Former President Biden told reporters on Friday in Delaware that "all the folks are very optimistic" about successfully treating his prostate cancer.
The big picture:Biden was diagnosed earlier this month with an aggressive form of cancer that had metastasized to his bone.
What he's saying: "The prognosis is good. We're working on everything. It's moving along, and I feel good," he said.
"The expectation is we're going to be able to beat this. There's no — it's not in any organ, my bones are strong, it hadn't penetrated," he said,per The Washington Post.
No modern president has done more in his first 130 days than President Trump — only to have much of it undone, at least temporarily, by the courts.
The big picture: Trump is testing the limits of presidential power at every turn, and the courts are just about the only thing standing in his way.
The inevitable showdowns between Trump and the judiciary are only going to get more intense.
Judges have issueddozens of orders blocking Trump from doing something he wants to do, and the flood seems to grow every day. The headlines are constant: Judge blocks X; Judge freezes Y; Court allows Z to continue.
This week's ruling against Trump's tariffs — handed down by the usually sleepy Court of International Trade — was one of the biggest shockwaves yet, striking at the centerpiece of his economic agenda and efforts to exert leverage on the world stage.
That ruling was quickly put on ice, temporarily, by an appeals court. But there will be more tariff litigation, and more litigation on just about everything else.
On education, a federal judge in Boston this week said Trump could not stop Harvard from enrolling international students, at least for now.
A separate Boston-based judge last week froze Trump's plans to largely eliminate the Department of Education.
Courts have stopped or slowed some DOGE-led cuts across the government, the firing of people who serve on independent boards, and the laying off of other government workers.
Immigration has been the most explosive flashpoint of all.
Every court that's considered Trump's executive order redefining the rules of American citizenship has ruled against it.
The administration has pointedly refused to bring back the man it wrongly deported to El Salvador, despite even the Supreme Court telling it to "facilitate" his return.
Judges in lower courts have blocked similar deportations or ordered the government to provide some sort of hearing before deporting people.
Between the lines: To some extent, this is the system working the same way it always works. The big things presidents do, at least in the modern era, end up in court.
Obamacare was a big thing, done by both the president and Congress. It's been before the Supreme Court no less than three times.
Forgiving student loans and trying to impose COVID vaccine mandates were, for better or worse, big things President Biden attempted. The Supreme Court said both were too big.
Trump has made no bones about wanting to go as big as possible, all the time, on everything — and to do it mostly through executive action. Everyone knew before this administration began that myriad legal challenges were inevitable. And, well, they were.
Unlike previous presidents, Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked judges whose rulings block parts of his agenda.
As these battles progress, Trump will win some and lose some.
Every single person Trump has tried to fire may not end up fired. But if and when all of those one-off challenges coalesce into a real, big-picture Supreme Court referendum on the president's power to fire federal workers, the smart money says that's a fight Trump will most likely win.
On the other hand, eliminating birthright citizenship is a long shot. The Justice Department is trying to persuade the Supreme Court that it's been misinterpreting the Constitution for 100 years. That is (a) obviously going to end up in court; and (b) a hard sell.
What's next: Almost none of this — on any issue — has reached the point yet where judges are actually striking down or upholding Trump's policies.
This is why the headlines you see all use words like "block" or "freeze" or "temporarily." For now, what's being decided is mainly whether Trump can go ahead and enact X or Y policy while the courts figure out whether that policy is legal.
As explosive as these legal battles already are, we haven't even touched the highest-stakes chapters in the ongoing saga of Trump vs. the courts.
The real showdowns over the president's power — his power to fire people, to override Congress' spending decisions, to deport people without due process, to levy tariffs, to revoke citizens' citizenship — are all still to come.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly announced plans Wednesday to cancel the visas of all Chinese students in the U.S., the Trump administration was quick to cast it as a way to root out spies from the communist nation.
But behind the scenes, what really set off Rubio was the administration's realization that China was withholding precious rare-earth minerals and magnets as a tariff negotiating tool, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: The decision to target as many as 280,000 Chinese students — and throw another complication into the ongoing trade talks with China — reflects how crucial rare minerals are to the U.S. tech industry.
It also signaled how angry President Trump was after deciding China was operating in bad faith.
Zoom in: That's what inspired Trump's Truth Social post on Friday: "China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US."
"So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!"
Zoom in: The materials at issue are crucial for computing and telecom equipment, F-35 fighter jets, drones, submarines and the Joint Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs.
The seven minerals include samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium-related items.
Zoom out: Under President Xi Jinping's "Made in China 2025" initiative launched a decade ago, China has come to dominate the mining and processing of these minerals and other precious materials, such as lithium used in batteries.
The U.S. is the world's second-largest producer of rare-earth minerals but is dwarfed by China, which controls about 70% of mining and roughly 90% of the processing of such minerals globally, according to a Reuters report citing International Energy Agency estimates.
The big picture: Many of China's ruling party elite, including Xi, have sent their children to study in the United States. Targeting those students sends a message to leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.
Rubio has long been a China hawk. As a senator in 2024, he issued a report, "The World China Made," that warned it could soon have "effective control over strategic supply chains" of the materials.
He also sounded an alarm about China spying through U.S. educational opportunities.
"If you're a Chinese spy trying to get into America, you don't really have to cross the border," he told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo in June 2024. "You can just become a graduate student at one of our universities or become a visa employee at one of our tech companies."
