The House fell into uncertain territory Wednesday evening after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pulled a scheduled vote on a key budget measure in the face of intractable right-wing opposition.
Why it matters: It is not clear what Johnson's next steps are, with the speaker conceding to reporters that a Thursday vote is not assured.
The GOP speaker said he doesn't have "any intention to have us working here this weekend," but added, "If we have to come back next week, then we'll do that."
The vote was nixed after dozens of conservative fiscal hawks refused to back the Senate version of the budget blueprint that requires far fewer spending cuts than the version the House passed in February.
What we're hearing: The withdrawn vote touched off a round of internal GOP finger-pointing reminiscent of the tumultuous days of the 118th Congress.
"The speaker sadly hasn't communicated with any of us what's happening," griped one House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I don't know why they're pulling out, and that hasn't been communicated to the rest of the conference."
The lawmaker added: "It's incredibly sad, disappointing and embarrassing that once again we've pulled another piece of legislation off the floor, and it just shows how ineffective the speaker is at his job."
State of play: Johnson is now being pulled into negotiations with his right flank as he tries to find a way out of his bind.
He told reporters there are a "few different ideas on the table," including amending the Senate bill or going into what is called a conference committee to craft a compromise measure between the two chambers.
Any of those options could be non-starters with Senate Republicans — creating a rocky path for Republicans' hulking fiscal legislation.
The big picture: The self-inflicted market meltdown rattled Trump's allies across Wall Street, Silicon Valley billionaires like Elon Musk, anxious congressional Republicans and even supportive podcasters in the Manosphere.
The magnitude of the tariffs caught the markets off guard, leading some major Wall Street banks and economists to predict a recession.
Zoom in: There are a long list of Trump allies speaking out against the tariffs over the past week.
Congressional Republicans balk at tariffs
Republican lawmakers were desperate to see Trump at least nudge the brakes and calm the markets.
In a significant break with the president, at least a dozen House Republicans considered signing onto Rep. Don Bacon's (R-Neb.) bill to restrict the White House's ability to impose tariffs unilaterally, Axios reported.
The Senate had voted on a similar measure to block Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with four Republicans joining Democrats in voting yes.
57% of voters — including a quarter of Republicans — opposed the new tariffs, a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend found. 39% of Americans support them.
DOGE leader Elon Musk, who has taken a multi-billion-dollar blow to his Tesla stock, called for more free trade this weekend, envisioning "a zero-tariff situation" between the U.S. and Europe. He's also publicly sniped at Trump tariff advocate Peter Navarro.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, had warned of "economic nuclear winter"but praised Trump after announcement of the pause, saying, "This was brilliantly executed," adding, "Textbook, Art of the Deal."
Prior to the pause, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon predicted a recession and for defaults to rise as Trump's tariffs roil global financial markets.
Howard Marks, co-founder of hedge fund Oaktree Capital, told Bloomberg the tariffs brought on the "biggest change in the environment" he's observed in his career.
MAGA podcasters soured on tariffs
Popular podcasters supporting Trump also voiced displeasure with the tariffs.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said on an episode of his "All-In" podcast that he thinks "the way that the tariff plan was rolled out is about as bad a rollout as you could do." He told his 7 million YouTube subscribers that the idea that tariffs are good and make the American economy strong "is wrongheaded."
OpenAI countersued Elon Musk on Wednesday arguing in its lawsuit that he "could not tolerate seeing" the company's success and that he sought to build a direct competitor "not for humanity" but for himself.
The big picture: It's the latest in a high profile legal battle pitting the AI revolution's standard-bearing company against the tech billionaire who helped found it.
Driving the news: OpenAI said in a filing that Musk "made it his project to take down OpenAI" and that he "could not tolerate seeing such success for an enterprise he had abandoned and declared doomed."
The company asked the federal court in San Francisco to hold Musk responsible for damage he caused them and to stop him from "further unlawful and unfair action."
What they're saying: "Elon's nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit," OpenAI said in a post on X, adding that they're countersuing to "stop him."
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Wednesday evening.
Flashback: Musk helped found OpenAI in 2015 but has since become a bitter opponent and critic of the ChatGPT maker. He's also the founder of xAI, an OpenAI rival.
Musk's complaint, like the original lawsuit, alleged that Altman and Brockman abandoned the company's founding agreement by prioritizing profits over the public interest.
OpenAI argued in a December filing that Musk's own emails showed he wanted OpenAI to have a for-profit component and wanted to own and run it himself.
