1. Midterms blame game
2. Clayton rising
3. Russia sanctions pressure
4. Dems’ Gaza test
5. CBS and AES
6. Peptides push

PDB: Trump backs Bibi

Trump heads to Kansas … Alberta holds separation referendum … Macron pleads for calm after riots rock France

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White House allies’ midterms blame game

Trump administration officials and allies are starting to debate who will shoulder the blame if Republicans perform poorly in November. The White House has witnessed an uptick in drama driven by the midterms, from maneuvering to replace chief of staff Susie Wiles to finger-pointing at James Blair, President Donald Trump’s outside adviser whose recent work trip to Republika Srpska frustrated the president. Wiles seems safe; Trump has issued multiple emphatic endorsements of his chief of staff. Some suggest Blair will get blamed, though his tension with Trump has subsided for now. Others predict Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could draw ire due to the unpopular Iran war. It all depends on how Republicans measure up to the dire predictions — sources close to the White House say Republicans holding onto the Senate is likely to satisfy Trump at this point. The White House dismissed the talk as “armchair” speculation.

— Shelby Talcott

The national intelligence chief steering AI

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton has received mostly positive marks so far in Washington as chair of the Trump administration’s AI task force, which is focusing on using current law to get AI companies to behave responsibly. A number of people familiar with Clayton’s work tell Semafor his experience at the SEC and Office of the Director of National Intelligence aligns well with the two areas threatened the most by advanced AI: finance and national security. “He is hyper-competent and a problem-solver with good instincts, and that’s why he’s so valued,” one former White House official told Semafor. “He’s just a guy who doesn’t f*ck up and delivers results that they need and want, and so they just keep promoting him, because there aren’t a lot of those.”

— Ashley Gold

Trump faces blowback on Russia sanctions

Trump is standing by his decision to waive Russia sanctions despite mounting pressure from his party to reverse course. On Truth Social, Trump said he doesn’t “want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table” in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News that he told the White House the move could have “unintended consequences,” referencing “concerns” among members of his caucus. “Capitulating to a bully generally means they’re going to make more demands going forward,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told CBS. The decision disappointed Europe, but wasn’t necessarily a surprise, given Trump’s recent hostility toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin, meanwhile, has pitched a summit with Trump and Xi to talk about the war, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Democrats face Gaza litmus test

In a matter of weeks, when the midterm results are tallied and the next campaign begins, Democrats with presidential dreams know the question will be coming: Do Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide? The question flew at Democrats all year, Semafor’s David Weigel writes. Progressives generally said “yes.” Pro-Israel Democrats said “no.” But as potential Democratic 2028 contenders fan out across the country this month, campaigning with battleground Democrats and building their win/loss scorecards, just two have replied in the affirmative to the question: Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. “Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and we should have the courage to say so,” Khanna said at the DNC’s summer meeting in Texas. The question hasn’t dominated the last few weeks of campaigning, but it nevertheless looms over the party’s first wide-open primaries in eight years.

Concerns at CBS News over El-Sayed coverage

A year into Bari Weiss’ stint as editor-in-chief of CBS News, the politics of the Middle East and the conflict in Israel and Gaza remain red-hot topics internally — and in recent weeks, she has been particularly focused on one midterm race, Semafor’s Max Tani reports. Weiss has been pushing her newsroom to pursue numerous stories related to the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, and his purported familial links to the Muslim Brotherhood. She has discussed the topic on editorial calls, tasked CBS News’ investigative unit with combing through El-Sayed’s background for a potential link to the organization, and was directly involved in a controversial story about his previous posts comparing the COVID-19 death toll to 9/11. Meanwhile, some CBS News staff have privately grumbled that Weiss hasn’t extended the same enthusiastic scrutiny to other candidates on the right.

Peptide group to meet with White House

A pending regulation under White House review could expand access to peptides, largely unregulated substances that are popular with wellness influencers and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In July, a panel of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration — which included individuals with connections to the peptide industry — narrowly recommended adding several peptides to the agency’s list of products that can be compounded, or mixed at pharmacies, despite concerns from FDA scientists. The American Academy of Peptide Medicine is slated to meet with the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday to discuss the pending regulation. Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding CEO Scott Brunner said Friday that the notice could be “potentially significant, but we don’t yet know what the policy says, which peptides it covers, or what conditions FDA may attach to their compounding.”

— David Lim

Blindspot: Voter fraud and Zacharia

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

What the Left isn’t reading: Five noncitizens were arrested by federal authorities in New York on charges of alleged voter fraud late last week.

What the Right isn’t reading: Short-lived White House press secretary Katie Zacharia posted two photos of her and President Trump on social media that appeared to have been edited to obscure an image on Trump’s desk in the Oval Office, The Washington Post reported. (The image bears some resemblance to plans Trump announced Sunday for a redeveloped East Potomac Golf Links.)

Austan Goolsbee is worried about inflation. On this week’s episode of Compound Interest, presented by Amazon Business, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago warns that the AI data-center boom is driving up the cost of land, power, construction equipment, and labor, with rising prices threatening to spill over into the broader economy. Liz and Rohan sit down with Goolsbee to discuss those risks, whether hyperscalers even care about interest rates, and what a world where robots do all the jobs would mean for the Fed.

White House

• President Trump endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu as he seeks his next term as Israeli prime minister.
• Trump’s approval rating fell to a new low of 33%, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, as Americans increasingly indicate they trust Democrats more than Republicans on economic issues.