I've spoken with scores of CEOs and hundreds of students in recent weeks. They agree on one big thing: There's growing confusion about what constitutes strong, smart leadership in the transition to an AI world.

Why it matters: We run two companies (Axios + Axios HQ), oversee 500+ employees and spend an inordinate amount of time talking with the architects of the leading AI companies. So I wanted to share how we're approaching leadership in this volatile, hinge moment.

The big picture: America is facing the biggest, fastest, most consequential technological shift in history — at the very moment people have lost faith in the big institutions. Making matters worse, most of us feel exhausted before contemplating super-human intelligence — which is often so unimaginable or scary that it's easier to ignore than engage. Many are jamming their heads in the sand instead of exploring this new frontier.

• The result: a stunning lack of preparedness for a technology that could hit every person, every job, every company over the next year or so.
• Yes, AI might never match the hype. But we're betting it approximates the hype in the next 18 months to three years. And so are most CEOs and top government officials we talk to, even if they're strangely silent about it in public.

More than ever, it's strong, smart, high-integrity leaders, especially CEOs and heads of organizations big and small, who can provide a vital service to employees and the broader public as AI hits land.

• Here are a few ways we are trying to do this at Axios:
• Be blunt: Stop downplaying the tectonic shifts that could hit every job, starting next year. Employees need the hard truth that entire classes of jobs could be wiped away, especially if people don't quickly adapt. I recently told the Axios staff that we're done sugar-coating it, and see an urgent need for every employee to turn AI into a force multiplier for their specific work. We then gave them tools to test. My exact words to a small group of our finance, legal and talent colleagues last week: "You are committing career suicide if you're not aggressively experimenting with AI."
• Prepare people: We provided our entire staff with access to the advanced Open AI ChatGPT model, and asked for volunteers to find ways to improve productivity in every job here. They then pass what they learned to colleagues doing the same work. Shockingly, nearly half our staff volunteered. Almost every person is doing personal experimentation. This gives everyone a chance to adapt to AI before better versions upend their craft. Free versions of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok and other models are a great place to start. We tell most staff they should be spending 10% or more of their day using AI to discover ways to double their performance by the end of the year. Some, like coders, should shoot for 10x-ing productivity as AI improves.
• Prepare yourself: AI is both tantalizing and terrifying. It's our job as leaders to realize this, and sharpen our own thinking and explanations about how this will affect organizations and the people who rely on us. This is a moment to over-communicate, even if we admit the uncertainty and unknowns ahead. Government is doing little to raise awareness, so it's on us to explain what's coming. We can at least detail how we're handling early preparations and setting boundaries for how, when and why we'll use AI.
• Be clear-eyed: We believe many businesses will be destroyed by AI. But many will be born or made bigger and better. It's our job to get ahead of the change and leverage AI to make our companies stronger, more profitable and more enjoyable. World-changing companies will be built with just a few people. Miracle cures will be discovered by creative, persistent people who figure out how to conjure magic out of the models. Massive fortunes will be made — with tools that are basically free. Yes, much of what will happen is worrisome now, and soon will be scary. But some will master the tools, instead of vice versa. That could be you. At Axios, we see AI helping us vastly expand our local news coverage. So we're working feverishly to use the emerging tech to grow this business.
• Be leaders: So many have lost confidence in so many institutions. Don't expect the government or the AI companies to step in to restore faith at this volatile time. Truth is, government officials won't regulate or prepare the public because they see this as a race against China for global dominance. That's a valid, if incomplete, thesis. Plus, most politicians don't want to warn people of possible job losses, even if they anticipate them coming. The AI companies are focused more on speed to market than societal consequences. That's their fiduciary obligation to shareholders. So it's up to other leaders, especially CEOs, to make this transition safer and smoother. That takes wisdom, honesty, candor, smarts — and some empathy for nervous workers.
• Simplify: You'll hear a lot more from us on this topic in the year ahead. The pace of change in all jobs and all sectors will soon hit hyperspeed. The winners will be those who can simplify their business, purpose, structure, systems and work to adapt fast and smartly. One simple start to simplicity: Make sure every person at every level can name — in order of importance — the three things they must do to crush their job. Then, make sure you agree! Then, push them on how AI can help them with those three most important things.

The bottom line: Experiment assuming the current glitches — usually hallucinations or incorrect answers — will be fixed as models improve. These glitches keep us from currently using AI much beyond experimentation and augmentation.

• But we work under the assumption that one day soon the models will operate at a human-efficacy level for many tasks.

President Trump's improvisational and unpredictable leadership style has forced Cabinet officials, advisers and friends to develop a playbook to scuttle ideas they consider dumb, dangerous or undoable.

Why it matters: White House aides, Trump's Cabinet and top CEOs often resort to indirect tricks and techniques to sway "the boss."

The current trade fight captures this reality: Lots of top administration officials have doubts about Trump's insistence on aggressive, across-the-board tariffs. Almost all CEOs privately say the overall idea, and the way it was implemented, are dumb, delusional and destructive.

• They believe America was legitimately on the edge of a Golden Age if Trump used his victory to lower taxes, cut regulations, and smartly reset global trade and investment to America's benefit.
• They saw explosive growth unfolding this year, absent an unexpected shock.

Trump is the shock they feared. His improvisational strategy and sky-high tariffs spooked almost every aspect of the global economy.

• It's now hard to reverse, especially in a timely enough manner to dull economic pain.

Inside the White House, officials employ a daily dance of trying to ease, gently nudge and flatter Trump into shifting his worldview.

• Make no mistake (and lots of people do): Trump believes as fervently in tariffs and his approach as he does in any topic he's ever pursued.
• His team has all bought in on the idea of using more tariffs. But the details of how to employ them, and when, vary widely.

So the dance begins, with several specific moves:

1. The Block: Trump is notorious for reacting impulsively to the last thing he heard. So, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and those aligned with his view of winding down the trade war work hard to get alone time with Trump, away from pro-tariff warriors like Peter Navarro. Sometimes, they track physical locations of rivals to pounce on meetings with Trump.
2. The Scare: Trump is very hard to persuade after winning two elections and surviving being shot. His self-confidence and self-certainty are soaring. But he's not fully impervious to fear. That's why top officials wanted him to hear dire economic warnings from Walmart, Target and Home Depot last week — or Jamie Dimon's forecast of a potential meltdown three weeks ago. Trump's walk-back on firing Fed chair Jay Powell showed this.
3. The Glorification: This is increasingly common in trying to move Trump. Make a different idea — "We're trying to isolate China!" or "Negotiate genius deals!" — sound like it's both brilliant and Trump's. This requires using Trumpian language to make the ideas feel fresh, wise — and definitely not a capitulation.
4. The Nudge: This is next-level Trump persuasion. Trump hates being cornered — forced to compromise or surrender. So aides delicately, slowly use a combination of data points, friends, and CEOs Trump admires, to subtly and slowly move him.
5. The TV: This is an oldie but goodie for a reason — it works. Get respected CEOs on the right shows saying the right things, knowing Trump will either be watching or shown a clip. It's why so much tariff news is made on Fox News, often with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on her "Mornings with Maria" show.
6. The Level-Set: This is where Trump receives blunt advice, but he needs to be ready for it. Trump hit the 90-day tariff pause after the stock and bond markets revolted and after Vice President Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had multiple meetings with him. Trump also began talking about lowering the sky-high 145% tariffs on China when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told him that the U.S. will collect zero tariff revenue if there isn't trade with China at all.