President Trump has revoked the security clearances belonging to former CISA leader Chris Krebs and ex-DHS official Miles Taylor and ordered investigations into the work they did while in public service.
Why it matters: The move is the latest in Trump's full-throttle attack on his perceived political enemies.
Zoom in: The order calls for the Department of Justice to investigate both officials' activities as government employees and also temporarily revokes the clearances held by any of their known associates.
For Taylor, the order specifically calls out any security clearance for individuals at the University of Pennsylvania, where Taylor is a lecturer, "pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest," according to the White House.
For Krebs, the security clearances include any given to staff at cybersecurity company SentinelOne, where Krebs currently works.
Krebs' DOJ investigation will include "a comprehensive evaluation of all of CISA's activities over the last 6 years and will identify any instances where Krebs' or CISA's conduct appears to be contrary to the administration's commitment to free speech and ending federal censorship," according to the order.
Catch up quick: Taylor served as the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary during the first Trump administration and later detailed his concerns in a damning New York Times' op-ed and book under the pen name "Anonymous."
"I think he's guilty of treason if you want to know the truth," Trump said while signing Taylor's order.
Meanwhile, Trump fired Krebs by tweet after he factchecked the president and publicly said that the 2020 election was the "most secure in American history."
Trump called Krebs a "wise guy," as well as a "fraud" and "a disgrace" during Wednesday's signing.
What they're saying: "I said this would happen," Taylor wrote in an X post after the signing. "Dissent isn't unlawful."
"It certainly isn't treasonous," he added. "America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man's point."
Krebs and SentinelOne did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment. CISA referred all questions to the White House.
The big picture: In the first months of his second term, Trump has taken unprecedented actions against his perceived political enemies, including law firms, politicians, former intelligence officers and more.
The latest moves are sure to spur outrage across the cybersecurity and national security communities, in which both Krebs and Taylor are highly respected.
The more than 200 migrants sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador by U.S. immigration agents should stay there "for the rest of their lives," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.
Why it matters: Noem's remark reflects the Trump administration's harsh approach to noncitizens it views as criminals or gang members — in this case, arresting and deporting them to a foreign, maximum-security prison without giving them a court hearing.
Zoom in: Her comment came two days after the Supreme Court signaled that such detainees designated as "enemies" of the U.S. can be deported — but should have some way to challenge their removal.
"We're confident that people that are [imprisoned in El Salvador] should be there, and they should stay there for the rest of their lives," Noem said after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) event.
She said her assessment was based on intelligence work by ICE and other agencies, including the State Department.
Catch up quick: The administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport the alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to the El Salvador prison has drawn several legal challenges.
In an interview with Axios this week, border czar Tom Homan said immigration agents are the "principal" deciders on whether a detainee is linked to a gang and should be deported immediately.
A recent CBS News investigation found that 75% of those sent to the prison had no criminal records.
ICE agents' decisions for identifying gang members are made using a rubric with an eight-point threshold for removal, according to a court document.
In the case of Tren de Aragua, a tattoo "denoting membership/loyalty to TDA" would count four points toward a removal action, according to the document. If a person admits being a gang member, that alone would be enough for removal from the U.S.
In his interview with Axios, Homan said: "I've talked to the highest level at ICE and they've reassured me several times: Everyone that was removed under the Alien Enemies Act was a gang member and a terrorist."
The other side: "Nothing in U.S. immigration law, nothing in U.S. criminal law would permit" the detainees to be imprisoned indefinitely without court decisions, said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
"To see Secretary Noem's suggestion that people never convicted of any crime, who have received no process whatsoever [but will be] imprisoned for life at U.S. expense, is something that should make every American who believes in civil liberties angry."
The White House will ignore reporters whose emails contain gender pronouns in the signature, a spokesperson confirmed toAxios on Wednesday.
The big picture: The move is a part of the Trump administration's pattern of trying to control the press — blocking AP reporters from the White House, taking over press pool coverage, removing outlets from their Pentagon workspaces and plotting to take over the briefing room seating chart.
Neutral pronouns have been used for centuries but have gotten increasing public attention as LGBTQ+ rights — and attacks on them — have been a focus of debates in U.S. politics, schools and businesses, per Axios' Russell Contreras.
Driving the news: "As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the New York Times, which was first to report the story.
Asked Wednesday if that was now official policy, spokesperson Harrison Fields told Axios in an email: "FACTS!"
Zoom out: Pronouns are used to affirm gender identities and create safe spaces by referring to people in the way that feels most accurate to them, per the National Education Association.
