Washington, DC

1. Trump orders more strikes
2. Markets rattled by Iran
3. A fraught 10 days
4. Pulte still a FISA issue
5. Lutnick questioned on dumping
6. Insulin bill momentum

All three indices plunged ▼ and oil surged ▲ above $90 per barrel on Trump’s renewed threats against Iran.

Trump resumes attacks on Iran

President Donald Trump announced the US will resume striking Iran later today, extending retaliatory attacks that began yesterday against Tehran for shooting down an Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz. “We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them again hard today,” Trump told reporters. The White House still hopes to strike a deal to end the conflict. Fox News quoted an anonymous official who said that “the talks still continue.” The US and Iran have each responded to provocations in the last three days, while attempting to avoid a return to all-out war. It’s a gambit that The Wall Street Journal concludes runs the risk of “stumbling across each other’s red lines and triggering a dangerous escalation.”

Trump: ‘I love the inflation’

News of Trump’s planned attacks on Iran sent markets plunging and oil prices rising today, just hours after new data showed elevated gas prices had driven inflation to a three-year high of 4.2% in May, outpacing hourly wage growth. Asked about the rate, Trump responded: “I love the inflation,” explaining that when the war in Iran ends, it is “going to come down like a rock.” He said that the US had funneled “millions of barrels of oil” out of the region already, in what he later described on Truth Social as a “secret mission” by the US military to support tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, which he asserted the US now “controls.” Even if Trump’s predictions come true, for now, Americans are cutting back on groceries and luxuries and growing pessimistic about the economy’s outlook.

View: The delay that captures Trump’s Hill relations

Trump signed a $70 billion immigration funding bill today, 10 days after his self-imposed deadline for his party — a relatively short delay, but one that tells a tough tale. Republicans have barely celebrated their party-line passage of the package that will keep Trump’s aggressive enforcement agenda going until he leaves office. Instead, they’re trudging through political crises that Trump’s created, from the Bill Pulte intelligence appointment to the zombie-esque persistence of the “anti-weaponization” fund. Today’s bill signing will also likely prove the last major legislative achievement before November, even as the Senate shows signs of progress on college sports and AI. Senate Majority Leader John Thune couldn’t attend the White House event because of a conflict. Trump will have to work closely with Hill Republican leaders simply to stave off a shutdown weeks before the midterms, and recent history suggests that won’t come naturally.

Hill struggles to clinch short-term surveillance deal

Senate Democrats are open to a three-week extension of an expiring surveillance law — if Aaron Lukas, deputy director of national intelligence, fills in as director for the duration of the extension, instead of Pulte. “I could be supportive as long as the legally confirmed No. 2, who’s a Trump appointee, Mr. Lukas, stays as the acting,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told Semafor. Senate Democrats hotlined the three-week extension on Wednesday to gauge whether senators would object — and it appears the answer is yes, unless Pulte is sidelined. A short-term extension would face hurdles in the House, as Speaker Mike Johnson tees up a Thursday vote. Rep. Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., said he would oppose a punt, and conservative hardliners may object as well. Though existing law expires Friday, some lawmakers believe they have more breathing room to negotiate because some surveillance programs will stay online.

— Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu

Lawmakers warn Commerce about easing trade penalties

A bipartisan group of lawmakers worry the Trump administration is going easy on foreign companies potentially involved in dumping Chinese and Russian goods in the US. Reps. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who lead the House China committee, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick today asking if the department has changed the policy of imposing maximum tariffs on foreign companies that refuse to comply with investigations into imports being dumped, or unfairly subsidized, by a foreign government. While the lawmakers said their concerns about China are “acute,” they also cited an example of the administration allegedly softening penalties on a company that didn’t cooperate with an investigation into Russian dumping of unwrought palladium. “Lowering rates despite non-cooperation from foreign competitors sends a dangerous signal to bad actors: refusing to participate in the Department’s investigations may lead to more favorable outcomes than cooperation,” reads the letter, shared first with Semafor.

— Morgan Chalfant

$35 insulin deal has 60 votes in Senate

A bipartisan insulin pricing deal in the Senate now has enough votes to clear a filibuster, according to details first shared with Semafor. Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., are newly joining the effort to lower monthly insulin prices to $35 for Americans on employer-sponsored or private insurance, a deal forged by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Kennedy, R-La., and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. Several Republicans signed on this week, and Banks is the 13th to co-sponsor the bill — a magic number in the Senate. The entire 47-member Senate Democratic Caucus is expected to support the bill, according to a person familiar with the plans, meaning it now has the needed 60 votes to overcome the filibuster and pass. There could be political benefits for both parties if the bill gets on the Senate floor this year.

— Burgess Everett

White House

• Behind the scenes, the Jeffrey Epstein files were paralyzing the Trump administration last summer. — NYT
• National Park Service documents show the Trump administration envisioning 20 hours per day of construction on President Trump’s planned DC arch.

Congress

• House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said his panel would aim to bring acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in to testify in its Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
• Bill Gates told Congress that Epstein discovered Gates had affairs during his marriage and tried to leverage that information against him, adding that he made a “grave error in judgement” in meeting with Epstein.

National Security

• The former CIA official accused of hoarding $40 million in gold bars may have also fabricated stories of being a top fighter pilot, raising questions of how he slipped through CIA vetting. — NBC News

Courts

• US Attorney Jeanine Pirro sent subpoenas to JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America to probe whether they “debanked” customers for political reasons. — WSJ
• A California state court judge denied motions by Meta and YouTube seeking a new trial after a jury found the companies liable for designing platforms that are harmful to young people.

Economy

• US consumers paid 13% more for ground beef in May compared to a year earlier, driven by the smallest US cattle herd in 75 years.

Business

• SpaceX’s IPO demand is as much as four times oversubscribed, with $250 billion of investor demand compared to the $75 billion the firm is seeking to raise. — Reuters

Technology

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he doesn’t know if his AI model played a role in a missile strike that killed approximately 120 children at an elementary school in Iran.
• OpenAI and Visa are now allowing AI agents to make purchases online after users give their permission.

World

• A US diplomat was found dead in Myanmar’s largest city, where police are treating the case as a possible homicide.
• Taiwan fired US mobile missile launchers into the strategic waters facing China for the first time.
• North Korea’s uranium-enrichment capacity could soon expand by 75% once a new facility reaches full production.

Health

• The FDA cleared a new sunscreen ingredient long used in Europe and Asia.

— Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visiting the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.

Laura McGann, editor