Behind the scenes: Both inside and outside the White House, Trump advisers bristle at the notion that he doesn't receive blunt advice. They credit Wiles with creating an information environment where the president doesn't feel managed or limited. So she has packed Trump's schedule with numerous meetings with CEOs, car companies and major retailers who can share their opinion.

• "She doesn't claim to have all the answers, but she orchestrates one of the most complex information flows with tremendous strategy and effectiveness," an adviser texts Axios' Marc Caputo.
• "Her goal is to ensure Trump is presented unvarnished truths so HE can make the decision. She doesn't manipulate the process to effectuate a decision. It's why he trusts her and provides her the leeway to execute."

But the adviser said some CEOs talk tough and then get wobbly when in the White House:

• "She recognizes that Trump alone, let alone Trump behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, is a tremendously intimidating presence and even the most accomplished CEOs wither in front of him."

Axios' Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

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:

1. A new global economy.

• Trump has declared an all-out war on globalism, detonating every one of America's trading relationships — allies and adversaries alike — by imposing the largest tariffs in nearly a century.
• 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.
• Changes to Social Security phone services: The Social Security Administration posted on X that beginning next Monday, officials "will perform an anti-fraud check on all claims filed over the telephone and flag claims that have fraud risk indicators. … Individuals who are not flagged will be able to complete their claim without any in-person requirements." SSA found that changing an existing account over the phone was a rife source of fraud.

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.

• Editor's note: Updates with statement from Social Security Administration.

President Trump has a much different vision of the future than the tech titans who raced to shape and support his economic agenda.

Why it matters: The collision of those visions helps explain the most glaring private and public fights inside the Trump coalition over tariff strategy.

The tech vision: We're at the dawn of the AI Epoch — driven by a technology so all-powerful it will reorder markets, industries and nations.

• The U.S. enjoys an early, decisive AI advantage that could fuel a manufacturing and middle-class renaissance. American-made chips, data, minerals and energy companies (and adjacent work) will proliferate and prosper. Lose this race and little else matters.

The Trump vision: America is in steep, perhaps fatal decline. 

• The country has been "looted pillaged, raped and plundered." Salvation demands brute, unapologetic force to erase trade deficits, and muscle a 1950s America back into existence. AI won't do that. Tariffs will.
• Yes, it'll be painful. But big buildings, new factories and good-paying jobs will follow for millions of Americans. Some'll be AI jobs. Many others will be traditional gigs like line worker, plumber or electrician.

What they're saying: Steve Bannon — a White House official in Trump's first term, and now an influential MAGA podcaster — told us he sees tech bros as "narcissistic globalists that put their wealth and power first."

• With his fellow populist nationalists, Bannon says, "the country and the American citizens come first."

Musk tweeted over the weekend (now deleted) that Peter Navarro, the Trump trade adviser leading the populist charge, "ain't built s--t."

• Navarro retorted Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that Musk is "not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler, in many cases."

The big picture: Look at who's speaking out — or staying quiet — to understand how this dynamic is unfolding. It's both tech innovators (Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman) and hedge-fund magnates (Bill Ackman, Stan Druckenmiller) sounding the alarm about tariffs. They know little can be made cheaply in America fast, especially vital technology ingredients. We simply don't have the materials or workforce here. They want Trump to unleash his unpredictability and power to impose mineral deals and savvy incentives.

• Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of the tech investment firm Altimeter Capital, tweeted Monday: "nuclear style tariffs is not what people voted for - they will break the US economy NOT make us great again. CEOs support pro business Trump who promised precision guided truly reciprocal, smart tariffs that level the global playing field."
• Joe Lonsdale, a pro-Trump tech investor, said on X that there are ways "the tariffs could be done better."
• Balaji Srinivasan, a well-known angel investor and crypto bull, posted to his 1.1 million X followers after Trump's "Liberation Day" announcement: "This is nuking every single supply chain that passes through the US in any way, under the illusion that 45 years of deindustrialization can be fixed in one day of 45% tariffs."

On the other side sit true America First believers like Bannon, who hold deep suspicion, even disdain, for the tech titans.

• The Bannonites see tariffs as the world's comeuppance for screwing America's working class, and firmly believe good-paying jobs will materialize. They believe AI could hurt U.S. workers — just like trade deals did — and envision a broader-based renaissance. So tariffs are a smart, if painful, way to reset things. Eventually, companies will build here, come here, stay here.
• Bannon, after the administration announced Monday that Trump had kicked off high-level tariff negotiations with Japan, texted us: "Isolate China ... Let a New Golden Age Now Begin."

Between the lines: The merger of Trump's MAGA base with what we call the Tech Bro Industrial Complex (tech CEOs, investors, workers, podcasters) was always an imperfect fit. Trump, 78, assembled his original base with a mix of grievances and nostalgia, promising to make America what it once was. Trump and tech share a move fast, break things, high-testosterone mentality. But most tech CEOs are fixated on two things: future growth and AI. Trump spends little time fixating on tech, advisers tell us.

• The tariffs fight is testing the durability — and compatibility — of the Trump-tech alliance. After all, the top tech companies are taking an absolute beating, with the Magnificent 7 losing more than $1 trillion in the past three trading days alone. They can easily stomach such losses. But it's the vital technology ingredients (cell phones from Vietnam, chips from Taiwan) that are not mere nice-to-haves.
• Axios' Ben Berkowitz and Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

🔮 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.

Top Democrats tell us their party is in its deepest hole in nearly 50 years — and they fear things could actually get worse:

• The party has its lowest favorability ever.
• No popular national leader to help improve it.
• Insufficient numbers to stop most legislation in Congress.

• A durable minority on the Supreme Court.
• Dwindling influence over the media ecosystem, with right-leaning podcasters and social media accounts ascendant.
• Young voters are growing dramatically more conservative.
• A bad 2026 map for Senate races.
• Democratic Senate retirements could make it harder for the party to flip the House, with members tempted by statewide races.
• There are only three House Republicans in districts former Vice President Harris won in 2024, a dim sign for a Democratic surge. There were 23 eight years ago in seats Hillary Clinton won.
• And, thanks to the number of people fleeing blue states, the math for a Dem to win the presidency will just get harder in 2030.