With his new tariff announcement on Wednesday afternoon, President Trump has cemented his reputation for being unpredictable.
Why it matters: The markets like 10% tariffs more than they like the broad-brush application of a potentially erroneously calculated formula. But investors are still far from happy.
The big picture: The White House and its friends think of this as the art of the deal. (Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday it was Trump's intention all along.)
America's trading partners, and U.S. companies that crave predictability aren't likely to see much art in it.
Where it stands: The S&P 500 closed at 5,455 on Wednesday, which is 3.8% below where it closed on April 2, before Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond closed at 4.34%, similarly representing a flight away from U.S. assets in comparison to the April 2 closing level of 4.20%.
By the numbers: The new tariff regime represents a rise of about 15 percentage points overall, Goldman Sachs economists estimated on Wednesday — which means they still think there's a 45% probability of a recession this year.
The Yale Budget Lab's Ernie Tedeschi, on the other hand, thinks the hike in China tariffs to 125% means the overall effective rate has still risen by about 25 percentage points, which is clearly recessionary.
President Trump did say on Wednesday however that "a deal's going to be made with China," so it might be reasonable to expect the 125% tariff rate to not last long.
How it works: Recessions are broadly based on trends in gross domestic product (GDP). Imports by definition are not produced domestically and are therefore the one term in the GDP equation that's negative. Which is to say, all other things being equal, lower imports can mean higher GDP.
That said, if tariffs are high enough, tariffs can be recessionary. Facing 10% across-the-board tariffs on everything they import, domestic corporations are likely to pull back on investment decisions, given greater uncertainty and higher input costs.
Between the lines: Many economists are still projecting economic growth this year, and any tariff-driven recession would probably be mild.
"We are coming from strength," explains Loomis Sayles portfolio manager Pramila Agrawal.
The last mild recession in the U.S. was in 2001, when employment and corporate investment both fell in the wake of the dot-com bust. There weren't crisis-level financial dislocations like we saw in 2008-09 or in 2020.
The intrigue: We've never lived in a world of anything remotely close to 125% tariffs on one of our largest trading partners, which means the effects of such things are incredibly hard to model.
"Can you really make a distinction between a 50% tariff and 100% tariff?" asks Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at PGIM Fixed Income.
Even at 54%, the tariffs on China were big enough "to thrust people to the sidelines and to delay corporate investment decisions, whether that's investment in capital expenditures or investment in hiring," he says.
The further move to 125% might have some effects on trade and inflation, but in terms of economic activity the marginal difference could be pretty small.
Another unknown: The degree to which Chinese exports would end up entering the U.S. via other countries with lower tariffs.
The bottom line: We're deep into uncharted waters, and standard economic modeling kits were not made for a world of 125% tariffs — or, for that matter, of global tariffs that remain in place for a mere 13 hours before being lifted.
That makes all economic predictions even less useful than they normally are.
U.S. exports to China account for hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs — but that's all now caught up in a fast-escalating trade war.
Why it matters: If sky-high tariff rates announced Wednesday remain in place, many U.S. companies will no longer be able to compete in China's market.
Catch up quick: China announced Wednesday that it would subject most U.S. goods to 84% tariffs in retaliation for President Trump's 104% tariffs — which Trump promptly raised to 125%.
Trump paused reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, except those against China, which he blasted for retaliating.
By the numbers: China is the U.S.' third-biggest export market.More than 931,000 jobs were supported in 2022 by U.S. exports to China, according to the U.S. China Business Council.
That includes more than 125,000 jobs in California; 89,000 in Texas; 53,000 in Illinois; and 42,000 in New York.
Zoom in: Texas' 38th congressional district was the biggest goods exporter to China in 2023 with $4.9 billion in exports, per to the U.S.-China Business Council.
Indiana's 7th district ($2.3 billion) was next, followed by Louisiana's 1st.
Zoom out: Oil, aircraft, soybeans and grains are among the primary U.S. exports to China.
China's soybean imports from the U.S. jumped 84.1% in January and February compared with a year prior, but economic standoffs are expected to increase purchases from Brazil, Reuters reported.
Nearly 400 students and recent graduates have seen their visas revoked by immigration officials in the weeks surrounding the arrest of Columbia alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, igniting concerns about students' First Amendment and immigration rights.
The big picture: The Trump administration has claimed that some international students, like Khalil, lost their status because they were affiliated with pro-Palestinian protests. For others, revocation was attributed to a crime or traffic offense and for some the reason is unknown.
