Washington, DC

1. GOP money moves
2. No permitting deal, yet
3. Collins confronts Vought
4. TV pool goes dark
5. Trump meets Macron

Entering September, the RNC had $126 million in cash on hand while the DNC was $750,000 in the red.

Republican group slashes ad spending in NC Senate race

The Republican super PAC Old North Action has removed $6.5 million in ad reservations from North Carolina’s Senate race for the month of October, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. That decision comes after Semafor reported Republicans are weighing their commitment to the race as Republican candidate Michael Whatley trails former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in polls. The group still has $14.5 million in reservations on the books through Election Day. Senate Leadership Fund, the main GOP Senate super PAC, also shuffled some of its reservations, removing $900,000 in broadcast buys in the state while adding $400,000 in digital ads — moves it said are part of a regular rebalance of ad buys to maximize viewership — and is set to launch new ads in North Carolina as it spends millions a week there.

Permitting reform hopes start to fade

Bipartisan permitting reform talks are hitting a wall, raising doubts about whether lawmakers can clinch a deal before the midterms, according to multiple people familiar with the talks. Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., wanted to have a deal in hand at the start of this week in order to put a bill on the floor after the Senate finishes the bipartisan college sports bill. That hasn’t happened, and people in both parties are growing increasingly bearish on a pre-election breakthrough. One bright side: The lack of public statements and blame-shifting at the moment suggests the key players haven’t totally given up, and lame-duck action is possible. Still, the Senate experienced a similar dynamic during the last midterms; the two parties failed to reach a deal before the election, but then rejected bipartisan permitting legislation after it.

— Burgess Everett

Collins challenges NIH grant review plan

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is again confronting the White House on National Institutes of Health grant decision-making, calling on Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to drop his push to assert greater control over the NIH’s grant process. “Imposing a political review on awards that have already been selected through a rigorous scientific and merit-based process undermines the long-standing principle that the government funds awards based on scientific need and merit, rather than political ideology,” Collins said today. Earlier this year, Collins used her position atop the appropriations committee to block OMB’s broader grantmaking regulation from coming into force. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, she’s called hearings on biomedical research and successfully pushed back against NIH funding cuts. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., her counterpart on the committee, also criticized the idea.

— David Lim

Networks suspend pool coverage after Trump revokes CNN credentials

TV networks banded together against Trump’s ban of CNN, MSNOW, and Politico today, declining to replace CNN in the pool rotation — and interrupting decades of continuous coverage of the presidency. “Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president. This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” Bryan Boughton, the Fox News Washington bureau chief, said. “There will be no replacement pool put in place.” The White House X account encouraged Americans to download the White House app to watch a stream of the president. The three news outlets that lost credentials filed a lawsuit this morning, which was assigned to the Trump-appointed judge who sided with Jim Acosta in 2018 when he challenged the loss of his White House credentials.

Trump’s UN meetings signal renewed focus on Ukraine

Trump will try to advance his push to wind down Russia’s war in Ukraine at the United Nations, beginning first with a meeting this evening with French President Emmanuel Macron. Ukraine is expected to be high on the agenda. There also may be some tension due to France’s attempt to pull Canada closer amid its trade spat with the US. Macron plans to approach the meeting “with total candor,” a French official told AFP. Both leaders are also expected to meet separately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the summit in New York. Zelenskyy’s top negotiator sounded optimistic in an interview with Axios, calling the trend of peace talks “positive.” Trump’s signing of a sweeping Russia sanctions bill has given Ukraine renewed confidence, but he has simultaneously pressured Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian refineries.

On Tuesday, September 22 in New York City, H.E. William Samoei Ruto, President of the Republic of Kenya, will join us for The Next 3 Billion.

Semafor will bring together leaders including H.E. Judith Suminwa, Prime Minister, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organization; Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General, CEO and Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact; James Manyika, SVP, Research, Labs, Technology & Society, Google-Alphabet; and more to explore how AI, energy, and global development can expand access, unlock opportunity, and drive inclusive growth across the world’s fastest-growing regions.

September 22 | New York City | Watch Livestream

White House

• First lady Melania Trump’s office announced a welcome event for Chinese leader Xi Jinping that will “conclude with a military flyover featuring a B-2 Spirit and four F-22 Raptors.”
• The Trump administration is considering investing $5 billion in a new fund to help the Gulf rebuild energy infrastructure damaged during the Iran war and reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. — WSJ

Immigration

• The Trump administration has authorized or pledged at least $410 million to facilitate third-country deportation agreements for migrants with 31 countries as of the end of June. — WaPo

Campaigns

• Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, is endorsing incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., for reelection.
• The Senate Leadership Fund, a top Senate Republican PAC, is warning donors that the party faces a high risk of losing a Senate seat in Iowa. — Bloomberg
• The cryptocurrency industry’s main super PAC, Fairshake, plans to spend $30 million targeting Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown of Ohio after Democrats blocked a major crypto bill. — NYT
• Brown immediately fundraised off the news and said outside spending cost him his seat in 2024.

Economy

• An oil tanker shortage caused by disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz is driving shipping costs to record highs.

Business

• Paramount reached a settlement with a group of state attorneys general, clearing the way for the $81 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. — WSJ

Foreign Policy

• President Trump said the US is working on a “massive deal” with Belarus to purchase more potash, a critical ingredient in fertilizers, for “substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada.”
• Russian leader Vladimir Putin plans to travel to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit but will likely skip the G20 in the US with Trump. — Bloomberg

Outside the Beltway

• Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker revealed he has lost 80 pounds with the help of a GLP-1 weight loss medication. — Chicago Sun Times
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut a fiber line in New Jersey, causing a telecom outage and prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to ground flights from JFK, LaGuardia, and other major airports.

— Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, on whether Pentagon funding should be used for President Trump’s proposed triumphal arch.

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, Ashley Gold, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, Nicholas Wu, David Weigel, David Lim