As secretary of state, Rubio has launched several initiatives to monitor and revoke the visas of foreign students.
What they're saying: Education groups criticized Rubio's move. Asian Americans Advancing Justice said that "national security should undeniably be a top priority — but resorting to fearmongering, racial profiling, and xenophobia is never the answer."
Trump's administration unapologetically sees Chinese students as leverage.
"This is about national security, trade, our economy," a senior administration official said. "Everything is a negotiation."
The timeline: Trump launched his latest trade and tariff war on April 2, calling it "Liberation Day. Two days later, China required that companies receive export licenses for the seven minerals. The licenses restrict the flow of the minerals out of the country.
On May 11, the U.S. and China announced a preliminary trade deal. The two sides paused their retaliatory tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer negotiated for the U.S.
On May 12, when asked by Fox News' Laura Ingraham whether rare-earth export restrictions had been lifted, Greer said: "Yep. The Chinese have agreed to remove those countermeasures."
But on May 20, CNN confirmed reporting from other publications that China wasn't "getting rid of its controls over rare earths," despite the trade truce.
The reports confirmed what administration officials had encountered in private talks with China: It was playing rare-earth hardball.
"China cheats. It's what they do," Trump said, according to a White House official briefed on the president's comments in a subsequent meeting with his trade team.
"The president wasn't happy," the official said. "He was looking for ideas, and Rubio had this idea of Chinese students."
In a statement to Axios, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Rubio "made this decision in the administration's ongoing effort to protect our homeland from espionage and other hostile actions."
Just before 7 p.m. Wednesday, Rubio announced on X that the "U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields."
About that time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick informed several U.S. companies they needed to limit or stop exporting certain types of software, semiconductor chemicals, machine tools, aviation equipment, butane and ethane, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, Bessent acknowledged on Fox News that trade negotiations "are a bit stalled."
On Friday, Trump followed up with his statement blasting China.
Hours later Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was on CNN, linking Rubio's announcement to the China trade talks.
China's industrial strategy, he said, "has been to use the student visa program to conduct espionage on America's industrial trade secrets ... our universities, our high-tech research and even our nation's most sensitive and classified projects and programs."
The extra scrutiny of Chinese visas will protect "the security of America's own engineering, scientific and medical research."
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino spent years torching the American security state for concealing nefarious secrets about Jeffrey Epstein, Jan. 6, the "Russia hoax" and the assassination attempts against President Trump.
Now they're not only inside the gates, they're in charge of the FBI — and serving a president who distrusts the bureau even more than they do.
The big picture: Patel and Bongino's recent Fox News interviews, and sources familiar with their reception inside the bureau, make clear the difficulties they face in maintaining confidence with three key audiences: their fans, their employees, and the president.
1. Some followers and fellow MAGA media figures who revered Patel and Bongino for pillorying the "Deep State" were aghast by their recent conspiracy-quashing comments, particularly that Epstein really killed himself.
"People are pissed. They feel like Dan and Kash aren't doing the job, that they're beholden to some unseen powers," MAGA-aligned podcaster Tim Pool said Wednesday, adding that he "largely" still trusts the pair.
Bongino — who left a lucrative podcasting gig to be Patel's deputy — told "Fox and Friends" he was finding it difficult not to be able to reveal information about ongoing investigations, and to be criticized by those who want to "divorce us from the people."
He and Patel, who parlayed his reputation as one of Trump 1.0's most aggressive lieutenants into MAGA media stardom, have deep wells of goodwill from the base, despite the impatience for disclosures and deep state arrests.
2. The FBI's 38,000-strong workforce was never going to immediately embrace the idea of a couple of its biggest antagonists calling the shots, but it's been a tumultuous few months.
Bureau veterans have privately mocked Bongino's emphasis on ideas like adding pull-ups to the fitness test and MMA-style training at Quantico.
Some have pushed back on more substantive decisions, such as devoting scores of agents to partnering with ICE on immigration-related arrests, at the expense of other investigative priorities.
Patel told Fox News that rank-and-file FBI employees are on board with its mission, they're clearing out the old leadership, and recruiting is at a five-year high.
FBI spokespeople have pushed back on stories about Patel working remotely from Las Vegas, taking government planes to visit his girlfriend in Nashville, or downsizing the early morning briefings that past directors have taken.
3. While Trump has been publicly supportive, he did say it was "a little bit hard to believe" assertions from Patel and other senior law enforcement figures that there was no wider conspiracy behind the assassination attempts against him.
Democrats such as Sen. Dick Durbinhave claimed that because loyalty to Trump earned Patel and Bongino theirs posts, they'll lack the independence of past directors and simply say what Trump wants to hear or tailor investigations to suit the White House.
What they're saying: "Many of these comments are from the same individuals responsible for the shameful politicization of the FBI in the first place. Their criticisms play no factor as we work to clean up the mess they helped leave behind," FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson told Axios.
"FBI Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino are doing an incredible job protecting the American people and bringing back law and order, justice and fairness to America," said White House spokesperson Harrison Fields.
Driving the news: Patel and Bongino acknowledged in their recent flurry of interviews that their supporters want them to clean house, lock up Trump antagonists like ex-director James Comey, and reveal more about the malfeasance they and their MAGA media colleagues have long alleged the FBI engaged in — including fomenting the Jan. 6 riot and conspiring against Trump.
Bongino made a plea for time, suggesting the skullduggery ran so deep that it would take months to uncover.
