Washington, DC

1. Convention wraps
2. Michigan healthcare ads
3. AI and the right
4. Crypto bill’s outlook
5. Talarico’s Fox interview

The 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 4.9% today, the highest since 2023, despite Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s buyback effort.

Trump, Vance, Kennedy to wrap up GOP convention

DALLAS — President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance will close out the GOP’s two-day midterm convention with a program geared to the anti-establishment voters who supported Trump for the first time in 2024. On-stage speakers will include Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road online marketplace, who Trump pardoned after an appeal from the Libertarian Party, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, a former Democrat who quit the party over what he saw as its turn against policing. Democrats spent Thursday morning calling the convention and the appeal to unlikely voters a ruse — including the president’s float of a $5000 “dividend” he’ll send voters if the GOP wins in November. “The dividend is not happening,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said.

— David Weigel

El-Sayed hits Rogers on healthcare during Republican convention

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is going after Republican opponent Mike Rogers’ healthcare record in a new ad, timed to land as Rogers takes the stage at the Republicans’ midterm convention, Semafor’s Burgess Everett scooped. The ad will run statewide as part of a $2.3 million ad campaign running this week, according to a person familiar with the buy. The ad features Michiganders coughing while discussing Rogers’ record on opioids and prescription drug costs during his decade-plus in the House. “Thirty years of Mike Rogers is killing us,” says one man in the ad. “Send Doc Abdul to Washington.” Rogers will speak in Dallas on Thursday evening and is one of the GOP’s top recruits in a must-win Senate race for Democrats. Polls this week showed a tight race in Michigan, where Democrats haven’t lost a Senate race since 1994.

AI divides the right

Fifteen minutes from the convention center in Dallas, a debate about artificial intelligence between Joe Allen, formerly the “transhumanism editor” on Steve Bannon’s podcast, War Room, and venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, revealed just how much the issue is dividing the right, Semafor’s Ben Smith reports. “You look at the data center, this incubator for algorithmic immigrants,” Allen said. “They’ve already broken out and invaded other companies. These immigrants are out of control.” Lonsdale tried to paint AI in the American tradition of driving economic growth through frontier technologies: “We have Kitty Hawk, we have 747s, we built the railroads.” The politics of AI are heating to a boil and while Democrats are increasingly aligned around greater government intervention, Republicans are conflicted.

Trump adviser warns time running out on crypto bill

Trump’s top cryptocurrency adviser is warning senators that next week could be the last chance Congress gets to accomplish the crypto industry’s top legislative priority — at least, for a while. “I would say to everyone, Republican and Democrat: Get on the bill and let’s keep talking,” Patrick Witt, executive director of Trump’s Council of Advisors on Digital Assets, told Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller. “A failed motion-to-procede vote doesn’t give anyone anything they want.” In fact, Witt said, it could mean years before Congress gets another stab at the measure. Crypto firms have long fought for the proposal, which would divide oversight of the industry between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Talarico backs limits on trans athletes in girls sports

James Talarico is facing his demons. The Senate Democratic nominee in Texas said in a Fox News interview yesterday that he doesn’t support allowing trans athletes to participate in girls sports “if it endangers safety and fairness” and that he would support a national ban on gender surgeries for minors. He also atoned for past controversial comments on gender that have resurfaced during the campaign. On whether he believes there are six sexes: “There are not six sexes. There are two.” On whether God is “nonbinary”: “I was being provocative with that statement,” Talarico admitted. “What I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God, and that’s not controversial theologically.” In deep red Texas, Talarico needs crossover votes to defeat GOP nominee Ken Paxton. This morning he posted a list of 20 current and former Republican officials supporting him.

White House

• White House advisors fear the Iran war could extend through the remainder of President Trump’s term. — WSJ

Courts

• The Supreme Court blocked Missouri from using a new map that favors Republicans in the midterm elections.

Business

• Conservative podcaster Katie Miller used social media to denounce AI chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for months without telling followers she has significant financial interest in rival Elon Musk’s xAI. — WaPo

Campaigns and Elections

• The Department of Justice sent letters to at least 30 top election officials across the country warning them not to destroy any records related to the 2024 election.
• The City of Denver and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to block the Trump administration from allowing armed federal immigration agents to serve warrants at polling sites.

National Security

• Iranian strikes damaged multiple American military aircraft this week in Jordan. — Reuters
• Iran is producing ballistic missiles again. — WSJ
• The Yemeni Houthis captured a strategic Red Sea port city in a major ground offensive.
• Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new regional headquarters in South Florida focused on defense investment. — WSJ

Outside the Beltway

• Turning Point USA is marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Charlie Kirk at the Utah university where he was killed. — NYT

Health

• Federal officials are poised to declare the end of the cyclosporiasis outbreak that sickened thousands of Americans. — WaPo

Economy

• The IMF said the global economic outlook is still expected to expand by about 3% in 2026.
• Home sales in August fell to their lowest level in more than a year.

Technology

• California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws restricting addictive social-media features and regulating AI chatbots to strengthen online protections for users under 16.

World

• Prominent US lobbying firm Qorvis allegedly had undisclosed ties to companies linked to sanctioned Iranian and Russian oil tycoons while lobbying US officials on sanctions policy. — Bloomberg
• The US attempted to enlist its NATO allies in a campaign to “systematically dismantle” the International Criminal Court. — Politico

Immigration

• The US Citizenship and Immigration Services said it plans to eliminate a 60-day grace period that allows skilled foreign workers to remain in the US after losing a job, requiring them to leave immediately.

Media

• Late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel said he would not broadcast his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico after being “threatened” by the Federal Communications Commission.

— Delegates serenading Vice President JD Vance at a breakfast in Dallas.

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,