Why it matters: Both parties — after losing the White House, Senate and House — suffer and search for salvation. But rarely does healing seem so hard and redemption so distant.

• Doug Sosnik — a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and widely followed thinker on political megatrends — told us this is Dems' deepest hole in at least the 45 years since Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. Sosnik said the 2024 election was at least as much a repudiation of Democrats as it was a victory for Trump.

As Ezra Klein noted this month in his New York Times column, if current population patterns hold, Democrats will suffer a devastating blow after the 2030 census: The party will lose as many as a dozen House seats and electoral votes.

• 🚨 He points out that in that Electoral College, Dems could win all the states Harris carried in 2024 — plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and still lose the White House.

The big picture: Democrats' dismal reality is not Republican spin. In fact, there's broad consensus among Democratic leaders that most current political, cultural, media and generational trends are cutting against them.

• "Democrats are losing working-class voters," Klein, co-author with Derek Thompson of the new liberal blueprint "Abundance," said last week. "They're seeing their margins among nonwhite voters erode and vanish. They're losing young voters. Something is wrong in the Democratic Party."

By the numbers: A deep, comprehensive poll by Democratic pollster David Shor of Blue Rose Research captured vividly and empirically the daunting data.

• For those skeptical of polls and sampling size, Shor's study is based on 26 million online responses collected over the course of 2024, and filtered to adjust to oddities of modern polling.
• Shor said on Klein's podcast, "The Ezra Klein Show," that his most striking finding — and the one most worrisome to him — is the surging pro-Trump/MAGA/Republican views and voting patterns of young men, immigrants and anyone other than strident liberals.

Shor estimates a 23-point swing against Democrats among immigrants. The swing is very pronounced among Hispanics who consider themselves conservatives: Democratic support dropped by 50%.

• But it's the rise of conservatism among young people, mainly men, that spooks him most. "[Y]oung voters — regardless of race and gender — have become more Republican," Shor writes in his 33-slide presentation. (Request the deck.)
• Ali Mortell, director of research at Blue Rose Research, told Axios' Tal Axelrod: "Millennials were one of the most progressive generations, and it's looking like Gen Z is about to be one of the most conservative."

The thing he's been most shocked by over the last four years, Shor told Klein: "[Y]oung people have gone from being the most progressive generation since the Baby Boomers, and maybe even in some ways more so, to becoming potentially the most conservative generation that we've experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years."

• A gender gap has exploded: 18-year-old men were 23 points more likely to support Donald Trump than 18-year-old women, which Shor called "just completely unprecedented in American politics."
• Sosnik told us that young men who didn't go to college "are firmly for Trump, not just against Democrats." He said young white women who didn't attend college "may be as much anti-Democrat as pro-Trump. And then the outliers are college women, who are very pro-Democratic. But it'll be very hard to dislodge the Republicans' success with non-college white men under 30."

What's next: Rahm Emanuel — the former House Democrat, Chicago mayor, ambassador to Japan, White House chief of staff and possible 2028 presidential candidate — told us his party needs an emergency meeting of mayors and governors to rethink the party's perception and priorities, and see what's working in schools.

• "The public has seen us as more focused around a set of cultural interests and issues — climate, 'woke,' DEI, abortion — than the American people," Emanuel said. "All those I care about. But they consumed both our intellectual and thematic energy. The American people said: You care more about that than everything else."

Emanuel told us Democrats have to stop being a liberal-only party for liberal-only voters: "We used to have liberal, moderate and conservative Democrats. Now we're basically a liberal party, because African American and Hispanic voters went out the back door. They're the ones who walked as we became more liberal."

• Emanuel's big message in conversation after conversation: "The American dream is unaffordable and inaccessible. And that is totally unacceptable. ... The forgotten middle class has to be our North Star."

Axios' Tal Axelrod contributed reporting.

To fully appreciate President Trump's mesmerizing control over Republicans, consider their scant public dissent over ideas many of them privately disdain:

1. Support for Vladimir Putin.
2. Support for on-again, off-again tariffs, and a worsening economy.
3. Support Elon Musk's haphazard budget-cutting.
4. Making Canada the 51st state.
5. Pardoning most Jan. 6 defendants.

Why it matters: It's the worst-kept secret in town. Most elected Republicans are staying silent on issues they find dubious, dumb or destructive.

In private, they're more forthcoming about their concerns and their mixed motivations for zipping their lips — genuine support for Trump and genuine fear of crossing him.

• Almost universally, Republicans have convinced themselves that by winning a second time, Trump earned whatever Cabinet he wants, and the freedom to pursue the policies of his choice.

They see no upside — or good reason — to oppose him because Trump, Musk and others would torch them publicly and on social media, and almost certainly threaten a primary challenge.

• Just ask Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who faced constant harassment back home for merely raising questions about Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth. She wound up voting to confirm him.
• Or Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who voted to confirm Hegseth, has gotten repeated death threats since the election.
• Or the exception, Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.): Trump has threatened him with a primary challenge for being "an automatic 'NO' vote on just about everything." But Massie continues to vote against Trump priorities, and recently wrote on X: "POTUS is spending his day attacking me and Canada. The difference is Canada will eventually cave."

Most GOP lawmakers dutifully defend things they might ridicule if they were done by a Democrat or weaker Republican.

• This ritual plays out all day, every day on X and cable news. Republicans pick up tricks from each other to duck and weave, or simply defend things they might find intellectually indefensible.
• "It's part of the gig, right?" said Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, vice chair of the House Republican Conference. "I haven't been asked about a Trump tweet in a while."

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — an outlier in the GOP who's an actual fan of tariffs — called the Republican chorus "an acquiescence to reality."

• Hawley says that although there are plenty of Republicans who don't like tariffs or Trump's approach to Ukraine, "I haven't heard what the alternatives would be."
• "He's the undisputed leader of the party," Hawley added. "I think people are, like: 'OK, let's give him a shot' — even those who probably, privately, would do it differently."

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) — who endorsed Trump back in early 2016, when Cramer was a House member — told Axios' Stef Kight that when Trump won the popular vote, Americans "signed off on his broader plan — and the things he's been doing are things he said he was going to do."

• "At this point, this early, we're best to let him do it and see how it turns out," Cramer said. "I think he needs a little room and some time ... to change big things in a short time. ... We've learned not to so quickly second-guess him. His instincts are often right — usually right."

One popular trick: Quietly articulate your differing views back home, without even the mildest hint of criticizing Trump.

• Another tactic is to deflect and express outrage, as several Republicans have done when questioned about the administration ignoring a judge's order while deporting two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members: "So you want murderers and rapists to stay in the U.S.?"