He also claimed they had just discovered bags of hidden files from the Comey era, and would be prioritizing cases like the discovery of cocaine in the Biden White House.
Williamson said Patel and Bongino "have committed to working with Congress to provide the American people the accountable and transparent FBI they deserve," and are "grateful for our interagency partners and the leadership of this administration in that pursuit."
Zoom in: Bongino acknowledged the transition from flamethrower to G-man has been jarring. "Part of you dies a little bit when you see all this stuff from behind the scenes," he said on "Fox and Friends".
He said a former listener told him "I miss you," and that he replied, "You know, I miss me too." He made clear he hates sitting in his FBI office all day and not being able to "swing back" at his critics.
"It's difficult for me to not be able to respond like I used to, but there'll be a day, there'll be a day," Bongino said. "I'll be back one day."
Plus, fewer people can work remotely from their beach house or ski chalet these days.
By the numbers: U.S. homebuyers took out around 86,600 mortgages for second homes last year, per Redfin's analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.
That's down roughly 5% from a year earlier and 66% from the pandemic homebuying frenzy.
Zoom in: Demand has particularly cratered in Florida as climate-related housing costs swell.
Mortgages for second homes fell from the previous year in 30 of the 50 most populous metros, led by Miami (-32%), Orlando (-28%) and Fort Lauderdale (-28%).
The big picture: Home sales are sluggish overall, with many shoppers sidelined by high prices, elevated mortgage rates and economic uncertainty.
Second-home mortgages represented less than 3% of all mortgage originations in 2024 — a record low, per the real estate site.
Reality check: Even wealthy cash buyers are watching their wallets.
"They are much more likely to make a lowball offer or request concessions than they used to be," Florida agent Lindsay Garcia said in the report.
The intrigue: Travelers may be cooling on second homes, too.
Budget-conscious guests appear to be delaying or canceling stays at Airbnbs and other rentals, according to analytics firm AirDNA.
What's next: Skipped getaways, slashed wedding budgets, dropped dinner plans — call this the summer of strategic spending.
President Trump spoke for more than an hour on Friday at a U.S. Steel facility in Pennsylvania, but never explicitly said if he's approved a deal whereby Japan's Nippon Steel would acquire U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion.
Why it matters: This prolongs a 16-month saga that included lawsuits, intra-union dissension, conflict between geopolitical allies, and literal shouting.
Trump did, however, announce plans to increase tariffs on steel imports to 50% from 25%.
Zoom in: Trump repeatedly referred to a planned "partnership" between Nippon and U.S. Steel, without explaining what that would mean.
Prior reporting suggests that it could mean the deal goes through, but with Nippon Steel pledging over $14 billion in new investments.
U.S. Steel also would have an American CEO and an American majority on its board of directors, while the U.S. government would get a so-called "golden share" that would let it prevent actions deemed to be against the country's interests.
Yes, but: It isn't yet clear how the board of a U.S. subsidiary could force Nippon to invest the money, were it to change its mind after the merger closes.
Steelworkers union officials had warned that an earlier agreement would have allowed the Japanese company out of its investment commitment without cause.
Catch up quick: Former president Biden blocked the merger on national security grounds, while Trump also opposed it during last year's campaign.
What he's saying: Trump told the crowd in Pennsylvania that there's "a lot of money coming your way," and confirmed the $14 billion figure.
Neither U.S. Steel nor Nippon Steel have issued any public statements on Friday about the merger.
The United Steelworkers union said in a statement that it hasn't participated in any discussions with the White House or either company, and doesn't know what the final arrangement includes.
Elon Musk brushed off a New York Times report about his alleged drug use while joining the Trump campaign in a Friday press conference marking the end of the billionaire's days with the Department of Government Efficiency.
The Times on Friday, citing more than a dozen people who knew or worked with him, reported that Musk was allegedly taking so much ketamine — on top of other drugs — that it was affecting his bladder.
Musk in the past had said he was prescribed ketamine for mental health issues.
Driving the news: Asked about the report Friday, Musk railed against The New York Times "for their lies about the Russiagate hoax" and added "let's move on."
The Times reported that it's "unclear" if Musk used drugs while serving in the government.
Zoom out: President Trump, during an often rambling opening to the press conference, said Musk is "really not leaving" and was "going to be back and forth."
Musk said he would continue to visit as a "friend" and adviser to the president.
Catch up quick: Musk and DOGE set out with an audacious goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending.
That didn't happen. And the savings DOGE claims it did find have been hotly contested because the math backing up the initiatives' tallies was marred with errors.
But Musk on Friday maintained he still expects to achieve a trillion dollars in cuts over time.
Flashback: In a memorable February appearance, Musk joined Trump in the Oval Office to defend DOGE's cuts, saying Americans "voted for major government reform and that's what the people are going to get."
Since then, DOGE purged thousands of government workers and contracts — though Musk's legacy with DOGE remains ensnared in several ongoing lawsuits.
President Trump has gone scorched earth on the architect of his own judicial legacy, disavowing Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society and any judge who stands in the way of the MAGA agenda.
Why it matters: Trump's alliance with the conservative legal movement powered his takeover of the Republican Party, helping him win over skeptical GOP elites by promising — and delivering — a roster of judges that united the right behind his presidency.
Three Supreme Court justices and hundreds of judicial appointees later, Trump now claims he was naive — and that the federal bench he shaped is now conspiring against him.