Khalil's March 8 arrest was the first high-profile incident following the announcement of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" effort, though it's unknown when the State Department and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice started implementing the policy.
The State Department did not respond to Axios' request about when the wave of revocations began.
While the reasons for revoked visas and arrests vary, U.S. officials have accused some students and recent college graduates of supporting Hamas — which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group — but Khalil and others have yet to be charged with any crime.
Since the program's launch, the administration's focus on campus speech and policy has only ballooned, placing schools' federal funds and contracts at risk of termination and university administration and students in the center of high-stakes political crosshairs.
Zoom out: An Axios review of available data from universities and Insider Higher Ed showed nearly 400 students,recent graduates and individuals affiliated with universities on over 80 campuses nationwide have had their legal status changed by U.S. officials.
That's left students who lost their legal status to remain in the U.S. in an anxious limbo as the threat of detainment and deportation looms.
Reality check: But the number of students affected could be far greater, with the burden falling to universities to track changes and inform those impacted.
Case in point: A student at Emerson College and a doctoral candidate at Dartmouth College who never partook in protests or had any criminal record both recently had their visas stripped, Axios' Steph Solis reported.
In many such cases, universities have not been alerted by the administration but rather have uncovered students' altered statuses by auditing the online Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database, which tracks students and scholars on F, M and J visas.
If a student's SEVIS record is terminated, that means they have lost legal status in the U.S.
UMass Boston, for example, notified students and faculty in an email that two current students and five other members of the university community had their visas revoked and non-immigrant statuses terminated without notice from federal authorities.
University officials "only became aware because of the Office of Global Programs' proactive vigilance and monitoring" of SEVIS, the message read.
What they're saying: Asked about the situation on campuses across the country and the criteria used to revoke visas, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters Tuesday that "the department revokes visas every day in order to secure our borders and to keep our community safe."
The criteria, she said "is applied appropriately," adding that the department is "not inclined to answer those specifics."
The Trump administration's massive tariffs on China have Apple flying planes full of iPhones to the U.S. and consumers rushing to buy them before the prices potentially skyrocket.
Why it matters: The iPhone maker is one of many large companies caught up in an escalating trade war between the world's two biggest economies. Most iPhones are assembled in China, and more than half of iPhone sales are in the U.S.
Driving the news: China announced retaliatory tariffs of 84% on imports of U.S. goods on Wednesday after President Trump imposed a sweeping 104% tariff on Chinese goods, including clothes, shoes, toys and tech products.
Trump later Wednesday announced he was increasing tariffs on China to 125% while pausing the sweeping reciprocal tariffs the U.S. imposed to other countries this week.
State of play: U.S. consumers are rushing to stores to buy iPhones in anticipation that the new tariffs will prompt Apple to raise prices.
Some customers told the WSJ that they aren't waiting to see if iPhone costs increase, with one person stating that "the tariffs for sure pushed me out of the door."
During the final week of March, Apple sent at least ten planes full of iPhones and other products from India to the U.S. to avoid a 10% reciprocal tariff imposed by the Trump administration that took effect on April 5.
Apple is also looking to ship more of its products to the U.S. from countries like India going forward to avoid the China tariffs, per WSJ.
Zoom in: Under the new tariffs on Chinese imports, the price of an iPhone 16 Pro Max 256 GB could rise $350, or 29%, lifting the price tag to $1,549, according to data from UBS Investment Research.
And that was before Trump increased the China levy again on Wednesday.
What they're saying: Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a research note Tuesday that the added levies could create a "Category 5 Price Storm" for personal electronics and other gadgets.
These tariffs on China and other nations is the equivalent of "flipping a boat upside down in the ocean with no life rafts," he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Between the lines: Apple's stock, along with much of the market, roared back Wednesday afternoon after Trump announced a pause on reciprocal tariffs for 90 days for every nation but China.
During the tariff meltdown, the company had suffered its worst three-day rout since the aftermath of the dot-com bubble in 2001, seeing its market cap plummet by more than $500 billion.
Of note: Most iPhones are manufactured in China and they account for about half of Apple's revenue.
Apple can turn to alternate iPhone suppliers like India and Vietnam but it would take time and investment before they could match China's huge output.
The Trump administration has said Apple should shift iPhone manufacturing to the U.S., but Apple CEO Tim Cook has previously stressed that it's not possible to find skilled industrial labor in the U.S. on a scale anywhere near what China offers.
What to watch: Apple will report its second-quarter results on May 1, when executives are expected to discuss the effects of tariffs.
