Washington, DC

1. Anti-Trump billboards
2. Dems focus on prices
3. GOP’s image disadvantage
4. The burden of office
5. Guilfoyle’s shaky future
6. Trump vs. Europe
7. AI mandate questions

PDB: Omar’s DC home searched

Trump heads to Alaska … Zacharia takes podium for first briefing as press secretary … Pope Leo XIV undergoes surgery

Anti-Trump billboards hit the heartland

Drivers in three key swing states are about to see even more billboards blaming President Donald Trump for rising prices, according to details shared first with Semafor. Home of the Brave is nearly doubling its billboard campaign in Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa, adding $1 million in new billboards on top of the $1.25 million the group already spent. The new plans bring the group’s total billboards across those three states to more than 350. The billboards hit Trump for higher grocery prices, ding Republicans for supporting Trump’s tariffs, and link gas prices to the unpopular Iran war. They’re intended to help Democratic Senate and House candidates that will determine congressional control. “Job number one is winning back Congress. Once we do that, we can start finally holding this administration accountable,” said Home of the Brave advisory board member Sarah Longwell.

— Burgess Everett

Swing-district Dems keep focus on prices

New controversies concerning the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and foreign lobbying aren’t steering Democrats away from their focus on affordability in the final three weeks before the midterms. “Billionaires are better off, but certainly the average people living here in Bucks County are not, and so people are tired of it,” said Bob Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner running to unseat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., in one of the swingiest districts in the country. Harvie is trying to link Fitzpatrick to Trump and national Republicans, though the incumbent has maintained an independent streak in Congress, including by voting against Republicans’ domestic policy megabill. Following last week’s ICE shooting in New York, Harvie said, “what people see is a government that really is run through chaos, which is what Donald Trump specializes in, and Brian Fitzpatrick sits and watches it happen.”

— Nicholas Wu

Dems edge out GOP on image, issues

More Americans believe that the Democratic Party is better positioned than the GOP to ensure the US remains prosperous and to protect the nation against terror attacks, according to new Gallup polling that underscores Democrats’ advantage on image ahead of the midterms. Forty-three percent of Americans view Democrats favorably, compared with 35% who view Republicans positively; importantly, Democrats have a solid advantage among independents. Slightly more than half of Americans say Democrats would do a better job keeping the country prosperous, while only 37% believe Republicans would — the largest lead Democrats have enjoyed on this question in nearly 20 years. Americans are also more likely to view the GOP as too conservative than they are to view the Democrats as too liberal, and view the MAGA movement less favorably than the Democratic Socialists of America.

Why would anyone want to be president?

On May 13, 2022, then-White House Middle East envoy Brett McGurk asked his boss how he liked his job. Joe Biden, he’d noticed, had been a chatty, expressive vice president, but had grown quieter in a way that wasn’t just about his age. “There’s no joy in it,” Biden responded. “That’s the difference. No joy in this job.” McGurk’s new memoir cataloguing two grim years of trying to negotiate between American and regional officials is, among other things, a set of portraits of miserable world leaders; only the “smug” and inscrutable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t obviously unhappy. This narrative of the woes of leadership could serve as a cautionary tale for the few dozen men and women of both parties currently searching their souls and consulting their spouses about whether to run for president.

Trump weighs Guilfoyle’s future

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s future as US ambassador to Greece is in question following misconduct allegations, multiple sources tell Semafor. “I think [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio has had enough,” one Trump administration official said. “Question is, has Trump, and will he sign off on it.” Trump on Monday alluded to his own frustrations over the reports, which include allegations that Guilfoyle tried to solicit money from a donor to pay off her credit card ahead of her confirmation process (Guilfoyle has denied the story). “We’re looking at it,” Trump said when asked whether he’s spoken to Guilfoyle and if he’s considering firing her. “We’re not happy.” Guilfoyle, one person familiar with the situation added, has been making calls to various figures in Trumpworld for help amid the drama.

— Shelby Talcott

US vexes Europe with Russia moves

Europe is once again at odds with the Trump administration over Ukraine. Officials across the Atlantic were perturbed by Trump’s diesel deal with Russia, which will help prop up the Russian economy at a time when Western countries are seeking to erode it. “We would call on US to put the sanctions in place so that actually we could finish this war,” said the EU’s top diplomat. And Trump has reportedly threatened to cut Ukraine off from US intelligence-sharing and weapons as he fumes over Ukraine’s strikes on Russian fuel refineries and rising US domestic energy prices (caused in part by the Iran war). Making good on those threats would undermine Ukraine ahead of the winter months and put more pressure on Europe to fill the gap. Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine over the weekend, but it doesn’t appear to be sticking.

Trump AI directive sparks questions

The newly minted Super Intelligence Task Force is telling AI companies to report and immediately remediate any instances of rogue behavior involving their products, a rare effort by the Trump administration to exert more power over the firms developing the advanced technology. An Anthropic incident in which a testing model submitted visa applications, according to a State Department spokesman, spurred the task force’s first “action,” which it’s referring to as a “notification and remediation process.” Frontier AI labs largely do this sort of disclosure and incident reporting already, and Trump’s task force has not laid out exactly what will count as an “incident” that must be reported going forward. Still, the administration’s decision to make an example of Anthropic is likely to trigger more disclosures than before.

— Ashley Gold

Blindspot: ‘Communists’ and tariffs

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets.

What the Left isn’t reading: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer accused the Democratic Party of running “communists” as midterm candidates.

What the Right isn’t reading: Factory workers are struggling under the Trump administration’s tariffs, The Associated Press reported.

Sam Altman, Co-Founder & CEO, OpenAI, has joined Silicon Valley & The World as a Co-Chair, for a first-of-its-kind, multiyear initiative connecting the leaders building transformative technologies with the policymakers shaping their deployment.

The initiative brings together leaders across technology, business, finance, and public policy to foster dialogue, generate new ideas, and move the conversation beyond debate toward action on the decisions shaping the global AI economy.

White House

• President Trump has expressed hesitation about livestreaming the execution by firing squad of a mass shooter. — Axios

Congress

• House Speaker Mike Johnson intends to stay on as Republican leader if his party loses control of the House. — CBS

Outside the Beltway

• Montana’s state Democratic Party chair resigned and endorsed independent Senate hopeful Seth Bodnar over Democratic contender Alani Bankhead.
• Republican Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton was filmed partying with two US fugitives and a girlfriend in Dubai in 2024. — WSJ