What they're saying: "I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges," Trump wrote in a furious Truth Social post Thursday night.
"I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo," he continued, claiming that the conservative legal activist "probably hates America."
"I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten!"
"Where do these initial three Judges come from? How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of 'TRUMP?'" the president wrote.
It's the latest example of Trump and his aides claiming a "judicial coup" is threatening democracy by reining in his executive authority.
Flashback: Few figures shaped Trump's first-term legacy more profoundly than Leo, whose guidance helped stock the federal bench with conservative judges for a generation.
"We're going to have great judges, conservative, all picked by the Federalist Society," Trump promised during his first campaign in March 2016.
All three of Trump's Supreme Court justice nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — came from a list personally curated by Leo, according to NPR.
Between the lines: The wildly effective conservative alliance ultimately couldn't survive MAGA's bedrock principle: absolute loyalty to Trump, a condition that has doomed countless GOP relationships.
For Trump, the notion of judicial independence from his personal and political goals is a sign not of a healthy constitutional republic — but of betrayal by allies who owe their power to him.
The other side: "I'm very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved," Leo told Axios in a statement.
"There's more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it's ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump's most important legacy."
"We're not going to be using the Federalist Society to make judicial nominations at all going forward," White House official Stephen Miller told CNN, condemning "rogue judges" and bad vetting.
The bottom line: Trump is taking no prisoners in his assault on the federal judiciary, accusing any judge who stalls his agenda — even the ones he appointed — of siding with "the radical left."
But that doesn't mean he won't treat favorable rulings — such as the Supreme Court's immunity ruling that helped keep him out of prison last summer — as total vindication.
The Trump administrationcan for now end a program that gave temporary protections to more than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the Supreme Court said Friday."?
The big picture: In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the high court "plainly botched" its assessment and undervalued the "devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens" amid pending legal claims.
Catch up quick: A federal judge in April temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking the Biden-era protections under the under the CHNV program.
The parole programs had granted the immigrants temporary legal protections after they fled violence in their home countries.
In a January order, Trump instructed the Department of Homeland Security to "[t]erminate all categorical parole programs" that he said were "contrary to the policies of the United States" established in his orders, including CHNV.
Driving the news: The order from the court noted that Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from granting the application for a stay on the lower court's order.
Jackson argued the government failed to satisfy its burden of demonstrating harm, saying ending the program will have "devastating consequences. "
"While it is apparent that the Government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage, court-ordered stays exist to minimize—not maximize—harm to litigating parties," she wrote.
Friction point: Solicitor general D. John Sauer argued in his request to the Supreme Court that Immigration and Nationality Act grants Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem authority to revoke parole and that District Judge Indira Talwani overstepped in her order.
Talwani wrote in her April order that terminating legal status early for noncitizens who complied with DHS programs and lawfully entered the country without any case-by-case justification "undermines the rule of law."
Flashback: Under former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the program allowed migrants to fly into the U.S. if they had a sponsor and passed security checks.
Those who entered through the program could stay for up to two years.
Zoom out: Earlier this month, the court allowed the Trump administration to strip deportation protections from some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants.
The massive Republican budget bill working its way through Congress has mostly drawn attention for its tax cuts and Medicaid changes.
But it would also take steps to significantly roll back coverage under the Affordable Care Act, with echoes of the 2017 repeal-replace debate.
Why it matters: The bill that passed the House before Memorial Day includes an overhaul of ACA marketplaces that would result in coverage losses for millions of Americans and savings to help cover the cost of extending President Trump's tax cuts.
It comes after a growth spurt that saw ACA marketplace enrollment reach new highs, with more than 24 million people enrolling for 2025, according to KFF. The House's changes would likely reverse that trend, unless the Senate goes in a different direction when it picks up the bill next week.
Driving the news: The changes are not as sweeping as the 2017 effort at repealing the law, but many of them erect barriers to enrollment that supporters say are aimed at fighting fraud.
Brian Blase, president of Paragon Health Institute and a health official in Trump's first administration, said Republicans are focusing on rolling back Biden-era expansions "that have led to massive fraud and inefficiency."
The CBO estimates the ACA marketplace-related provisions would lead to about 3 million more people becoming uninsured.
Cynthia Cox, a vice president at KFF, said while the changes "sound very technical" in nature, taken together "the implications are that it will be much harder for people to sign up for ACA marketplace plans."
What's inside: The bill would end automatic reenrollment in ACA plans for people getting subsidies, instead requiring them to proactively reenroll and resubmit information on their incomes for verification.
It would also prevent enrollees from provisionally receiving ACA subsidies in instances where extra eligibility checks are needed, which can take months.
If people wound up making more income than they had estimated for a given year, the bill removes the cap on the amount of ACA subsidies they would have to repay to the government.
Some legal immigrants would also be cut off from ACA subsidies, including people granted asylum and those in their five-year waiting period to be eligible for Medicaid.
What they're saying: In a letter to Congress, patient groups pointed to the various barriers as "unprecedented and onerous requirements to access health coverage" that would have "a devastating impact on people's ability to access and afford private insurance coverage."
The letter was signed by groups including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Diabetes Association and American Lung Association.
Between the lines: A last-minute addition to the bill would also make a technical but important change that increases government payments to insurers in ACA marketplaces.
That would have the effect of reducing the subsidies that help people afford premiums and save the government money, by reducing the benchmark silver premiums that are used to set the subsidy amounts.