President Trump paused the sweeping reciprocal tariffs the U.S. imposed this week, saying dozens of countries had reached out to negotiate new trade deals.
Why it matters: It's the relief global markets, U.S. allies and many Trump advisers wanted, as fears of a global crisis mounted. But Trumpdidn't back off fully, keeping 10% baseline tariffs in place while increasing tariffs on China to 125%.
U.S. stocks promptly kicked off a ferocious rally, with the S&P 500 rising 7% in a matter of minutes. Gold, oil and cryptocurrencies surged as well, as investors quickly re-embraced risk.
The big picture: Since the day Trump took office, the global economy has been whipsawed by uncertainty over his trade plan — on and then off and then on, paused and then modified and then raised and then lowered.
Meanwhile consumer and business confidence has plunged, the economy has slowed, and all sense of stability and permanency has evaporated.
Catch up quick: Trump announced the tariffs April 2 — a 10% base global tariff as of April 5, and sharply higher reciprocal tariffs on around 60 nations as of April 9.
Economists had warned the tariffs could cause a severe global recession, and major investors warned of even worse, up to a possible "economic nuclear winter."
Wednesday's 90-day pause, in effect, takes the tariff regime down to what many investors thought Trump would do in the first place.
Yes, but: While Trump lifted most of the global duties, he raised tariffs on China to 125%, blasting the country for retaliating to his initial levies.
His global trade war has shifted, for the time being, to a U.S.-China trade war, though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to call it that when asked outside the White House.
"The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X.
What they're saying: "It's about bad actors, and what we will see is, some of the very early countries are China's neighbors," Bessent said.
"China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and they are the biggest source of the U.S. trade problem — and indeed, they are a problem for the rest of the world. "
Editor's note: This story was updated with additional reaction and developments.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday said he expects a recession as President Trump's tariffs roil global financial markets.
Why it matters: Dimon's comments come amid a historic plunge in the bond market, part of what some strategists are calling a "sell America" trade.
Driving the news: Trumpmade good on his promise to charge reciprocal tariffs on about 60 countries on Wednesday, on top of the baseline 10% tariffs the U.S. started collecting last Saturday.
Are we in a recession?
The big picture: There is no solid evidence that the United States is currently in a recession.
The warning signs that have emerged include some surveys of expectations and drops in the stock market, which do not predict recessions reliably. As one famous line goes, "the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions."
But the most important indicators for that determination are released with significant lags, so if the economy is starting to lurch into contraction, or does in the months ahead, it will take a while for definitive evidence to arrive.
Who is predicting a recession?
What they're saying: Dimon, in an interview with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo, said he felt a recession was a "likely outcome."
"Markets aren't always right, but sometimes they are right, and I think this time they are right, because they're just pricing in uncertainty at the macro level and uncertainty at the micro level, at the actual company level," Dimon said.
BlackRock CEO Larry Finksaid on Monday that most CEOs would agree there was already a recession.
Goldman Sachs, however,predicts the U.S. will avoid a recession, but barely so.
Goldman Sachs' economic team has been more accurate than most in recent years, and now expects GDP growth of 0.5% this year.
That forecast assumes tariffs go up by 15% — a big number, but still short of the 20% increase that's in place as of Wednesday.
If those stay in place, Goldman says it would then expect a recession, albeit a pretty mild one.
Who decides when there's a recession?
Zoom in: The semi-official arbiter of U.S. recessions is the business cycle dating committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private academic group.
The committee consists of eight esteemed economists who study incoming data and assign dates to peaks and trough of the U.S. economic cycle.
Zoom out: The committee defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months."
The data they specifically cite as particularly important for judging when a recession has begun include personal income (adjusted for inflation but excluding government transfers) and payroll employment. (More detail is here.)
Of note: As of the most recent (backward-looking) readings, those point to continued expansion. Real personal income excluding transfers rose 0.3% in January, for example, and payrolls were up 151,000.
When will we know if there's a recession?
Yes, but: If the economy does turn negative, don't expect any official recession announcement to be speedy; they would rather be sure than be first to make a recession call.
The group waits "until it is confident that a recession has occurred," the NBER website says, with no doubt about when the economy peaked or bottomed.
The committee did not declare the pandemic recession until July 2020. By then the recession had been over for two months.
During the 2008 financial crisis, the NBER did not announce that the U.S. had been in a recession until a year after it had begun.
Reality check: There are instances when it is obvious a recession is underway, even without the official NBER call — like when the pandemic brought economic activity to a standstill.
