Washington, DC

1. Subpoena battle begins
2. Pirro raises eyebrows
3. Trump’s crime victory lap
4. Democrats’ Florida hope
5. Talarico’s unlikely backer
6. British pharma intervention

PDB: Bessent vows ‘economic isolation’ for Iran

US releases retail sales data … DNC meets in Austin to approve new primary calendar … UK’s Farage reelected, beats Count Binface

Tech firms silent on Trump exec privilege

Top tech companies whose CEOs have allied with President Donald Trump are staying quiet so far about a new Justice Department memo that signals an executive privilege assertion over a wide swath of his communications with the private sector. Spokespeople for SpaceX, Nvidia, OpenAI, Meta, and Apple did not respond to requests for comment on the memo by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, which argues that privilege covers contacts with “private advisers … so long as they relate to official presidential decisionmaking.” It’s a sign that the administration is preparing to challenge investigations by a potential House Democratic majority. Any attempt to shield private-sector communications, which Democrats are eager to seek as a way around administration stonewalling, would likely be litigated. Top Oversight Committee Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia of California said that “we are ready to fight to uphold our power and authority.”

— Nicholas Wu

Pirro move raises Trump allies’ eyebrows

Trump administration officials and allies suspect US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro might be trying to get back on Trump’s good side by convening a rare special grand jury in the district. The move followed Trump’s repeated, public criticisms of Pirro over her decision to drop charges in a Reflecting Pool vandalism case. Some officials see the special grand jury move as an obvious ploy to “save her job at all costs,” as one administration official put it. And while the subject of the probe is unclear, it also comes just days after Pirro received a contempt recommendation for former health official Anthony Fauci from a GOP-controlled Senate committee. Others say Trump might already be over the Reflecting Pool debacle and that Pirro’s job is safe — after all, she remains in her role, even amid criticism from people in the White House like Peter Navarro.

— Shelby Talcott

Trump to tout crime dip on Long Island

Trump will visit New York’s Nassau County Police Academy today to champion an FBI report that found violent crime decreased more in 2025 than any other year, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said. He’s expected to appear alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche as well as Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the GOP gubernatorial candidate, who is taking a risk by appearing with Trump. Blakeman has vowed the area will keep cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite new state laws banning such partnerships. New York Attorney General Letitia James has told state and local governments they must submit their plans for winding down their arrangements by Aug. 25. “Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that,” Bis said, dismissing the opposing party as “Defund-the-Police Democrats.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Democrats eye Luna’s Florida seat

Democrats are hoping a potential blue wave will make a reddish Florida district competitive. New polling from GQR shared first with Semafor shows retired Army Brigadier Gen. Leela Gray polling at 44% and incumbent Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna at 47% — representing a statistical tie, within the 4.4-percentage-point margin of error. The Pinellas County-area seat has remained out of reach for Democrats in previous cycles as Florida has shifted rightward. Luna, who’s been a polarizing figure among national Republicans, has 94% name ID in the district but mixed approval ratings, according to the survey. “Voters are fed up with the rampant and shameless corruption in Washington,” Gray said. Democrats believe Trump’s approval will be a drag on incumbents, with the president polling at 45% favorable and 53% unfavorable in a district he won by 13 points in 2024.

— Nicholas Wu

Talarico touts an unusual endorsement

James Talarico’s Senate campaign is celebrating an endorsement from an unlikely political figure — a Texas attorney who once accused GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton of stealing his $1,000 Montblanc pen. Joe Joplin’s pen, a gift from his wife, became a source of controversy after he left it in a dish near a courthouse metal detector, after which a security camera captured Paxton picking it up and walking away. At the time, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general explained that he had made a mistake. But Paxton’s 2018 Democratic opponent for attorney general highlighted the incident. This month, Talarico’s campaign filmed Joplin posing with the pen and making his support official. The Democrat wants to draw more attention to accusations of corruption against Paxton, and to Talarico’s own drive to collect supplies for students heading back to school. Campaign spokesman JT Ellis called Paxton “the kind of guy who steals your pen” and Talarico “the kind of guy who’d let you borrow his.”

— David Weigel

How UK helped kill AstraZeneca-Bristol merger

AstraZeneca’s planned $400 billion deal with Bristol Myers Squibb triggered worries at the UK government’s highest levels, prompting outreach that contributed to the collapse of the deal, Semafor’s Rohan Goswami scooped. Varun Chandra, the UK’s top business envoy and an adviser to Prime Minister Andy Burnham, called AstraZeneca CEO Sir Pascal Soriot directly to convey that the deal would be a significant problem for the British government. The call was prompted by a Financial Times report earlier this month that the two companies were in talks about what would have been one of the largest-ever mergers. While Chandra didn’t explicitly tell Soriot to kill the deal, the call added to opposition from AstraZeneca shareholders that prompted Soriot and AstraZeneca’s board to ultimately walk away from the talks.

What does a record label do in a world where anyone can upload a song to Spotify? On this week’s episode of Mixed Signals, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl joins Max and Semafor business editor Liz Hoffman, filling in for Ben, to talk about why Warner struck a deal with AI music company Suno while Sony and Universal are still suing it, how he thinks about the nuclear-level leverage labels hold over streaming platforms, and why he thinks Netflix is leaving a massive opportunity on the table by ignoring music.

Listen to the latest Mixed Signals now.

Debatable: Federal response to cyclospora

As US cyclosporiasis cases near 14,000, the outbreak has sparked debate over whether federal food safety agencies under Trump have the resources and staffing needed to detect and contain outbreaks quickly. Jerold Mande, former deputy undersecretary for food safety at the Department of Agriculture, partially blamed the Trump administration cuts for the outbreak: “The most significant FDA failing in this outbreak is the DOGE firing of its food safety communications experts. This has led to preventable public confusion and alarm.” The FDA pushed back on the notion that those cuts affected food safety staff, saying “frontline FDA inspectors were not affected by the DOGE workforce reductions.” Rodney Rohde, chair of Texas State University’s Medical Laboratory Science Program, argued that food surveillance programs have room for improvement — not only in terms of capacity, but also implementation. “More funding without effective systems will not solve everything,” he said.

— Lauren Morgnabesser

White House

• The US has been unable to verify Israeli intelligence warning of specific threats to President Trump’s life. — Reuters
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would unveil restrictions on Iran that would inflict “economic isolation like the world has never seen,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted a naval blockade could be maintained “indefinitely.” The focus on economic measures reflects “a marked pivot for an administration that has repeatedly threatened a stepped-up military campaign,” Bloomberg noted.
• Jared Kushner will travel to Israel next week to discuss peace plans for Gaza. — Axios

Congress

• Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced an investigation into alleged child abuse on game platform Roblox.

Outside the Beltway

• Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told Politico that the Trump administration did not brief him on plans for a $100 billion data center construction project in his state.

• Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick a tour of a new Mac factory in Texas.

Campaigns