Democrats are concerned that if Congress also allows enhanced ACA subsidies to expire at the end of this year, the combined effect would be even higher premium increases for enrollees next year.
Insurers that already are planning their premium rates for next year say the Republican funding changesare throwing uncertainty into the mix.
"Disruption in the individual market could also result in much higher premiums," the trade group AHIP warned in a statement on the bill.
The big picture: Blase said changes like ending automatic reenrollment are needed to increase checks that ensure people are not claiming higher subsidies than they're entitled to.
"I think what happened during the Biden years led to massive fraud and improper spending, and that needs to be rolled back," he said.
Cox said another way to address fraud would be to target shady insurance brokers, rather than enrollees themselves. She estimated that marketplace enrollment could fall by roughly one third from all the changes together.
"The justification for many of these provisions is to address fraud," she said. "The question is, how many people who are legitimately signed up are going to get lost in that process?"
If you need smart, quick intel on health care policy for your job, get AxiosProPolicy.
President Trump on Friday blasted China and accused it of violating the trade truce the two countries signed earlier this month.
Why it matters: Just as courts hollow out Trump's tariff campaign, he's re-escalating on other fronts.
Catch up quick: On May 12 the U.S. and China, following talks in Switzerland, announced a 90-day deal to lower tariffs on each other while they negotiated on trade.
The pact lowered U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% — essentially moving from a full trade embargo to a painful levy.
Driving the news: In recent days there have been reports the detente was not going well,with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent describing talks as "a bit stalled" Thursday night.
Trump blew it all up Friday morning.
What they're saying: "Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!"
By the numbers: The stock market immediately dropped on Trump's post.
S&P 500 futures, which had been roughly flat, dropped about 0.5%.
The index is up almost 5% since the China deal was struck, continuing a rally that started after Trump paused most other tariffs in April.
What to watch: It's not clear what action Trump could take against China next.
The tariff reduction is supposed to last until August 12.
In the meantime, a federal court ruled the tariffs Trump imposed on China were illegal anyway, a ruling that's been stayed for now.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an email for comment on Trump's post.
America's government and technology giants are fusing into a codependent superstructure in a race to dominate AI and space for the next generation.
Why it matters: The merging of Washington and Silicon Valley is driven by necessity — and fierce urgency.
The U.S. government needs AI expertise and dominance to beat China to the next big technological and geopolitical shift — but can't pull this off without the help of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and many others.
These companies can't scale AI, and reap trillions in value, without government helping ease the way with more energy, more data, more chips and more precious minerals. These are the essential ingredients of superhuman intelligence.
The big picture: Under President Trump, both are getting what they want, as reported by Axios' Zachary Basu:
1. The White House has cultivated a deep relationship with America's AI giants — championing the $500 billion "Stargate" infrastructure initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, Japan's SoftBank, and the UAE's MGX.
Trump was joined by top AI executives — including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Palantir's Alex Karp — during his whirlwind tour of the Middle East this month.
Trump sought to fuse U.S. tech ambitions with Gulf sovereign wealth, announcing a cascade of deals to bring cutting-edge chips and data centers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Trump and his tech allies envision a geopolitical alliance to outpace China, flood the globe with American AI, and cement control over the energy and data pipelines of the future.
2. Back at home, the Trump administration is downplaying the risks posed by AI to American workers, and eliminating regulatory obstacles to quicker deployment of AI.
Trump signed a series of executive orders last week to hasten the deployment of new nuclear power reactors, with the goal of quadrupling total U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Congress that AI is "the next Manhattan Project" — warning that losing to China is "not an option" and that government must "get out of the way."
The House version of Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed last week, would impose a 10-year ban on any state and local laws that regulate AI.
AI companies big and small are winning the U.S. government's most lucrative contracts — especially at the Pentagon, where they're displacing legacy contractors as the beating heart of the military-industrial complex.
Between the lines: Lost in the rush to win the AI arms race is any real public discussion of the rising risks.
The risk of Middle East nations and companies, empowered with U.S. AI technology, helping their other ally, China, in this arms race.
The possibility, if not likelihood, of massive white-collar job losses as companies shift from humans to AI agents.
The dangers of the U.S. government becoming so reliant on a small set of companies.
The vulnerabilities of private data on U.S. citizens.
Zoom in: The Great Fusing has created a new class of middlemen — venture capitalists, founders and influencers who shuttle between Silicon Valley and Washington, shaping policy while still reaping tech's profits.
Elon Musk could become the government's main supplier of space rockets, satellites, internet connectivity, robots and other autonomous technologies. And with what he's learned via DOGE, Musk's xAI is well-positioned to package AI products and then sell them back to the U.S. government.
David Sacks, Trump's AI and crypto czar, acts as the premier translator between the two worlds — running point on policy, deals, and narrative through his government role, tech network, and popular "All-In" podcast.
Marc Andreessen, whose VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has stakes in nearly every major AI startup, has been a chief evangelist of the pro-acceleration doctrine at the core of Trump's AI agenda.
Reality check: The Great Fusing has been led more by Silicon Valley iconoclasts (Musk) than the incumbent stalwarts (including Mark Zuckerberg), who have rushed to align with the emerging gravitational pull.
Tech-education nexus: Silicon Valley, facing a new race for AI engineers, cheered during the campaign when Trump floated automatic green cards for foreign students who graduated from U.S. colleges. But so far, tech moguls have been relatively quiet as Trump halted all student visa interviews and tried to ban international matriculation to Harvard.