Wall Street's rule-of-thumb for a recession is two back-to-back quarters of declining GDP. It is an imperfect gauge.
Recall 2022 when GDP was reported to have contracted in the first and second quarter, even as the labor market chugged along fine. As it turns out, the data was later revised to show that only the first quarter had contracted.
The 2001 recession, meanwhile, did not see shrinking GDP for two straight quarters.
The bottom line: If the U.S. economy does tip into recession in 2025, there will be plenty of evidence in the data before the official arbiters make a ruling — but there's no such evidence yet.
After weeks of confusion and outcry, the Social Security Administration is backing off its announced drastic cuts to phone services.
Why it matters: The changes would've strained an already backlogged agency and possibly even kept eligible Americans from receiving benefits.
"Telephone remains a viable option to the public," the agency said in a statement.
Zoom in: The changes were slated to begin in less than a week. Instead, the agency said in an email that "beginning on April 14, SSA will allow all claim types to be completed over the telephone."
"This includes Retirement, Survivors, and Auxiliary (Spouse or Child) benefits that SSA previously announced would require in-person identity proofing, in addition to Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, and SSI."
Direct deposit change, however can't be done over the phone, an agency official said on background.
"Individuals who do not or cannot use the agency's online my Social Security services portal to change their direct deposit information for any benefit will need to visit a Social Security office to process the change or can call 1-800-772-1213 to schedule an in-person appointment," they said in an email.
Zoom in: The White House provided more details in a Wednesday afternoon email.
"Because the anti-fraud team implemented new technological capabilities so quickly, SSA can now perform anti-fraud check on all claims filed over the phone," a White House official said in a statement. New software allows the agency to flag abnormal behavior in a person's account.
Those who are flagged "would be required to perform in-person ID proofing for the claim to be further processed."
"The administration remains committed to protecting our beneficiaries from fraud. There will no disruptions to service."
What they're saying: "The Social Security anti-fraud team has worked around the clock in person to improve technological capabilities and they are now able to identify fraud on claims filed over the telephone," Liz Huston, a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
"This is great news for older Americans,"AARP's executive vice president Nancy LeaMond said in a statement.
Her group represents 38 million older Americans, and had been speaking out against the changes, but said it needed more "clarity" to understand them.
"We appreciate SSA listening to AARP and millions of Americans about the impact on their lives and providing better access to customer service for Social Security benefits."
Catch up fast: The agency had said previously that changes were necessary as a fraud protection measure — though that claim has been widely disputed and phone fraud appears to be minimal compared to the volume of benefits paid and the amount of disruption the changes would've caused.
SSA had been flooded by calls from recipients, and members of Congress are hearing from constituents over fears of what these cuts will do to already lackluster service.
Update: This story has been updated with further details from the White House and the SSA.
China retaliated against President Trump's tariffs on Wednesday with a new 84% levy on exports from the U.S., threatening American jobs and industry that rely on the crucial trade partner.
Why it matters: There's very little modern precedent for one of the largest importers of U.S. goods throwing up such a giant barrier. The full scope of the consequences for the economy are not yet clear.
By the numbers: In 2024, U.S. exported $143.5 billion worth of goods and materials to China, down 2.9% from 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
More than 930,000 jobs were supported by U.S. exports to China alone in 2022,per a 2024 report from the U.S.-China Business Council.
"Jobs supported by exports to China outnumber those supported by the next two Asian markets combined," the report stated.
China was the third-largest export market in 2023 for the U.S., the report said, with oilseeds and grains as the top exports.
By state, Texas, California and Louisiana were the top U.S. exporters to China in 2023.
Texas saw 146% growth over the previous 10 years.
The big picture: Trump instituted sweeping tariffs in an attempt to reorder the global economy, but economists and U.S. allies have said his plan could lead to a recession.
The tariffs went into effect on Wednesday. China now faces a 104% levy in total.
The U.S. trade deficit with China (imports minus exports) has been larger than $200 billion since 2005, and it reached a record high of $418 billion during the second year of Trump's first administration.
Top U.S. imports from China in 2022 were electronics, machinery and appliances, toys and games, textiles and chemical products, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday said that he expects there to be a recession, and for defaults to rise as President Trump's tariffs roil global financial markets.
Why it matters: Dimon's blunt forecast puts a headline on the market's broad fears that Trump's trade war has already set in motion a lasting global crisis.
Catch up quick: Dimon, in an interview with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo, said he personally felt recession was a "likely outcome."