The bottom line: Politics is all about incentives. And every Republican incentive is to back Trump — and make sure he and MAGA media know it.

• Stef Kight and Andrew Solender contributed reporting.

Go deeper: Trump plays with fire — by choice.

They did it delicately, privately and belatedly. But some Cabinet members and top confidants warned President Trump that two pillars of his flood-the-zone strategy could backfire: tariffs and Elon Musk's budget-gutting.

Why it matters: Both moves hacked off allies — some Hill Republicans and Cabinet officials with cuts, Canada and Mexico with tariffs — and created the impression and reality of uncertainty or outright chaos.

Now, the public is weighing in:

1. Markets hate uncertainty and chaos. The S&P 500 is down 6.4% since Inauguration Day, and 3% since Election Day — one of the worst-performing major indices in the world. Most market signals are negative — partly because of a tech meltdown that's not entirely Trump-driven. But the uncertainty is the critical element. The uncertainty is the point.
2. Consumers are already losing confidence and pulling back on spending, weakening a key engine of the economy.
3. Several polls show a slump in Trump's popularity since he took office and launched his shock-and-awe plan to remake the U.S. government and the world order.

Today is Day 51 of Trump's term — halfway through the opening 100 days.

• "Ever since the election, Trump has been the master of the narrative," a Trump adviser told Axios' Marc Caputo. "We won every day. But this stock market fall is just different, no control. But it's just a detox — it'll get better."

A senior White House official tells us: "The market isn't great, not gonna lie. But the vibes are still good otherwise."

• Another White House official said Trump and his team "are adept at playing the long game, and we will not be dictated by a snapshot in time when there are so many indicators that show we're building a strong economy with staying power."
• The White House on Monday republished a Reuters list of a dozen companies looking at opening or expanding in the U.S. as tariffs loom.

What we're hearing: House and Senate Republicans are hyper-focused on avoiding a government shutdown at midnight Friday. And they're hopeful the stock market will trend back upward.

• "If the stock market looks like this in three weeks, we've got a problem," said a top consultant to Republican Senate and House candidates. "There's time. It's early."
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) posted on X with a bear-red graphic of Monday's indexes: "The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading. The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment. When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen."

Behind the scenes: Trump's team remains confident and aggressive, and contends not a minute has been wasted. The number of migrants trying to reach the U.S. by trekking through the Darién Gap jungle into Central America plunged 99% last month from February 2024, Bloomberg reported Monday.

• Trump and his aides are taking risks with eyes wide open — and we're told they're determined to persevere. They think the first 50 days couldn't possibly have gone better. An emboldened Trump is leaning into his instincts on every front.
• Trump's team cares most about the MAGA base, which is beyond delighted with the pace and scope of his move-fast-and-break-things approach.

Trump and his advisers recognize "that changing the globalized economic system, which has deindustrialized the United States, will create friction in the real economy," a top Republican insider told us.

• "To rebuild the U.S. civilian and defense industrial base that the globalists gave away to China will cause economic and market dislocation in the short term," the insider added. "It's a play for long-term results — like Reagan on deficits to win the Cold War."

Reality check: Some Cabinet members and congressional Republicans fear this painful "transition," Trump delicately labeled it Sunday in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, could stall his agenda.

• It was that quote — Trump refusing to rule out a recession — that helped fuel Monday's market swoon as fears rose about a U.S. economic slowdown and the possible pocketbook effects of tariffs.
• "This big sell-off feels ugly, it feels nasty," Drew Pettit, an equity strategist at Citigroup, told the Financial Times. "We were coming off very high sentiment and very high growth expectations. All of this is just recalibrating to the new risks that are in front of us."

Between the lines: There's a messaging gap that's confusing the market, too. The same morning Trump was hedging on a possible recession, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on NBC's "Meet the Press" guaranteeing: "There's going to be no recession in America."

• Investors like one message from government — not a menu.

Axios' Ben Berkowitz and Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

• Go deeper: The real "stagflation" risk, by Axios' Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown.

If you have time to tune into only one person to understand — and track — the interconnected MAGA media ecosystem, follow Donald Trump Jr.

Why it matters: There's no way to track all of the sources. So follow the power and influence. Don Jr. is deeply wired into every major player and most platforms, Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Tal Axelrod write in an Axios AM Executive Briefing special report.

Don Jr., 47, is his father's conduit, whisperer and translator of MAGA. President Trump, for all his MAGA clout, has a more traditional media diet, heavy legacy media. Don Jr. eats it all.

• And Don gets credit for amplifying smaller voices of the MAGA faithful — with his father sure to see it. The president gets tweets printed out for him all the time. So he knows what base influencers — and his relatives — are saying.

Another reason to watch the son closely: He'll be a kingmaker if this presidency is considered a success. Vice President Vance, also a MAGA media leading man, is very close to Don Jr. Keep an eye on how much the Trump empire monetizes this presidency — some insiders think the profits could keep MAGA afloat forever.

• Three MAGA figures are particularly close to the extended Trump clan: Tucker Carlson, Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Breitbart's Matt Boyle.

Behind the scenes: Don Jr.'s podcast, "Triggered," singlehandedly drives droves of eyeballs to his favored candidates across the country. We're told he enjoys interviewing them on his show, or simply retweeting them.

• You can ask freshman Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Jim Banks of Indiana or Tim Sheehy of Montana about the power of Don Jr.'s channels.

💡 Later today: Paid Executive Briefing subscribers get a Zoom briefing by Jim, Mike and a special MAGA expert guest. Plus you'll get this week's 3,500-word special report on MAGA media, and our future MAGA specials. Subscribe here.

In this city of little political agreement, there's consensus on one big thing: President Trump is picking more fights, with more action than mere words, with more lasting consequences than anyone expected.

Why it matters: Turns out, Trump wasn't bluffing about imposing 25% tariffs, about pardoning Jan. 6 criminals, or punishing Europe, or rewarding Russia, or growing executive power, or gutting the FBI, or filling his Cabinet with loyalists, or penalizing the media, or taking a wrecking ball to government.

In fact, in most cases, he's taking a more extreme approach than promised or expected.

• And he's picking big, new public fights that very few, if any, saw coming: Seize the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf, buy Greenland, bully Canada, turn Gaza into a glitzy Riviera, abolish USAID and kneecap the White House Correspondents' Association.

"We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years," Trump boasted as he began Tuesday night's address to Congress. "And we are just getting started," he said, describing his opening weeks as "nothing but swift and unrelenting action."

• It was a speech on steroids — 9,900 words! At 100 minutes, Trump broke the record for a presidential address to Congress, besting President Bill Clinton's marathon 2000 State of the Union address by 11 minutes.
• Talking about tariffs, Trump said: "There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that."

The big picture: So much has been set in motion so fast, on so many fronts, that it's hard for Trump's own White House to implement and explain much of it, officials tell us. Trump and his MAGA supporters love it.

