keeping him around: his work on Trump Accounts. “I talk a lot about that at home,” he said in an interview today at Semafor’s Future of Philanthropy event. Moore helped spearhead the provision in the GOP megabill, which created accounts seeded with $1,000 for newborns. “That message back home, it resonates,” said Moore, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee. He also pointed to a charitable deduction change he championed in the 2025 Republican-passed tax bill, which incentivizes families that don’t itemize to make small donations to their church or charities they support, he said. Will it help him in his primary? “I guess we’ll see in a few weeks,” Moore said.

— Nicholas Wu

White House

• Vice President JD Vance’s chief of staff, Jacob Reses, will leave the administration at the end of the summer. — NBC News
• President Trump saw 22 medical specialists at his latest checkup, apparently the highest number of specialists to assess a president for a single visit.
• Trump’s second-term pardons have been driven by a “highly personalized network of influencers and advocates appealing to Trump himself.” — Reuters
• The Interior Department said it is investigating a large tracing of “8647,” a coded anti-Trump slogan, into the grounds of the National Mall.

Congress

• Senate Democrats are proposing a bill that will increase the tax companies pay when they repurchase their own shares from 1 to 4%. — WaPo
• The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, bringing President Trump’s rebrand a step closer to becoming law.
• Senate Democrats are war-gaming legal maneuvers and messaging strategies to counter potential election interference in the 2026 midterms by Trump or foreign actors. — Politico

Economy

• The World Bank published a report warning that the war in the Middle East is slowing global growth to its weakest pace since the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.52% from 6.48% last week.

Immigration

• The US plans to deport nearly two dozen migrants to the Central African Republic, a country the State Department advises against traveling “for any reason.” — NYT
• Former President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, was so frustrated with the administration’s border policy that he considered running for president. — Politico

Technology

• OpenAI said it found a cluster of accounts originating in China using AI-generated social media posts to amplify opposition to US data centers.
• Jeff Bezos and former Google exec Vik Bajaj’s industrial AI startup, Prometheus, raised $12 billion in Series B funding at a $41 billion valuation. — Axios

Outside the Beltway

• The US and Canada are delaying the opening of a new $4.6 billion bridge connecting Michigan and Ontario, a project that President Trump has objected to over financing and revenue-sharing concerns.
• A man pleaded guilty to killing a Minnesota House leader and her husband and shooting a state senator and his wife.

National Security

• The Pentagon lifted an hourslong shelter-in-place order that affected nearly half the building after a false alarm related to hazardous material.

Polls

• In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 16% of Americans, and 31% of Republicans, said it was appropriate for President Trump to hold the UFC event on the White House lawn.

Business

• BlackRock put in an order to buy at least $5 billion worth of SpaceX shares ahead of the company’s IPO. — WSJ

World

• The war in Ukraine has now lasted 1,569 days, longer than World War I.
• China is keeping global oil prices lower by importing less oil, relying on reserves, and reducing demand.
• India urged the US to halt strikes on shipping after a strike on a tanker off the coast of Oman killed three Indian sailors this week.

Environment

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially declared that an El Niño has begun, with forecasters predicting it could be one of the strongest El Niño events on record.

Health

• The Trump administration spent about $750,000 to charter a private yacht to evacuate an American citizen potentially exposed to hantavirus from a remote South Pacific island.