Editor's note: This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
The Internal Revenue Service's acting commissioner — its third leader this year — is resigning after reaching a controversial agreement to release immigrants' tax data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), multipleoutlets reported.
Why it matters: The leadership change adds to the cascading chaos at the agency amid its busiest season. It was already facing public backlash over DOGE seeking access to sensitive taxpayer data.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond Wednesday to an Axios request for more information about her departure.
Driving the news: Melanie Krause, who was named the IRS' acting chief in February, intends to step down because of the agreement to share immigrants' data with ICE, the Associated Press reports.
Catch up quick: Former Commissioner Danny Werfel who served in the Biden administration resigned when Trump took office.
His replacement, acting Commissioner Douglas O'Donnell, retired earlier this year. Krause replaced him
Trump's pick to lead the agency, Billy Long, hasn't yet had a Senate confirmation hearing.
Zoom out: Sharing information about immigrants without legal status could bolster the Trump administration's massive deportation goals — but advocates stress the deal could be a significant privacy threat.
Border Czar Tom Homan contended in a recent interview with Axios that the agreement is about protecting Social Security, a system the administration has contended is rife with fraud.
China retaliated against President Trump's tariffs on Wednesday with a new 84% levy on exports from the U.S., Beijing announced.
Why it matters: The levy is the latest escalation stemming from Trump's trade war. It will be devastating for U.S. farmers in particular, who are major exporters to China. Markets dove on the news.
By the numbers: The U.S. exports about $145 billion in goods to China a year.
That trade is dominated by oilseeds and grains, per the U.S.-China Business Council.
Catch up quick: The trade tit-for-tat started when Trump put a 10% tariff on imports from China, alleging it was failing to control the flow of fentanyl out of the country.
He later doubled that to 20%.
Subsequently, Trump introduced a reciprocal tariff of 34% on China, which stacked on the drug tariffs. When the Chinese retaliated with a matching levy, Trump added another 50%.
That mean that as of 12:01 a.m. ET Wednesday, the U.S. now charges a 104% tariff on imports from China.
By the numbers: U.S. stock futures, which had been mostly flat in the early morning, took a sharp leg down on the retaliation news and were about 1.5% lower as of 7:30 a.m. ET.
Oil continued to plunge, falling another 6% to around $56 a barrel.
Meanwhile U.S. Treasury bonds, normally a safe haven in times of crisis, sank instead, with yields rising 13 basis points to about 4.39%.
Editor's note: This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
The volatility we've seen in the markets this week is not unprecedented, but it's extremely rare, and has happened only four previous times since 1978.
Why it matters: This kind of noise is a sign that we've now entered a world of radical uncertainty, and that the markets are finding it impossible to do their main job, which is price discovery.
Flashback: Last Thursday, as the markets reacted to the tariffs unveiled the previous evening, the S&P 500's intraday trading range — the gap between the high and low points of the trading day — was a relatively modest 2%.
Stocks opened down 3.1% and ground lower to close down 4.8%, in what looked like a large but orderly decline.
Where it stands: This week's trading has been very different, marked by wild intraday swings. The S&P 500% rose 8.3% in a mere 34 minutes on Monday. On Tuesday it opened up 4% and closed down 3%.
Between the lines: Stock market trading is increasingly dominated by multi-strategy "pod shops," and at the heart of most of them is "some sort of quant strategy," as hedge fund manager Krishna Kumar recently told the Odd Lots podcast.
What that means in practice is a lot of short-term trades and a lot of leverage, both of which work to magnify both returns and volatility.
Meanwhile, fundamentals-based long-term investors have essentially zero visibility into how the current tariff drama is going to play out.
Without any strong conviction one way or the other, they're now hesitant to take losses or buy the dip, and they have therefore effectively ceded the role of price discovery to the algorithms.
What's next: What we haven't yet seen, says David Rolley, co-head of fixed income at Loomis Sayles, is "capitulation" by those real-money investors.
While Rolley does see international investors in particular rotating out of U.S. assets, he says that process is likely to take years rather than days.
The bottom line: Previous bouts of massive volatility were associated with huge financial dislocations, or, in the case of the pandemic, the entire planet pretty much coming to a stop.
This time around, though, the chaos is intentional.
President Trump has done more unprecedented, lasting things in 80 days than many presidents do in a four-year term.
Why it matters: There are 1,382 days to go in this term.
So let's step back and appraise the indisputable acts of power that have changed America in Trump's first two months and three weeks, as synthesized by Axios' Zachary Basu:
Trump's push for a manufacturing renaissance has helped secure at least $1.6 trillion in U.S. investment pledges. But his tariff rollout melted markets globally and dramatically raised the threat of a recession.
