Washington, DC

1. Trump’s Cabinet vacancies
2. Powell probe backlash
3. Senate vote-a-rama
4. All eyes on Florida redraw
5. Strait standoff intensifies
6. No ramp-up in drilling
7. Economic confidence dips
8. Trump’s podcaster problem

PDB: Dems get a polling boost

Trump takes part in an event on health care affordability … Greer testifies before Senate Finance Committee … S&P 500 Futures ⬇️ 0.5%

GOP pushed Trump to fill Cabinet vacancies

Senate Republicans want President Donald Trump to fill his attorney general and labor secretary vacancies with Senate-confirmed nominees, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. There’s a twist: His acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, might not make it out of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee if nominated. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is already blocking Fed nominee Kevin Warsh over the Trump administration’s investigation of current Chair Jerome Powell, said Blanche is in “dangerous waters” when it comes to statements about Jan. 6 pardons. “The principle here is that anybody who didn’t back the blue on January 6 is disqualified from consideration for me in the Judiciary Committee,” Tillis said. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is urging the administration to nominate acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling to the permanent role. And Republicans have a new vacancy to contemplate: Navy Secretary John Phelan was dismissed from his role on Wednesday night.

Republican backlash to Powell probe grows

Senate Republicans have an increasingly clear message for the Trump administration: If the president wants a new Federal Reserve chair, federal prosecutors need to drop their investigation into Powell, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller reports. With nominee Kevin Warsh’s hearing in the rearview, GOP lawmakers are becoming more forthright in their opposition to the Justice Department probe — even if Tillis is still the only one threatening a “no” vote. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Wednesday matched Tillis’ double-down, telling reporters her investigation into the Fed’s renovations “continues.” Amid the stalemate, Tillis’ GOP colleagues are increasingly signaling their support for an offramp — “any offramp,” per Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn. — that might allow them to confirm Warsh before Powell’s term as chair ends next month. Publicly and privately, they’re hitting one thing hard: For Warsh to take the helm, Pirro must back off.

Senate approves border, ICE budget

Senate Republicans passed their budget resolution just after 3 am this morning, 50-48, setting the stage for Republicans to write a party-line bill spending tens of billions of dollars on Trump’s immigration enforcement. Two Republicans opposed the resolution: Moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and conservative Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Republicans fended off Democrats’ amendments on cost-of-living issues to keep the budget reconciliation process narrow, though there were scattered GOP defections. The House must pass a budget resolution next, then Republicans plan to send roughly $75 billion to ICE and border protection agencies in May, hoping to frontload their coffers for the rest of Trump’s presidency. Now, senators and the Trump administration want the House to pass the Senate-passed bill funding the rest of the Department of Homeland Security ASAP to end the 69-day shutdown.

— Burgess Everett

Florida redistricting divides Republicans

Florida might redraw its congressional maps to add red seats after Virginia voters cleared the way this week for a Democratic gerrymander. But some in the state’s Republican delegation are warning they won’t be able to squeeze that many more seats out. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said they could add two seats and “three if we’re feeling froggy, but I think we shouldn’t overextend ourselves to put people in valuable positions.” And Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., said it was “up to [state legislators]. I mean, I have enough work.” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters: “Florida has the right and the intention to do it. And my view is that they should.” The state is hamstrung in its redistricting efforts despite a Republican trifecta by a constitutional amendment barring maps favoring a specific party. Democrats are warning a Florida gerrymander will backfire on Republicans.

— Nicholas Wu

Standoff intensifies in Strait of Hormuz

Iran tightened its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, as peace talks with the US still appear far off. Just one ship passed through the waterway Tuesday; on Wednesday, more ships tried, and Iran attacked two and reportedly seized two more. The White House played down the episode, but it demonstrated Tehran’s continuing stranglehold, The New York Times reported. Progress toward reopening the passage remains stalled: Iran’s chief negotiator said the US blockade was “bullying” and a “flagrant breach of the ceasefire,” adding that negotiations would not resume with it in place. Trump said the blockade would continue, but he may be on the clock: Presidents can wage war without Congressional approval for 60 days, a deadline which expires May 1.