New defense reality: Palantir, Anduril and other advanced defense tech companies have more Pentagon traction than ever, robotics companies are surging and entire industries are being born — including undersea drones and space-based weapons.
Axios' Dan Primack and Zachary Basu contributed reporting.
Go deeper: "Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath."
At any moment, a Truth Social post — and now a courtruling — can upend the global trade system.
Why it matters: The world economy has never seen anything like this. The tariff legal fight injects new uncertainty into what was already a historically unpredictable situation.
Businesses are in limbo about what it will cost to bring goods into the country.
Foreign officials see new leverage in trade talks that could drag out even longer.
The billions in tariff revenueexpected to help offset the cost of Trump's tax bill could all but vanish.
What they're saying: "One day it makes sense to ship and the next day it doesn't," a port official tells Axios.
The big picture: Economists expected front-loading on steroids — businesses would take advantage of a tariff halt and rush to import goods, which could push off the risk of shortages and consumer price hikes.
Never mind all that now.
Driving the news: The Court of International Trade issued a late-night ruling on Wednesday that blocked many of Trump's sweeping tariffs.
Another shocker came less than 24 hours later. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled the import levies could remain, as it reviews arguments from both sides.
"As the courts now play a larger role in the outcome of Trump's tariffs, trade policy uncertainty will only become more entrenched, stifling business investment and consumer spending on durable goods," Bernard Yaros, an economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note.
The intrigue: Europe's trade delegation was in Washington this week, just as it became clear courts could kill many of the tariffs that brought them to the negotiating table in the first place.
"It makes no sense to negotiate about that," Bernd Lange, a key European Parliament lawmaker leading the trade delegation, told Axios, referring to the "Liberation Day" tariffs that might ultimately be illegal.
"I guess now we have a better position for negotiation," Lange said just minutes before the appeals court issued its stay — a sign of how quickly dynamics can change.
Lange admitted that he has started waking up a half-hour earlier since Trump was inaugurated "to follow the news coming from the United States." He is on Truth Social.
The other side: The economic threat of steep tariffs still lingers.
The Trump administration could still impose tariffs under the same authorities officials previously used on to impose levies on steel, aluminum and autos.
Those powers require more processes to activate, though Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he is moving in "Trump time" to carry them out.
While the Court of International Trade said Trump did not have unlimited tariff powers, the ruling was more ambiguous about whether he could impose some tariffs, Ilya Somin, one of the lawyers who represented small businesses in the case, said.
The bottom line: Economic uncertainty was already at peak levels.
Elon Musk bemoaned President Trump's signature legislative effort in an interview with CBS News this week, saying he was "disappointed to see the massive spending bill," which is projected to add trillions to budget deficits.
Why it matters: Musk and his businesses were walloped by backlash to his leadership of DOGE. Now the fruit of those efforts — more government savings — are at risk of being washed away by Trump's "One, Big Beautiful Bill."
The big picture: Elon Musk claims that his DOGE team saved $175 billion in taxpayer spending, though an outside analysis estimates the verified savings are closer to $16 billion.
The "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed the House last week, is projected to add $3 trillion to 5 trillion to budget deficits over the next 10 years.
Even using Musk's most generous estimate, those DOGE savings would amount to just 6% of the projected increase to the deficit from the bill.
Between the lines: The primary driver of deficits in the bill is the extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which Republicans aim to partially offset with cuts to Medicaid, green energy tax breaks and other programs.
The bill also includes significant new spending on border security and the military.
The White House argues the bill will reduce the deficit by $1.6 trillion, claiming that tax cut extensions shouldn't count as new costs — and that Trump's policies will supercharge economic growth.
Businesses are racing to replace people with AI, and they're not waiting to first find out whether AI is up to the job.
Why it matters: CEOs are gambling that Silicon Valley will improve AI fast enough that they can rush cutbacks today without getting caught shorthanded tomorrow.
While AI tools can often enhance office workers' productivity, in most cases they aren't yet adept, independent or reliable enough to take their places.
But AI leaders say that's imminent — any year now! — and CEOs are listening.
State of play: If these execs win their bets, they'll have taken the lead in the great AI race they believe they're competing in.
But if they lose and have to backtrack, as some companies already are doing, they'll have needlessly kicked off a massive voluntary disruption that they will regret almost as much as their discarded employees do.
Driving the news: AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen this week.
Amodei argues the industry needs to stop "sugarcoating" this white-collar bloodbath — a mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.
Yes, but: Many economists anticipate a less extreme impact. They point to previous waves of digital change, like the advent of the PC and the internet, that arrived with predictions of job-market devastation that didn't pan out.
Other critics argue that AI leaders like Amodei have a vested interest in playing up the speed and size of AI's impact to justify raising the enormous sums the technology requires to build.
By the numbers: Unemployment among recent college grads is growing faster than among other groups and presents one early warning sign of AI's toll on the white-collar job market, according to a new study by Oxford Economics.
Looking at a three-month moving average, the jobless rate for those ages 22 to 27 with a bachelor's degree was close to 6% in April, compared with just above 4% for the overall workforce.
Between the lines: Several companies that made early high-profile announcements that they would replace legions of human workers with AI have already had to reverse course.
Klarna, the buy now, pay later company, set out in 2023 to be OpenAI's "favorite guinea pig" for testing how far a firm could go at using AI to replace human workers — but earlier this month it backed off a bit, hiring additional support workers because customers want the option of talking to a real person.
