Washington, DC

1. Trump’s drug pricing push
2. Senators’ legislative rush
3. AI titans meet Xi
4. Dems probe Venezuela deal
5. F-35s for Saudi
6. Deportations scrutinized

PDB: Trump to meet with Venezuela’s Rodríguez

Trump attends MAGA Inc. dinner … NATO defense officials meet in Copenhagen … Russia holds parliamentary election

White House claims drug pricing progress

President Donald Trump is focusing on drug pricing today, with his administration set to announce all 50 states will see most-favored-nation pricing for certain drugs in Medicaid programs, according to Trump administration plans shared first with Semafor. The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates the effort will result in $27.6 billion in net savings for state governments and $36.6 billion in federal savings over 10 years. Trump will host the governors of South Dakota, Mississippi, and Arkansas in the Oval Office to tout work on lower drug prices, which Republicans hope to turn into a winning midterms message. Yet experts have questioned whether lower prices are entirely a result of Trump’s efforts, as well as whether the “GENEROUS” model for Medicaid payments would actually garner significant savings, due to the steep discounts for drugs that the program already receives.

— David Lim

Senate permitting talks hit a turning point

Senators want to hit the campaign trail for the fall, but first they have to figure out how much they want to get done before the election. Negotiators are close to agreeing on a bipartisan permitting reform deal, but they also have to get through a college sports bill that will take up all of next week — absent a deal among all 100 senators to speed things up. Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Semafor that while she’s “optimistic” about the permitting deal, “it’s got to pop out of here in the next 48 hours.” Asked about that timeline, ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., “wouldn’t rule it out.” And Majority Leader John Thune still could hold a roll-call vote on a data center power bill that Democrats blocked on Thursday.

— Burgess Everett

AI titans to attend Xi White House dinner

AI safety worries are hanging over Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington next week, which is attracting big names in the tech world. OpenAI’s Sam Altman will attend the Sept. 24 state dinner that Trump is hosting for Xi, Semafor has confirmed, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Apple’s Tim Cook are reportedly attending too. There are also discussions about an adjacent White House meeting with AI CEOs next week, which House Speaker Mike Johnson referenced, but a representative for the speaker declined to provide further details. Still, it remains to be seen whether Trump and Xi will respond to calls for their countries to cooperate on AI safety. Officials from both sides have expressed skepticism about AI regulation in recent days, with Trump citing the need to stay ahead of China in AI development as a reason for avoiding guardrails.

— Ashley Gold

Dems press State, DOJ on Venezuela oil deal

Top House Democrats are pressing the Trump administration for answers on the oil deal struck with Venezuela, homing in on the role of Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. “Congress has a right to know who the president has chosen to conduct business with and whether he is collaborating with an alleged criminal with a history of white-collar misdeeds,” wrote the top Democrats on three committees — Reps. Robert Garcia of the Oversight Committee, Gregory Meeks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Jared Huffman of the House Natural Resources Committee — in a letter to the State and Justice Departments that was shared with Semafor. Although the Trump administration has no legal obligation to respond to the letter, the three Democrats are likely to be chairs if the House flips this fall, giving them the power to subpoena the Trump administration next Congress.

— Nicholas Wu

Saudi notches a win with F-35 sale

The State Department’s approval of the proposed $24.3 billion sale of 48 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia represents a major victory for the kingdom, as Riyadh seeks US support amid increased attacks from Iran-backed groups. The sale must still undergo congressional review, where it will likely face opposition. The announcement comes nearly two months after Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman traveled to Washington to lobby senior Trump administration officials on the sale, with Riyadh hoping to advance the deal ahead of the midterms. Earlier this month, the administration announced a separate conventional arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced a joint resolution of disapproval targeting that proposed sale. A senator could move to force a vote on the measure after 10 days, a Markey spokesperson said.

— Lauren Morganbesser

Dems target third-country deportations

Democrats are warning that the Trump administration’s secretive third-country deportation program could face a full congressional investigation if the party wins the majority in one or both chambers in November. The warnings follow two recent flashpoints: In Equatorial Guinea, police were filmed pointing guns at migrants deported from the US during a dispute at a hotel housing deportees. Separately, the administration deported an Afghan man to the Central African Republic despite a prior judicial protection order over fears his family could face Taliban retaliation. “The Trump administration’s abuse of third-country deportation deals is abhorrent, and is a betrayal of due process and our obligations under US and international law,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He pledged to “continue to investigate this matter.”

— Adrian Elimian

Will human touch become the scarcest thing on the internet? Pangram CEO Max Spero thinks so. On this week’s episode of Mixed Signals, Spero joins Max and Ben to explain how his AI detection tool actually works, and why he thinks the escalating cat-and-mouse game between detectors and “humanizers” is a fight worth having. They ask Spero how Pangram can already distinguish Claude from ChatGPT, why he built a humanizer internally and refuses to release it, and what it would actually take for a fine-tuned personal AI to fool his model.

Debatable: New Russia penalties

Trump will soon be able to impose steep penalties on Russia’s trading partners to tighten the vise on Moscow amid its war on Ukraine. The bipartisan bill authorizes tariffs on countries that purchase Russian energy, like China and India. But the measure attracted opposition from business groups, plus some Democrats, who warned about broad new tariff powers. “Trump has done nothing to prove he should be trusted with even more tariff power as he forces the people to grapple with higher costs and punitive trade wars,” said Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. However, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a lead bill sponsor, described the tariffs as “narrowly scoped.” “Only the top five importers of Russian oil will be tariffed, and if a country falls off of the top-five list, the tariffs are removed,” he said.

— Morgan Chalfant

White House

• President Trump is planning on meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting leader, as soon as next week. — Axios
• Trump spoke with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum about a trade deal, but a person familiar said the conversation was “so-so.” — Politico
• Trump said he has a “big decision coming up” on whether to escalate combat in the Iran war. — Axios

Congress

• Lawmakers from both parties on the Senate Armed Services Committee panned Pentagon official Elbridge Colby’s latest classified briefing as lacking in details on issues from the Iran war to whether the Trump administration could deploy the National Guard to polling places.
• Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., asked the FTC to investigate Amazon and Walmart’s shopping chatbots, arguing they suppress US-made goods.

Outside the Beltway

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to take further government action on AI before he leaves office. — Politico
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called for stronger AI safeguards.
• The Trump administration said that killing endangered animals by accident during activities like logging, for instance, is not illegal, unless the species was specifically targeted.

Campaigns

• Democratic consultants are warning AI-critical candidates that a “tidal wave” of campaign spending from tech groups could come for them ahead of the midterms. — Politico
• The Cook Political Report changed its rating of Alaska’s gubernatorial race from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.”