• But many elected Republicans we talk to privately worry it could just be too much — too much to navigate, and too much risk to the two things people care most about: their personal finances and security.
• Trump remains relatively popular. His sway over Republican elected officials and MAGA media is stronger than ever. And few Republicans with clout protest anything he does in any serious, sustained public way. Indeed, most take to X or Fox News to applaud even moves they privately question or dislike. So his confidence isn't misplaced, aides tell us.

Behind the scenes: So far, Trump's White House shrugs at concerns and complaints. If anything, aides' collective confidence is on steroids, too. They admit few mistakes, express zero regrets, and believe wholeheartedly they're right and critics are wrong. But Trump's advisers and friends outside of the White House feel less certain.

• "Of course I'm worried," one top Trump adviser, who spoke with the president recently at Mar-a-Lago, told Axios' Marc Caputo. "We're still in the honeymoon phase here. But the stock market and that data and the noise from Elon [Musk] aren't great."
• The adviser added: "He was so confident and at ease that I started to believe I shouldn't be bedwetting."

Trump's surround sound: Trump is killing it — if you tune into MAGA media. Axios' Tal Axelrod, our MAGA media expert, said the major right-wing platforms and podcasts, including Steve Bannon's "War Room" and Jack Posobiec, lit up this week with victory cries on Ukraine and tariffs.

Nevertheless, risks for Trump are rising:

• The stock market fell sharply on Monday when Trump announced he'd press ahead with tariffs on Canada and Mexico, then had another big drop Tuesday after they kicked in at midnight.
• Stoking fears of inflation, Target warned shoppers Tuesday that prices would rise because of the tariffs Trump slapped on China.
• Last week, consumer confidence plummeted to an eight-month low amid concerns about Trump's trade and tariff policies.
• Three polls in the past three days have shown Americans questioning whether Trump's keeping his eye on the ball: 82% of U.S. adults said the economy should be a high priority but only 36% thought he was prioritizing that "a lot," CBS News polling found. Only 31% of U.S. adults in a Reuters/Ipsos poll approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living. 52% of U.S. adults in a CNN poll said Trump hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.

Around the world, old allies are flinching or fleeing:

• To understand the totality of the simultaneous fights of Trump's choosing, consider the nations we have more tension with now than 44 days ago: Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, Denmark (via Greenland), Germany, Britain, France and Panama.
• Trump can rightly argue that relationships are better with Israel, the Saudis and Russia. But it's old allies turning so quickly into skeptics or potential adversaries that's disrupting geopolitical calculations.

Isolate on Canada: Trump has upended relations in radical ways. America's northern neighbor is now dramatically more feisty, more anti-American and more pro-Liberal Party than it was when Trump took office. We're now locked in a trade war that could hurt some U.S. consumers and, by Canadians' own appraisal, devastate their economy.

• Trump wants big tariffs and, he keeps suggesting, to make Canada the 51st state. Canada's response: a big middle finger to the USA, promising retaliatory tariffs and strafing Trump's "very dumb" trade war.
• Trump sees Canada as an insignificant global player and weak neighbor, and incapable of winning a trade war with us, officials say. He's indifferent to prior tight relations, or cooperation, or concerns of fraying partnership, the officials tell us

You could insert Germany or Ukraine or France or Britain into the sentences above, and the same holds true.

• Trump truly believes most relationships or agreements are transactional. So he's fine being feared or loathed for trying to bully and bluster the best possible deal for America, according to these insiders.

Interestingly, the one area where Trump has been less vocal and draconian than anticipated is expelling illegal immigrants. He has tightened security and dramatically reduced illegal crossings — but his plans have run into the reality of existing laws, limited government resources and legal challenges, as Axios has reported.

• As a result of Trump's crackdown, the number of migrants illegally crossing the Southwest border plummeted in February to the lowest level in decades, according to internal data obtained by Axios. "The Invasion of our Country is OVER," Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

Axios' Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

• Go deeper: "Axios coverage in Trump era," by Jim VandeHei.

Most politicians agree on three truths: We have a spending problem (too much), a tax problem (too high or too low), and a debt problem (way too much).

• Yet the typical response is: Make all three worse.

Why it matters: This truism sits at the very heart of Republicans' fight over a grand budget deal. They're trying to convince their members, and the American public, that you can take in less money (taxes), spend more on defense — and somehow reduce deficits without touching the programs that cost the most.

Washington is a city of magical thinking — both parties practice it. Hence, insane deficits under Presidents Biden, Trump, Obama and Bush. We'll grow our way of it! Even if we never do.

• Washington is not a city of math thinking. It's too inconvenient to apply common-sense arithmetic. Instead, you get wonky "dynamic scoring," "budget windows" and "future growth."
• A true tell: The solution is always in a future that never comes.
• Our favorite new D.C. math: Republicans are backing word and math fog called "current-policy baseline," which allows them to "score" lower taxes as costing nothing. Why? Because they're just extending expiring tax cuts. Make sense? That's the magic of D.C. math.

The Trump/Republican budget plan is no different. It's basically a bet that lowering taxes further will juice so much growth that our math problems will ease or even disappear.

• We walked you through the spending reality in our last column. This is our attempt to explain clinically the reality of the current tax system and how Republicans want to attack it with up to $5 trillion in tax cuts.

Let's start with the indisputable facts:

• Fact 1: Republicans want to cut taxes by a minimum of $4.5 trillion over 10 years (and by a maximum topping $5 trillion). That's mainly extending President Trump's first-term Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 — which cut income taxes for most American families, and reduced the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%.
• Fact 2: Some tax cuts — like encouraging businesses to invest more in equipment and infrastructure — can juice the economy.  That's the beating heart of supply-side tax thought.
• Fact 3: Other tax cuts don't spur growth. Trump wants to exempt tip income and overtime pay from taxation, and loosen a cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes. Those provisions, Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin writes, would shift the tax burden away from specific classes of people (servers, people who put in a lot of overtime, and residents of high-tax states) and leave less room for pro-growth tax cuts.
• Fact 4: Trump has tossed tariffs into the mix. In his mind, big tariffs mean other nations will pay the cost of running the U.S. government. Business leaders, mainstream economists and many Republican lawmakers view them as destructive to growth, and ultimately borne by U.S. businesses and consumers. The reason: Higher tariffs typically result in higher costs. If foreign aluminum costs 20% more, someone has to eat the costs — either the company, or you.
• Fact 5: Trump offers conflicting guidance on what he wants in terms of taxes — and any cuts to pay for all of this. He talks of returning more savings to people with tax rebates ... balancing the budget (a mathematical impossibility absent gutting social programs) ... and never touching those actual social programs.
• Fact 6: You could solve the deficit problem by raising taxes enough to erase it. Republicans hate the idea. But Democrats have long held that higher taxes on rich people and corporations could help wipe out deficits without touching social programs. No shot of that in this Congress. But it's an option!