IBM predicted in 2023 that it would soon be able to replace around 8,000 jobs with AI. Two years later, its CEO told the Wall Street Journal that so far the company has replaced a couple of hundred HR employees with AI — but increased hiring of software developers and salespeople.
Zoom out: Every modern era of technological transformation has disrupted the labor market, from the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century to the assembly-line automation of the early 20th and the container ship-driven globalization of the millennium.
The transitions have often been rough, but economies emerged bigger and with more jobs, not less.
Some AI experts fear the change could be so much faster with AI that there will be no time to adapt. Others view AI as a fundamentally different kind of tech that will force society to invent new approaches to jobs and salaries, like the notion of a universal basic income.
Our thought bubble: Predicting employment levels has always been tough because there are so many complex variables to consider.
Even if Amodei is right and AI cuts a devastating swath among office workers, there are other demographic forces at work that could make it harder for businesses to find the human workers they still need.
For instance: The largest generation in history is retiring as boomers age out of the workforce. The Trump administration is working overtime to limit immigration. Other black-swan crises will erupt that could boost or limit unemployment.
What we're watching: The sociopolitical skews of AI's workforce impact are volatile and hold a great potential for splitting coalitions and dividing allies.
The populist wing of Trump's MAGA movement is likely to resist AI-driven change even as the president's tech-insurgent allies push for more investment and weaker regulation.
More broadly, Americans overall say that, unlike impatient CEOs and China-fearing office-holders, they want to see AI introduced with more care and less haste, per the 2025 Axios Harris 100 poll.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say Klarna hired additional workers (not rehired workers it cut) as it backed off from using AI (not reversed course) to replace human workers.
A federal appellate court on Thursday temporarily stayed a ruling that effectively wiped out most of President Trump's tariffs.
Why it matters: The intervention will deepen the chaos around the Court of International Trade's Wednesday order, which threatens to upend global commerce.
Catch up quick: The trade court ruled that Trump did not have the authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs.
The administration immediately appealed, and suggested Thursday it could go straight to the Supreme Court to seek relief if other courts did not act quickly.
Driving the news: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an order Thursday staying the trade court's ruling while it considers motions from both sides.
It ordered the plaintiffs in the case to file a response by June 5, and the government to reply by June 9.
What they're saying: "The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade is so wrong, and so political! Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday evening.
The other side: "The administrative stay issued today simply gives the Court of Appeals more time to consider the important issues presented in our case," said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D), whose office is leading the states' suit, in a statement posted to X.
The White House is awaiting Hamas' response to the new Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal proposal President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff presented on Wednesday night, but U.S. officials are sounding less optimistic about an imminent breakthrough than 24 hours earlier.
Why it matters: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Israel signed off on the proposal before Witkoff submitted it to Hamas. But some in the militant group believe that rather than meeting in the middle, Witkoff's offer included new concessions to Israel.
"Discussions are continuing and we hope a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so that we can return all the hostages home. ... If a ceasefire comes into effect you will hear about it directly from me, from the president or from special envoy Witkoff," Leavitt said.
Hamas said in a statement that it was still studying the proposal. But members of the group have expressed serious concerns about the lack of clear guarantees that Israel won't again unilaterally end the ceasefire, as it did in March, according to two sources with direct knowledge.
Breaking it down: The new proposal for a 60-day ceasefire — under which President Trump would guarantee Israel's compliance — doesn't differ much from previous propositions.
It involves the release of 10 live hostages and 18 deceased hostages held in Gaza — half on the first day and half on day 7 of the ceasefire.
In exchange, Israel would release 125 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israel, another 1,100 Palestinians detained by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023, and the bodies of 180 Palestinians allegedly killed during attacks on Israelis.
The IDF would redeploy its forces in Gaza in two phases, with the exact details to be negotiated by the parties ahead of the temporary ceasefire.
Humanitarian aid to Gaza would be resumed through the UN and the Red Crescent. It's unclear what this means for the controversial new aid mechanism launched earlier this week.
Behind the scenes: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told hostage families on Thursday that Israel is ready to move forward with a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza on the basis of Witkoff's proposal, according to a source who was in the meeting.
Witkoff's new proposal was fully coordinated with Israel and was a result of his meeting with Netanyahu's confidant Ron Dermer at the White House on Tuesday, an Israeli official and a source with knowledge tell Axios.
Zoom in: Witkoff's proposal includes a commitment that Trump would personally announced the temporary ceasefire and work to ensure that during those 60 days "good faith negotiations take place until a final settlement is reached."
Those negotiations would focus on the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages, the terms of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and security arrangements and post-war governance in Gaza "with each side presenting its positions."
The document says the parties must reach an agreement for a permanent ceasefire within 60 days. If an agreement is reached, the remaining hostages will be released. If not, the ceasefire can be extended by mutual consent.
Friction point: While the proposal says the U.S., Qatar and Egypt would all guarantee serious negotiations take place for a permanent ceasefire, Hamas wanted much stronger guarantees from the U.S. that Israel wouldn't walk away again.
Hamas officials saw those elements of the document as a shift in the U.S. position in Israel's favor, according to the two sources with direct knowledge.
Hamas officials were also angeredby the fact that the proposal didn't clearly state that Israeli forces must withdraw to the same lines as before the pervious ceasefire collapsed in March, the sources said.
