Washington, DC

1. Trump’s big speech
2. Iran risks spiraling
3. Bukele’s back
4. Rocky week for nominees
5. Sanders runs from Our Revolution

Shares of Alphabet ▼ 4% on reports it is delaying its next Gemini AI model release.

Trump preparing to touch on Venezuelan elections in speech

Among the election-related topics that President Donald Trump is preparing to discuss during his primetime speech tonight is an alleged plot to manipulate Venezuelan elections that administration officials believe exposed risks to the US voting system, two people familiar with the situation told Semafor. Venezuela’s purported connection to US voting machines has been the subject of conspiracies among Trump allies dating back to the 2020 election. The administration may also declassify election integrity-related reports, both people said, though Trump often goes off-script and the contents of his planned speech could change. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has declined to comment on specific aspects of the speech but confirmed that Trump will talk about election integrity, “backed by facts and evidence.” “I’d like him to talk about, hopefully, his thoughts on Iran. Talk about the issues people care about,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

— Shelby Talcott and Nicholas Wu

Iran conflict risks bleeding into Red Sea

The US-Israel conflict with Iran is at risk of spiraling into new territory. Iran asked the Yemeni Houthis to shut down a key oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets its power infrastructure, according to Reuters. Houthi leaders are also threatening Saudi oil facilities if Riyadh gets involved in “comprehensive aggression” against Yemen. The Houthis accused the Saudis of bombing an airport in Yemen earlier this week, and fired missiles at the kingdom, breaking a four-year truce. Washington, meanwhile, approved a possible $2 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia yesterday. As the US-Iran ceasefire breaks down, the escalation threatens global energy supplies: A 2019 Houthi attack temporarily knocked out more than half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production, about 5% of global supply. Diesel prices returned to $5 a gallon today and analysts expect US gas will return to $4 a gallon.

— Lauren Morganbesser

Trump hosts Salvadoran president

Trump hosted Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House today, their first Oval Office meeting since last April, when Trump thanked Bukele for agreeing to imprison Venezuelan migrants at the megaprison known as CECOT. Bukele has been a keen supporter of Trump’s immigration agenda. Deportations to El Salvador doubled in the first few months of the year, compared to the same period in 2025. Human rights groups have accused the Bukele government of forcibly disappearing and arbitrarily detaining deportees upon arrival. The closed-door Oval Office meeting comes days after Bukele was named his party’s candidate for the February 2027 election, paving the way for his third consecutive term, after his party used its legislative supermajority to abolish presidential term limits last year.

Tough week for Trump nominees

It’s been a rocky few days for Trump nominees on Capitol Hill. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said today Todd Blanche needs to meet with victims of Jeffrey Epstein if the acting attorney general wants the permanent job. “This is a very important part of getting to ‘yes,’” Tillis said. Blanche also needs to convince Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is truly dead. Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician, became frustrated questioning Erica Schwartz, Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And Jay Clayton, the president’s nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, declined to answer who won the 2020 presidential election when asked by Democrats. In an exchange racking up views on social media, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., asked if it was “humiliating” to have to pretend not to know who won.

Sanders clashes with group he founded

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., continues to distance himself from Our Revolution, the political organization he founded at the end of his 2016 campaign, which backed a candidate he doesn’t support for Vermont lieutenant governor. On Friday, Sanders’ campaign told Semafor that the group “has not had any relationship with Bernie Sanders for 9 years running” and that “it does not speak for Bernie Sanders, now or ever.” The Sanders team reiterated that position all week, as Our Revolution intervened in more races where he’s neutral. In a statement, Our Revolution said that it was “born out of the grassroots energy” of the 2016 Sanders campaign. “We are proud to have backed over 100 progressive champions across the country this year, and we regret any instance in which our endorsements were misconstrued.” Sanders heads to Michigan this weekend to campaign for the candidates he has endorsed, including Abdul El-Sayed for Senate.

— David Weigel

White House

• The White House hosted activists this week who’ve pushed conspiracy theories used by President Trump to falsely claim the 2020 presidential election was “stolen.” — MSNOW
• Trump’s media company announced it will begin selling traders and investors instant access to the president’s Truth Social posts. — WSJ
• Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made $100,000 placing “mentions” bets on Kalshi before the State of the Union and other speeches, according to investigators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. — ABC

Congress

• House GOP leaders yanked a veterans benefits bill over objections from some Republican lawmakers to proposed program changes, Semafor reports.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has asked President Trump for six more months of disclosures on his crypto holdings, after a June report revealed the president and his family earned $1.4 billion from digital currencies in 2025. — NBC
• Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said today he has no plans to leave the Democratic Party, but he warned that he would if it becomes the “anti-Israel party.” — The Hill

Campaigns

• News Center Maine will host a debate tonight at 7 pm among candidates competing to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for Senate.
• President Trump’s approval rating remains at 37%, about where it was in February, according to a new Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton bought three condos in a luxury resort in Utah earlier this year, listing as his address a home owned by a woman, not his wife, with whom he’s been photographed recently. — NYT

Immigration

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement reversed a brief suspension of most vehicle stops, though new rules will require that teams initiating stops have at least one member wearing a body camera. — Daily Wire
• The Trump administration capped the length of student visas at four years and removed a three-year work allowance following graduation. — WSJ

World

• Protests broke out across Ukraine over the ouster of Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s defense minister, who is credited with modernizing Ukraine’s drone-powered military. — NYT

Technology

• Tech executives say they’ve seen a surge in threats of violence against them amid an AI backlash. — WSJ

Health

• The FDA approved a new drug that promises to lower cholesterol levels to below what a statin can achieve. — WSJ

Outside the Beltway

• The lettuce industry is in PR crisis mode as a parasitic cyclospora outbreak continues. — WSJ

— Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, about President Trump’s speech.

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

Ralph Lauren CEO Patrice Louvet walked away from $1 billion in annual revenue as he pulled back from retail outlets where “frankly, we weren’t proud of being.” The decision reflected the challenge that has defined his leadership: how to bring greater business logic to a brand built on dreams and creative instinct without squeezing out its magic.

After nearly three decades at Procter & Gamble, Louvet had to unlearn some of the data-driven instincts that had shaped his career. In the latest episode of The CEO Signal, presented by PwC, he tells Penny Pritzker and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson why balancing “magic and logic” became a useful way to think about the business — and how a company with no shortage of opportunities decides what