The renewed trade war with China carries the biggest potential blast radius, with the world's two largest economies engaged in a tit-for-tat escalation that could snarl global supply chains.
2. A new world order.
The rules-based system forged after World War II is dead: Trump has withdrawn from multilateral institutions, threatened to expand U.S. territory to Greenland, Gaza and Panama, and alienated America's closest allies.
Canada, stewing in nationalist fervor from Trump's tariffs and his "51st state" mockery, has declared our close relationship "over" and is looking to other allies for security and economic cooperation.
Europe is in the midst of its own radical transformation, singed and stunned by Trump's tariffs, constant insults, undermining NATO and siding with Russia over Ukraine.
Years of U.S. strategy designed to isolate China is up in flames, with Asian allies turning to Beijing for trade refuge and Taiwan fearing it could meet the same fate as Ukraine.
3. A vast expansion of executive power.
Trump is testing — and in some cases, obliterating — legal boundaries around presidential authority, including by punishing his political enemies and major law firms caught in the crossfire.
Courts are grappling with hundreds of lawsuits challenging Trump's ability to override Congress on spending, immigration and federal employment — and facing intense pressure from his base over "traitorous" rulings. Attorney General Pam Bondi said this weekend on "Fox News Sunday" that since the inauguration, "we've had over 170 lawsuits filed against us. That should be the constitutional crisis right there. Fifty injunctions — they're popping up every single day."
Trump has installed loyalists atop the Justice Department and FBI — declaring himself the country's "chief law enforcement officer" — and purged career officials and lawyers viewed as insufficiently MAGA.
4. A shrinking federal government.
Elon Musk's DOGE cost-slashing has resulted in mass layoffs and the dismantling of whole agencies, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
An estimated 60,000 federal workers have been fired in a broad effort to reduce the size of government, with deeper cuts still coming. Thousands have been reinstated, either through court orders or because officials moved impulsively.
Cuts to Social Security's phone services are threatening disruptions for millions of seniors.
5. A sealed border.
Illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest levels in decades, a testament to Trump's aggressive approach to curbing immigration through any means possible.
That includes the unprecedented invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which Trump used to deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious mass prison in El Salvador.
Trump also has taken aim at legal immigrants, revoking visas for college students involved in pro-Palestinian activism on the grounds that their presence could have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences."
In both cases, lack of due process has deeply alarmed immigration activists and civil libertarians — while Trump's broader crackdown has had a chilling effect on foreign travel to the U.S.
🔮 Coming for subscribers: Axios AM Executive Briefing — with expertise from Axios tech policy reporters Maria Curi and Ashley Gold — is about to publish a subscriber-only special report on the collision of AI and Washington. Subscribe here.
The big picture: With the U.S. importing nearly all of its clothing and shoes — more than half from China, Vietnam and Bangladesh alone — soaring apparel prices could send shoppers thrifting.
While resale does well all the time, "it does even better during an economic turn down," said Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale Professionals.
By the numbers: The popularity of secondhand shopping was already on the rise before the tariffs.
A 2024 Recommerce Report from Offerup found that 35% of shoppers embarked on their first resale journey in the past year; an 8% year-over-year increase.
A majority of shoppers said they turned to resale due to increased cost of living (58%) or cost savings compared to buying new (53%).
55% growth is projected for the re-commerce market by 2029, reaching $291.6 billion, with resale expected to account for 8% of total retail, even without the tariff impact.
Zoom in: "During any past recessions, this industry has absolutely flourished," Meyer told Axios, adding that when people look to save money it can attract those who have never shopped resale before.
During the Great Depression, which also saw an increase in tariffs, consumers turned to thrift stores but there weren't enough goods until the 1970s when the stores saw significant growth, Jennifer Le Zotte, a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, said.
During the Great Recession, a 2009 National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops survey found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. resale store respondents reported a 31% average increase in sales.
That increase was likely also driven by the upswell in online marketplaces for secondhand goods, like eBay, Le Zotte said.
Zoom out: OfferUp,a peer-to-peer marketplace mostly for local goods, expects to see an uptick in secondhand buying in categories where tariffs may significantly impact retail supply, Ken Murphy, the company's chief innovation officer, told Axios.
"We've seen that when supply chain disruptions occur and popular items become more scarce, people often turn toward secondhand options to get what they need at prices they can afford," Murphy said.
"Consumers want to stretch their budgets without sacrificing quality."