The big picture: That's why the tax fight could consume Congress for all of 2025. It's truly epic in scale and complexity. As TD Cowen policy expert Chris Krueger puts it: A behemoth tax bill is impossible — yet inevitable.

• If Republicans fail to move a bill, taxes on American families will rise back to their 2017 levels next year — something every elected Republican views as unacceptable.
• Figuring out the details, and passing them through narrow congressional majorities, is the hard part. Democrats are likely to vote in lockstep against the legislation, seeing it as primarily benefiting the very wealthy. If the legislation is paired with Medicaid cuts, as House Republicans envision, that would further energize Democratic opposition.

How taxes work: The IRS collects around $5 trillion in annual taxes from over 200 million taxpayers. Filers who make less than $50,000 pay little to nothing in income taxes after credits and exemptions.

• The difference between what we spend and what we take in = our annual deficit. Total annual deficits rolled together over time = total debt ($36.2 trillion today).

Republicans have long argued tax cuts juice the economy with growth, creating more taxable income and wealth. Some do; some don't.

• But keep in mind: Since Trump signed his 2017 taxes into law, deficits are up 248%! So any growth they helped achieve has been swamped by spending. Hence, America's financial jam.
• The deficit is now running about 7% of GDP — roughly triple the economy's growth rate. Every year that continues, the government will be in a deeper financial hole.

The bottom line: Senate Republicans privately predict they'll punt on taxes for a bit and instead ... spend more. They want $340 billion in increased spending for defense border security and deportation efforts, TD Cowen's Krueger writes in his Washington Research Group newsletter.

• How will they pay for that? Tax cuts and spending cuts. When? Later!

Axios' Neil Irwin contributed reporting.

• Go deeper: "The four-way tug-of-war that explains Republicans' tax challenge," by Axios' Neil Irwin.

President Trump is setting a new precedent for tight, punitive government control over a free press.

Why it matters: Trump and his administration are doing this systematically, gleefully and unmistakably.  But as we've written before, this unprecedented shift could set the precedent for future Democratic presidents, too.

The big picture: Trump frames this as payback for what he calls incompetent, left-wing coverage, and the White House says it's expanding access to new voices and outlets. The White House Correspondents' Association says he's tearing "at the independence of a free press in the United States."

• The end result is twofold: much tighter control over media, and new tools and tactics to punish critics.

Here is what's different today than 38 days ago:

1. Lawsuits. Before taking office, Trump sued ABC News, CBS News and a former Des Moines Register pollster over coverage. This is a new technique for a president or former president — and one getting results. ABC agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's future presidential library instead of fighting in court. CBS also appears to be heading toward settling. Hard to see how this doesn't encourage more lawsuits and entice future presidents pissed off about coverage to do the same.
2. Blacklists. Trump barred AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to use "Gulf of America" instead of "Gulf of Mexico" after he made the change by decree. AP, a global newswire that writes the stylebook most U.S. media outlets follow, has been a pillar of White House coverage for more than a century. Denying access, and mandating word choices, are new tactics for a president. Imagine a Democratic president renaming it the Gulf of Obama — and targeting Fox News for refusing to call it that. Fox and the conservative Newsmax were among the outlets protesting AP retribution. Jacqui Heinrich — Fox News senior White House correspondent, and a White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) board member — wrote on X: "This is a short-sighted decision, and it will feel a lot different when a future Democratic administration kicks out conservative-leaning outlets and other critical voices."
3. Stacking the deck. For decades, until Tuesday, the White House had little say in the choice of media organizations responsible for covering official actions and trips via what's known as the press pool. In response to AP's suit over access, the White House seized control of this process, formerly run by the White House Correspondents' Association. Trump has promised to keep traditional media companies part of the mix. But if the new system holds, he and future presidents could surround themselves with friendly reporters asking friendly questions — and punish those who don't.
4. Shielding Cabinet officials. At the Pentagon, where reporters both work onsite and serve in a rotating pool that travels with the SecDef, a similar purge has unfolded. First, the Pentagon booted NBC News, the N.Y. Times, Politico and NPR from their physical workspace as part of a new "annual media rotation program" — substituting friendly outlets + HuffPost, which had no Pentagon reporter. A week later, CNN was ousted from its workspace. Good riddance, MAGA supporters say. But will a future Democratic president do unto conservative news sources as the Trump administration has done to the legacy media?

Behind the scenes: Taylor Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff intimately involved in this process, told us there's more at play here, and insisted the moves aren't motivated by suppressing dissent. The White House feels access to limited areas like the Oval Office and Air Force One shouldn't be guaranteed to a select few legacy outlets — but instead should be opened up to include both MAGA voices, and other new or niche nonpartisan publications with more domain expertise.

• Budowich said the goal is to drive a "ratings bonanza" by leveraging the reach of traditional outlets with the fresh approach of some newer media players. "The established process doesn't serve people well," he said. "We want to provide more opportunities ... for those who want to do things differently."
• A New York Times statement Tuesday evening called the White House's move "an effort to undermine the public's access to independent, trustworthy information about the most powerful person in America."

The Axios approach: As we wrote a week ago, Axios takes a clinical approach, like a doctor. We simply want to give you the facts and insights to make better decisions and live better lives.

• But these changes curtail the free press, both now and if Trump or future presidents take it further.

Zoom out: Trump allies on X played up efforts by former President Biden to ensure friendly press interactions, including extremely limited press contact and prescreening of reporters' questions, in contrast to Trump's freewheeling sessions.

• The Biden administration culled the list of "hard pass" holders with permanent credentials — access the Trump team says it's restoring.

The bottom line: Tough questions, serious scrutiny, free thought, transparent access to key historical moments. These are decades-long precedents that keep the public informed.

• Go deeper: "Axios coverage in the Trump era," by CEO Jim VandeHei.

President Trump, Elon Musk, and their band of DOGE budget-cutters celebrate daily, even hourly targets to cut U.S. spending on everything from foreign aid to FAA personnel.

• Trump himself has teased a balanced budget — an impossibility without historic cuts to America's most popular programs, such as Social Security.

Why it matters: Their proposed cuts are but drips of water in America's overflowing bucket of debt — $36 trillion and counting. In fact, most days, America racks up more interest on its debt — $3 billion per day! — than DOGE can find in savings. That leaky bucket is the reality of your nation's finances.

This column is our attempt to clinically outline the facts about deficits — and efforts to reduce or eliminate them.

The big picture: Trump and Musk are correct that America is drowning in deficits. Some of it flows from silly spending on stale or even stupid programs. Those make for terrific X dunking: Agencies with more software licenses than employees! A $324,671 USDA grant for "Increasing DEIA Programming for Integrated Pest Management"! A $3 million Education Department contract "to write a report that showed that prior reports were not utilized by schools"!

