Principals

1. Crime bill gets underway
2. Kimmel forced off air
3. Trump-era dramas abound
4. TikTok deal scrutiny
5. Fed eyes path forward
6. Manchin stirs the pot
7. Grenell’s Venezuela stance

PDB: Trump backs House govt funding bill

Trump says he’ll designate antifa a terror group … Trump and Starmer to meet business executives … Bank of England expected to hold rates

GOP working on Trump’s crime bill

It’s not just talk from President Donald Trump — Republicans are actually working on that “comprehensive” crime bill the president has teased, Semafor’s Burgess Everett, Eleanor Mueller and Shelby Talcott report. Both Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley and a White House official confirmed discussions about legislation are underway, and House members said Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is interested as well. “Addressing violent crime has always been a priority for President Trump, you can expect that to continue. We are looking at a wide range of options,” said the White House official. It’s starting to sound like a serious, but tough, effort. Passing a bill will take a few months and a ton of work, likely to start after the shutdown fight. That’s both because Republicans will have difficulty uniting on the issue and because getting Democratic support for a Trump priority will prove near impossible.

Why the White House forced out Kimmel

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s speedy pressure campaign to take Jimmy Kimmel off ABC for comments he made after Kirk’s death marks “an inflection point” in the Trump administration’s conflict with the media, one executive told Status. Disney caved under pressure from, among others, the station group Nexstar, which is seeking approval for a major acquisition. Behind Carr’s brute force, Semafor’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith writes, is a rejection of the traditional idea that the government is the main threat to free speech. “The greatest threat that we have seen over the last several years really has come from large social media companies,” Carr said at the Semafor Media Summit in February. This administration is full of people whose defining experience in politics was getting tossed off a social platform, and they now have no patience for their enemies’ complaints about government overreach, Ben argues.

Trump admin grapples with personnel clashes

Trump’s chief of staff vowed in January to avoid the infighting that marked his first-term White House. And by most Republican accounts, today’s Trump White House is running more smoothly. But around the administration, personnel clashes are erupting at a chaotic clip — from battles among Trump economic advisers to the influence of a polarizing ex-DHS aide to the exodus of a Senate-confirmed IRS chief and the CDC’s leader (as showcased in a Wednesday Senate hearing). “It suggests, perhaps, that more vetting needs to be done,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who praised ousted CDC chief Susan Monarez. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the administration has “the best and most qualified HHS team in modern history,” citing new nutrition guidelines, changes to drug ads, and limiting artificial food ingredients, “with more progress in store.”

Shelby Talcott contributed reporting.

TikTok deal attracts scrutiny

The US and China have yet to formally ink a deal to preserve Americans’ access to TikTok, but at least one member of Trump’s own party is already hesitating. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., who chairs the House China select committee, raised concerns about reports that a US TikTok spinoff would still rely on the Chinese algorithm developed by ByteDance, suggesting that arrangement would run afoul of the law. “Congress set clear legal safeguards for a deal, including precluding any cooperation with ByteDance or its affiliates on TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, and prohibiting any ongoing operational relationship between a new TikTok and ByteDance,” he said in a statement. A White House official told Semafor Trump’s “top priority is safeguarding our national and economic security” and dismissed the criticism as “based on speculative and unconfirmed news reports.”

— Morgan Chalfant

Fed poised to lower housing costs

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it could cut interest rates two more times this year, which would put the central bank on track to lower housing costs in a big win for Trump — even as his former adviser, Fed Governor Stephen Miran, argued for a more aggressive policy. Though the Fed itself does not set mortgage rates, “our policy rate changes do tend to” affect them indirectly, Chair Jerome Powell said, after officials voted to cut interest rates by a quarter-point. Still, it’s not a sure thing: Seven out of 19 officials penciled in no more cuts this year, and just one won’t be enough. “Most analysts think it would have to be pretty big changes… to matter a lot for the housing sector,” Powell said. He added that “there’s a deeper problem… and that just is a pretty much nationwide housing shortage.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Manchin pans Dem shutdown strategy

Joe Manchin isn’t a senator anymore, but he’s not stepping back from public life either. The longtime Democrat — now an independent — is out with his new tome, Dead Center, which recounts his life story and the juicy internal discord between him and Democratic Senate leaders and presidents. He’s also not super enthusiastic about his old party’s new shutdown strategy of opposing Republicans’ short-term spending bill, he told Semafor’s Burgess Everett in an interview on Wednesday. “They’re going to be blamed for shutting it down,” Manchin said. “Why would they want to put themselves in that position? They don’t have leverage on those types of things.” Manchin also praised the position of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on the shutdown, questioned Trump’s response to Charlie Kirk’s killing, and wouldn’t reveal who he voted for in 2024.

Grenell floats Caracas ‘diplomacy’

As the Trump administration continues its aggressive posturing against Venezuela and drug cartels in the region, Trump’s special envoy Ric Grenell struck a notably different tone during remarks at CPAC Paraguay this week: “I’ve been to see Nicolás Maduro,” Grenell said. “I’ve sat across from him, I’ve articulated the America First position. I understand what he wants. I believe that we can still have a deal, I believe in diplomacy, I believe in avoiding war.” The White House didn’t respond to repeated clarification requests about whether Grenell’s comments reflect the administration’s stance. This isn’t the first time that Grenell, who played a pivotal role in bringing back Americans imprisoned in Venezuela earlier this year, has offered up a perspective that cuts against the administration’s stances. That may be why Secretary of State Marco Rubio ultimately edged him out on the portfolio.

— Shelby Talcott

Blindspot: Kirk and Gaza

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: A student at Texas State University was expelled after video captured him mocking Charlie Kirk’s death.

What the Right isn’t reading: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. 

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization, will join the stage at The Next 3 Billion — the premier US summit focused on closing the global digital divide. Semafor editors will sit down with global executives and thought leaders to highlight the economic, social, and global impact of bringing the next 3 billion people online.

Sept. 24, 2025 | New York City | Delegate Application →

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, is getting closer to entering Texas’ heated Senate Republican primary after spending months seeking to raise his profile with ads across the state.

Playbook: Seventy-two percent of likely voters in 2026 battleground districts support extending Obamacare tax credits, an Impact Research poll found, with support consistent across the political spectrum.

WaPo: How Democrats frame the government shutdown fight could make a major difference in who voters end up blaming if lawmakers fail to find a path forward, Erica Seifert of liberal group Navigator Research said.

Axios: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei put the chance that the future of AI goes “really, really badly” at 25%, while his co-founder Jack Clark called that doomy statistic “a choice that we make and a choice that we make in policy.”

White House

• President Trump officially backed the House’s spending bill, with the administration stating that opposing it “is an endorsement of a senseless Government shutdown that the American people will not stand for,” Burgess Everett reports.