Washington, DC

1. Trump’s Hormuz tolls
2. Russia sanctions challenge
3. Graham replacement watch
4. House GOP struggles
5. Warsh faces grilling
6. Trump’s Libya push
7. NY pauses data centers
8. Waning US institutions

PDB: Trump to attend World Cup final

Trump meets Iraqi prime minister … Supreme Court justices Barrett and Kagan testify on Capitol Hill … Oil prices ▲ 10%, biggest one-day rise since 2020

Trump ‘very serious’ about Hormuz toll

President Donald Trump is “very serious” about his plan to impose a 20% toll on cargo transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a White House official told Semafor. The US president has long flirted with the idea of charging a toll, wondering back in April “why shouldn’t” his administration do so. But Trump doesn’t always follow through with his musings, and until this week, he resisted formally announcing that plan — in part due to opposition from some in his orbit. “People tried to talk him out of it,” the official said. It’s not yet clear how such a fee system, which Trump has tied to a renewed naval blockade, would work, or whether the US has even consulted with Gulf states; details of the plan are still being ironed out, the official said, as the US launches more strikes against Iran over attacks on commercial shipping.

— Shelby Talcott

Graham’s Russia sanctions meet reality

The late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spent well over a year trying to sway Trump to back his Russia sanctions bill, culminating in a new proposal last week. The White House says the president supports it as part of a push to make it law after Graham’s death, but it’s still not guaranteed to pass, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. “Slam dunks are getting tougher in the United States Senate,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., a supporter of the sanctions legislation, told Semafor. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he will “absolutely” fight it over worries it would disrupt global trade; there are other bills competing for floor time and some senators want Trump to more forcefully back it. “He needs to say that he supports it personally,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Trump told reporters on Monday that “we’re talking about” the bill.

Senate weighs filling Graham’s seats

The Senate is still reeling from Graham’s death, and GOP leaders will soon have to turn to the weighty question of who will fill his spots on key congressional committees. Those include Judiciary, Appropriations, Environment and Public Works, and his Budget Committee chairmanship. It’s not clear whether Graham’s committee seat on Judiciary will be filled before Todd Blanche’s nomination hearing tomorrow to be attorney general; Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, referred Semafor to Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who leads the Committee on Committees. “Those are important things to talk about, but right now we’re talking about Lindsey,” Crapo told Semafor. “Some things have to happen rather quickly, but [Leader John] Thune and I will discuss that — it may be very soon on some things. But right now it’s just remembering Lindsey.” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is the most senior member on Budget without a chairmanship.

— Burgess Everett

House Republicans struggle onward

House Republican leaders are whittling away at the opposition that stalled their agenda when they were last in DC. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., chair of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, said he’d likely vote for the “rule” to advance GOP legislation this week because “we have made some progress on getting a border security bill.” And Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, said “we’ll take a look at it,” now that Trump’s long-sought voter ID bill, the SAVE Act, is being attached to a State Department funding bill. House GOP leaders have been working to shore up support to unlock the floor and advance party priorities like a party-line budget bill. Speaker Mike Johnson met with Trump yesterday, and Vice President JD Vance was supposed to meet with House Republicans this morning but rescheduled, according to a source familiar with the situation.

— Nicholas Wu

Fed chair gets first Capitol Hill grilling

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will have his resistance to previewing interest-rate decisions tested again this morning when he appears before lawmakers for the first time since his confirmation. Warsh, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee today and the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow, will likely field questions about his recently announced task forces. He’ll be less willing to bite on whether the central bank should consider cutting interest rates while the Iran war continues to drive inflation. The Commerce Department is expected to report this morning that so-called core inflation, or inflation that excludes food and energy, continued to accelerate in June even as oil and gas prices fell. “If we get another hot reading on core inflation this week, then the [Fed] will need to consider tightening monetary policy in the near term,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said yesterday.

— Eleanor Mueller

Trump takes resource diplomacy to Libya

The Trump administration is intensifying efforts to broker a deal to end Libya’s 15-year conflict — but critics warn it could backfire by undermining a UN road map to elections and cementing the dominance of rival strongmen at the heart of Libya’s political crisis, Semafor’s Lauren Morganbesser and Adrian Elimian report. The US initiative aims to end more than a decade of political division by striking an agreement between Libya’s two rival centers of power. “The United States supports a Libyan-led, consensus-based political process toward unified governance and stability, with a path to credible national elections,” a State Department official said. Analysts, however, say the administration is prioritizing short-term stability over a long-term solution, particularly to pave the way for American oil companies to enter Libya. “This has the hallmarks of a Trump transaction,” one former Bush administration Africa official said.

NY imposes moratorium on data centers

New York will become the first US state to impose a moratorium on new data centers today, a sign of the growing blowback to the AI boom. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a centrist Democrat, is signing an executive order pausing permitting for hyperscaler data centers for a year, giving the state time to establish a regulatory framework to soften the impact on utility bills, the energy grid, and the environment. “New York will lead the way in creating the strongest standards in the nation for data center development, ensuring that when companies succeed because of New York, New Yorkers succeed too,” Hochul said. Data centers are deeply unpopular across both parties, and politicians have made them a punching bag. The news won’t land well with big AI companies hoping for a public change of heart over their crucial infrastructure.

— Morgan Chalfant

Confidence tanks in Big Tech, institutions

The share of Americans who express confidence in Big Tech sits at a new low of 20%, underscoring the challenge tech companies face as they chart a path forward on AI and other issues. The finding is contained in a Gallup poll out this morning that shows, broadly, that Americans’ confidence in 14 US institutions is sinking. A dozen of those institutions are at or near their lowest approval point in 30 years; banks and organized labor are the only exceptions. Seventeen percent of Americans have confidence in big businesses as well as newspapers, for instance, while 27% express confidence in the presidency. The numbers for Congress are especially dismal: Only 14% of Republicans have a lot of confidence in Congress despite it being controlled by the GOP, while 11% of independents and 5% of Democrats say the same.

Blindspot: Cuba and Fat Leonard

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: US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz warned that Russian and Chinese intelligence operatives in Cuba represent a threat to the US.

What the Right isn’t reading: The con man “Fat Leonard” is planning to ask for a pardon from President Trump, The Washington Post reported. 

Big law firms have run the same playbook for 50 years: hire armies of young lawyers, bill their hours at steep rates, and funnel the money up to the partners. AI is about to upend that model. On this week’s episode of Compound Interest, presented by Amazon Business, Cooley partner and CEO Rachel Proffitt joins Liz and Rohan to discuss how AI could disrupt Big Law’s sacred cow — the billable hour — by taking over the grunt work that most associates cut their teeth on. Plus, what the rainmakers of the future look like, the rise of AI-native law firms, and the paranoia sweeping the industry.

Listen to the latest episode of Compound Interest now.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: “We haven’t made any of those decisions yet,” House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, replied when asked if the tens of billions of dollars Republicans are seeking for the Pentagon would be offset by cuts elsewhere.

Playbook: Michigan Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is set to report raising more than $4.5 million in the second quarter, with a campaign spokesperson saying: “As the only candidate in the race not accepting corporate donations, grassroots donors have flocked to Abdul’s campaign, repeatedly placing him in the top five for weekly campaign donations on ActBlue.”