• But trimming fat is harder than it looks: 37% of the contract terminations on an initial list on DOGE's "Wall of Receipts" (417 out of 1,125) weren't expected to save any money, usually because it had already been spent.
• And the only way to truly reduce the deficit is to target the very programs Trump refuses to touch — defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. They account for 86% of the budget.
• That's reality for a country that, across Democratic and Republican administrations, has spent taxpayer money without restraint or care about debt. This is one area where everyone is guilty.

Musk and DOGE suck up a lot of attention for doing what former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) did by needling "the boneheads of both parties," and the late Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) did with his Golden Fleece Award: highlighting the need for radical change, and the absurdity of many U.S. programs. Even Musk critics should applaud him for getting the public to pay attention to massive bugs in the federal system.

• But the Trump team is also using the guise of budget-cutting to eliminate jobs or areas they disagree with — or that undermine their ambitions. To date, most of the proposed cuts fall into this bucket.
• In doing so, they're also usurping the power of Congress — which, under the Constitution, sets U.S. spending priorities and budgets. That's producing court fights.

📊 State of play: The idea of DOGE is popular: A poll released yesterday by Harvard's Center for American Political Studies and The Harris Poll found 72% of U.S. registered voters polled online support the existence of a federal agency focused on efficiency.

• Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, told CNBC in Miami on Monday that while any "bureaucracy pushes back on everything," DOGE "needs to be done," and should be "not just about the deficit. It's about building the right policies, procedures and the government we deserve."

So Trump and his aides correctly calculate that both the cuts and the tales of government insanity are popular with the vast majority of Americans. Even if the reality isn't quite as sexy:

• No, tens of millions of dead people aren't getting Social Security checks. That's a known computer coding quirk that wasn't fixed because of the cost.
• No, DOGE didn't save $8 billion on a contract by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The New York Times Upshot discovered that DOGE was hanging its hat on an earlier database error that had been corrected to say $8 million. $2.5 million had been spent — so canceling the contract saved $5.5 million at most.
• No, the U.S. didn't send $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas, as Trump said on-camera. "That's a LOT of condoms," Musk joked. In fact, the International Medical Corps was providing medical and trauma services in Gaza, including family planning programming and emergency contraception.

Reality check: Of the roughly $7 trillion the U.S. spent in 2024 (as calculated by Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin)...

• 60% went to mandatory programs — including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, unemployment insurance and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
• 13% went to defense.
• 13% to interest payments.
• 14% for discretionary spending — leaving Trump not quite $1 trillion.

So when you consider where federal money really goes, most DOGE oddities and outrages amount to rounding errors in a sea of government obligations.

By the numbers: Earlier this month, Trump promised on Truth Social: "BALANCED BUDGET!!!" Here's what would have to happen to deliver that, according to nonpartisan and academic experts:

• You'd need to eliminate roughly $2 trillion just to make up for the current deficit projection, plus interest on our existing debt.
• That'd mean massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicare and defense.
• There's also the question of how many times you can spend the same dollar. Trump says he wants tariffs to balance the budget — but he also wants them to eliminate income taxes. And "DOGE dividend" checks would send savings back to taxpayers instead of helping dig the country out of this hole.

The backstory: Trump is handcuffed by political reality and his own statements.

• He was elected on the promise of tax cuts. Those cuts likely would create even bigger deficits, at least in the short term.
• "Social Security won't be touched," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity two weeks ago. "Other than fraud or something we're going to find it's going to be strengthened but won't be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched."

Case in point: House Republicans have vowed to cut Medicaid in the budget bill that would pay for Trump's tax cuts, border security buildup and other priorities.

• But Steve Bannon pointed out on his "War Room" podcast: "A lot of MAGA's on Medicaid ... Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can't take a meat ax to it, although I would love to."
• Michael Tuffin, CEO of AHIP, which represents health insurers, contends that disrupting Medicaid coverage could raise costs elsewhere and weaken chronic-disease prevention.
• We told you over the weekend about the testy town halls that House Republicans are facing back home. One of them, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), told CNN's Manu Raju on Monday that the GOP could do a better job of showing "compassion": "I think we have to have really good conversations between the DOGE and Congress [about] the impact on people who have real consequences for their families."

What they're saying: Administration officials say Trump already has disrupted more in 37 days than most experts thought was possible. That is true. But most of the past month's wall-to-wall coverage has focused on bites that wouldn't add up to the meal that he's promised.

• Musk told Hannity: "If we don't solve the deficit, there won't be money for medical care." So Musk, who has spent his career defying bearish predictions, is now working his greatest puzzle of all.

The bottom line: Neil Irwin reminds us of the old line that the U.S. government consists of a military attached to an insurance company. In big-picture terms, that's pretty true.

• Go deeper: DOGE math questions, by Axios' Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown.

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei wrote this column for Finish Line, our evening newsletter:

We're flooded with reader feedback on covering politics in this wild era. It ranges from calling me a "Beta Soy Boy" who should have been aborted to a soulless suck-up, wittingly enabling tyranny.

• I can confidently say: The truth sits in between!

Why it matters: Here's the shocker: Most people, even caustic critics, ask thoughtful questions about why and how we do what we do in terms of our coverage. This Finish Line is my stab at demystifying it a bit.

Our North Star: Readers first.

• Those were the first two words of our Axios Manifesto nearly eight years ago, and they've shaped every tough decision ever since. It's a great gut check: What helps our readers get smarter, faster on the most consequential topics?

This star led us to break with most traditional media companies on three important points:

1. No editorial page, ever. Opinion pieces drive a lot of traffic — and therefore a lot of ad revenue and subscribers — for our competitors. But we felt it was confusing for readers to have to differentiate between an opinion piece and a serious news piece emanating from the same institution. So we have no opinion section.
2. No popping off on social media. We ask anybody who works for Axios, whether they're on the editorial side or any other part of the business, not to express their political leanings in public settings, including social media. We felt this was one small step to persuade the persuadables that we're trying to get to the closest approximation of the truth without putting our thumbs on the scale. We're imperfect but quite good on this score.
3. Smart BREVITY. We ask every reporter to fully buy into both the "Smart" and "Brevity" parts of our journalism. This is designed to be respectful of your time and intelligence. It's a big differentiator from more traditional media companies. We put every new writer and editor through a Smart Brevity Boot Camp to get this right.

This new environment is different in two substantial ways:

1. Fragmentation. We've written extensively about how all of us are breaking off into different information ecosystems based on age, interests, politics and jobs. This means Axios needs to deepen its relationship with our core readers AND look for new ways to engage open-minded readers elsewhere.