Energy disruptions won’t trigger drilling

US oil executives say energy market disruption stemming from the Iran war will get significantly worse — but they’re not ready to ramp up drilling to counteract it. The growing gap between high prices for oil delivered today, and significantly lower prices for oil delivered in the future, reflects Wall Street’s view that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened soon. But the far end of that price curve “is lying to us,” Kaes Van’t Hof, CEO of Diamondback Energy, said during an energy summit at Columbia University, because it underplays the likelihood of forthcoming supply shortages affecting energy users like airlines. Low futures prices also deter drilling investment, which is anyway inadequate to the scale of the disruption, Van’t Hof said: “I do think you’ll see US production respond slightly, but it’s like putting a garden hose into an emptied Olympic-sized swimming pool.”

— Tim McDonnell

War hits US economic confidence

Americans have grown more pessimistic about the US economy in the weeks since the US-Israel war with Iran began, underscoring a key challenge for the White House as it looks to blunt the impact of rising gas prices and other goods. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index dropped 11 points since March, reaching its lowest point since November 2023, when the Biden administration was grappling with stubborn inflation. Confidence in the economy is dipping across political parties, too, with Republicans’ confidence score dropping 15 points between March and April. Forty-seven percent of US adults say the current economic conditions are poor, while only 21% call them excellent or good. And there’s little optimism about the future: 73% say the economy is getting worse, while 53% say it’s a bad time to invest in the stock market.

Trump’s podcaster problem runs deep

Joe Rogan may be moving past his feud with Trump over the Iran war, but he’s an outlier in the broader universe of podcasters voicing dissent as the conflict nears the two-month mark. Of the 14 longform “bro” podcasts Trump appeared on during his 2024 campaign, eight of the hosts have questioned or criticized the war, while just two have endorsed it, Semafor’s Lauren Morganbesser writes. One example is Theo Von, an actor and comedian who endorsed Trump in 2024 after having him on his show — and who recently called the war “f*cking baffling.” The broader “manosphere,” made up of hyper-masculine content creators that range from less explicitly political bro-casters to conservative figures like Tucker Carlson, has increasingly lashed out at Trump over a range of issues, including the war. That criticism risks becoming a problem for Republicans as the midterm elections near.

Why The Washington Post lost in Virginia

There were many losers in Virginia’s vote to approve a gerrymandered, Democratic map, Semafor’s David Weigel writes. Trump kept his super PAC wallet closed, quietly angering Republicans. Four members of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s GOP majority now face near-certain defeat in November. And Virginia Republicans, who wanted to prove that they could win again, proved that they can’t. Democrats feel more conflicted about another loser: The editorial board of The Washington Post. The publication was an early critic of their power play, publishing take after disappointed take about the “brazenly dishonest” campaign for “fair” elections. The argument didn’t move votes in the DC suburbs, where the Post is the hometown newspaper, and where “yes” won by a landslide. The consensus among Democrats is that a Post editorial against one of their priorities and amplified by Republicans would have mattered five or 10 years ago. Not in 2026.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson, is spending a massive $153 million on fall ad buys, as Republicans race to hold on to their majority in the chamber.

Playbook: “He’s in a bad mood, so he’s letting a lot of them go,” one senator said of President Trump’s Cabinet clearout. “He’s preparing to really let a lot of them go.”

Axios: “I think it is a mistake in hindsight,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said of Republicans’ redistricting push. “They thought they could just do Texas and nobody else is gonna respond? … We started a war.”

White House

• White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is telling officials to keep foreign travel to a minimum. — Politico
• One of President Trump’s senior White House aides, Alex Meyer, is leaving to join the president’s outside political operation. — Axios

Campaigns

• Democrats have a six-point advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report’s