They also objected to the fact that the proposal didn't say that aid would be delivered exclusively through the previous channels and not through the newly launched Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
What to watch: Hamas officials in Doha expressed frustration about the new proposal with several of them pushing to reject it. Other Hamas official argued the group should accept the proposal with additional conditions.
President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping may need to hold a phone call to overcome stumbling blocks in trade negotiations, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday.
The big picture: Bessent helped the U.S. strike a deal with China following a summit in Switzerland earlier this month that saw the world's two largest economies agree to slash tariffs for 90 days.
Officials in China welcomed the U.S. Court of International Trade's blocking most of Trump's sweeping tariffs on Wednesday, which a federal appeals court temporarily stayed a day later.
What they're saying: "I would say that they are a bit stalled," Bessent said of the negotiation situation on Fox News. "I believe that we will be having more talks with them in the next few weeks."
Bessent told Fox News' Bret Baier the U.S. and Chinese leaders may, at some point, have to hold a call.
"Given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity ... this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other," he added.
"They have a very good relationship. And I am confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known."
Two top officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been ousted from leadership as the White House ramps up the pressure on the agency to arrest an unprecedented number of immigrants, five sources familiar with the situation tell Axios.
Why it matters: The changes come a week after top Trump aide Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that ICE seek to arrest 3,000 people a day — triple what agents were arresting in the early days of the administration.
Driving the news: The ousted officials are Kenneth Genalo, ICE's enforcement and removal director, and Robert Hammer, the Department of Homeland Security's investigations director who has handled particularly complex cases involving criminal immigrants.
Genalo is retiring but will still serve as a special government employee, sources said. Hammer is being reassigned to a different leadership position.
In the week since Miller and Noem called on ICE officials to step up arrests, ICE has failed to reach 3,000 daily arrests. Agents did bring in 1,600 the day before the leadership changes — a substantial rise but not close to Miller and Noem's goal, people familiar with the agency's internal data said.
Several sources told Axios the leadership changes reflect higher-ups' frustration with the arrest numbers at a time when the White House is focused on President Trump's goal of deporting a million unauthorized immigrants.
But one source said the arrest statistics weren't considered in decision making and that conclusions were being drawn from last week's meeting with Miller.
Flashback: It's not the first shakeup at ICE, which has been under increasing pressure over the White House's deportation ambitions.
Earlier this year Noem reassigned ICE's director and deputy director.
They were replaced with ICE veteran Todd Lyons and Madison Sheehan, who was previously a political staffer of Noem's. Some insiders believe Lyons' job might also be at risk now.
ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since Barack Obama was in the White House.
What they're saying: "I think there's great leadership at ICE. Todd Lyons, I've known him for years. He was probably the best field director we had," Trump border czar Tom Homan told Axios on Thursday.
"There are 25 field office directors across the country and they all respect Todd. Todd's the right guy to be the director," Homan added.
Homan declined to comment on the leadership changes, saying he was unaware of the reasons behind the reassignments.
Homan, an acting director of ICE during Trump's first term, said it helps agents across the country to have a director who has risen through the agency's ranks.
"They're just looking for guidance, and they're looking for cover," Homan said. "So when they're out there arresting illegal aliens, and the press comes after them, the NGOs come after them or the ACLU comes after them, you got a leader that's going to support them."
The State Department plans to create an "Office of Remigration" in a sweeping reorganization drive tied to the Trump administration's efforts to deport millions of immigrants, a department official told Axios Thursday.
The big picture: The proposed new office would signal the State Department's shift from helping refugees to removing immigrants, even as it employs the term "remigration" — a concept that critics say has a troubled history in Europe, where it's used by far-right groups.
Driving the news: The State Department on Thursday announced a proposed overhaul that would cut various programs and staff.
The Office of Remigration would be part of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, a State Department official said.
The proposal calls for an even deeper cut to domestic staffing than the 15% reduction that was floated in April.
The department also intends to eliminate several divisions overseeing America's 20-year presence in Afghanistan, including an office responsible for resettling Afghan allies who supported U.S. military operations.
Context: In Europe, the concept of remigration calls for the mass deportation or coerced repatriation of non-white immigrants and their European-born descendants.
It's a term that's been used by far-right politicians, such as Austria's Herbert Kickl and Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party leader, Alice Weidel.
Liberal and moderate critics in Europe say "remigration" has historically been used as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. The term was popularized by Martin Sellner, a millennial influencer of Europe's far-right.
Yes, but: "The way that it worked before, Population Refugee Migration was basically an entire bureau dedicated to bringing people into the United States," said the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"It had the migration function — it's in the name — we're just reversing the flow of migrants who shouldn't be here to go out of the country."
Zoom in: A more detailed proposal sent to Congress proposes prioritizing migration and border issues over refugee resettlement.
The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration's "existing migration functions will be consolidated into three new functional offices under a (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) for Migration Matters."
"Reflecting core administration priorities, these offices will be substantially reorganized to shift focus towards supporting the Administration's efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status," the document said.
The Office of Remigration would be one of these new "functional offices" and is described as a "hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking."
What they're saying: "Over the past quarter century, the domestic operations of the State Department have grown exponentially, resulting in more bureaucracy, higher costs, and fewer results for the American people," Rubio said in a statement.
"The reorganization plan will result in a more agile department, better equipped to promote America's interests and keep Americans safe across the world."
Rubio didn't mention the Office of Remigration in his statement, and the office is not listed on a new chart on the department's website.