• One example: Posting our stories aggressively on X. Elon Musk and I had a spirited exchange about the value of traditional reporting. (I inalterably support it. He's inalterably skeptical of traditional media.) But Axios wants our content where smart, curious readers congregate — and X is inarguably the top platform for tens of millions of them.

2. War on media. Truth is, President Trump consumes and talks to legacy media more than any president we can think of. Trump will do more press avails in a month than President Biden did in a year. Axios' Zachary Basu traveled with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on last week's Europe swing.

• But Trump and his allies are suing media companies over coverage, freezing out AP from covering him inside the Oval Office or Air Force One, and suspending subscriptions to many publications. So it gets tense.

We signed a letter protesting Trump's decision to bar AP reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One, after the newswire's style guidelines stuck with calling it the Gulf of Mexico rather than Trump's renamed Gulf of America. We simply think neither party should bully a free media over its words or stories. We also believe it's unwise and dangerous not to confidently allow seasoned reporters access. Both parties should invite serious scrutiny: It makes your ideas, and the country, stronger.

• But in general, Axios will speak for Axios. We aren't legacy media — in fact, we bolted legacy media to start new companies for a new era. We cherish our relationship with you, the reader, and will be transparent with you on controversial topics. It's in our DNA.
• Some of you were pissed that we broke with AP on the actual Gulf debate. Our style is "Gulf of America (renamed by the U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)." Critics saw this as caving into the White House. But to us, it was easy to simply follow the North Star of being reader-first. If you go to Google Maps, Apple Maps or government websites, that body of water is called Gulf of America. So we just give the exact state of play without putting on the jersey of one side or the other.

What to expect from Axios: We'll cover every topic — from Trump to AI — clinically and unemotionally, like a doctor. We simply want to give you the facts and insights to make better decisions and live better lives.

Our ask: Don't assume every story we write or decision we make is because we're morons or corrupt or MAGA lovers or liberal lovers. Just ask. We try to respond to every email. If you hit our publisher, Nick Johnston ([email protected]) about any of our policies, I guarantee you a timely response.

• Keep the feedback coming: [email protected]. But go light on the Soy Boy crap.

Get Axios Finish Line.

Whether you admire — or abhor — President Trump's boundary-busting first month in office (today = Day 30), it's important to see with clear eyes what's truly stretching the law and shaking long-held traditions of White House occupants before him.

Why it matters: As we've written before, every "unprecedented" move becomes a new precedent for future presidents. Trump supporters should expect Democratic presidents in the future to use the same new tactics and legal interpretations against them. So understanding each move matters.

The big picture: U.S. presidents face very few restraints. They're free of conflict of interest laws, enjoy the presumption of immunity in all official acts, and have wide latitude to impose their agenda.

• So it's worth paying attention when Trump says, as he did over the weekend on Truth Social and X: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
• That followed Vice President Vance saying on X: "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power." Vance's comment is technically correct. But when taken together, the quotes suggest a belief there are few practical or legal restraints on a president. This isn't a new theory: Several Republican-appointed members of the Supreme Court have long held very elastic views of presidential power.
• Also important to note: Trump did promise in the Oval Office, a few days before his post about saving the country, that he'll always abide by court rulings — "and we'll appeal."

So after one month in office and a dizzying amount of rhetoric and real action, what has Trump done that truly pulls America into uncharted waters? (This is our attempt to help readers sift out the hyperbolic reactions, and instead focus on legitimate boundary-busting actions worthy of deeper reflection.)

1. Claiming power clearly granted to Congress. This might seem like a nerdy social studies argument, but it's massive in consequence. The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to allow and then set spending for the federal government. Take it away, and Congress is left as a weakened branch of government.

• Trump has dismantled USAID ... moved to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ... tried to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans ... targeted at least 20,000 federal jobs ... and on Tuesday signed an executive order to rein in independent agencies by declaring that "all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision." The order is "a further challenge to congressional authority," The Wall Street Journal notes, and "may conflict with the autonomy Congress has granted agencies such as the FTC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Labor Relations Board."
• The Supreme Court, one dominated by conservatives in 1975, ruled unanimously that a president couldn't "impound" congressionally authorized funds, as President Richard Nixon had tried to do.
• Congress could stymie presidential actions like this. But this Congress, controlled by Republicans, is ceding its power to check Trump.

2. Rewriting an actual Constitutional amendment. Trump is already locked in a court fight after seeking to unilaterally rewrite — again by executive order — the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship to those born here.

• Trump wants to exclude babies born to mothers who are in the country without authorization. Four federal judges have blocked this executive order. This one is likely headed to the Supreme Court.

3. Firing watchdogs. President Trump has fired a lot of people fast, following through on a campaign promise. He has wide latitude to staff the federal government as he sees fit.

• But his abrupt sacking of more than a dozen inspectors generals (IGs) appears to violate the law stating he must give 30 days' notice.  Again, this might sound nerdy and technical. But IGs were put in place to investigate — independently — "waste, fraud and abuse." Imagine if every new president, instead of leaving experienced IGs in place, simply ousts them and puts in loyalists instead. That is the precedent that could be set here.

4. Empowering Elon. Trump and MAGA supporters love the most inventive business mind of the 21st century rifling through agency budgets and databases to cut spending. 

• But Musk and DOGE are deep in uncharted waters by gaining access to personal data, and by operating with minimal vetting. Imagine future presidents letting friends set up inside the government, and secretly get the power to see your most sensitive information while they help govern.

5. Profiting from the presidency. This isn't illegal. But it defies a long history of unspoken presidential behavior. Most presidents avoided any actual — or perception of — commingling of their presidential power with personal business deals. Former President Biden took a public beating from Trump and his supporters after it was revealed Biden's son and brother profited off his name and actions.

• Three days before taking office, Trump launched a cryptocurrency that, on paper, was worth as much as $50 billion for the Trump family, depending on how you count coins not yet released to market. (Most of the meme coin's value has been erased since then.) No limits keep foreign leaders, or anyone seeking influence, from buying coins to benefit the Trump family.
• As The New York Times reported this week, Trump held an Oval Office meeting to help boost a merger between the PGA and LIV pro golf behemoths. Trump's family is a major LIV financial partner.

6. DOJ dictates. Trump supporters seem jazzed by, or at least cool with, more than a half-dozen seasoned Justice Department lawyers quitting instead of helping to kill the corruption indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams. Trump apparently wants to free Adams to help the administration crack down on immigration, which he can't do from court or jail.

• This specific case is unprecedented on its face. This many top U.S. lawyers quitting en masse hasn't happened since the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" under President Richard Nixon 51 years ago. It begs the question: Will MAGA be cool if the next Democratic president forces Justice officials to do his or her bidding — or quit?

Reality check: Trump has every right to do and say everything unfolding overseas, from taunting Canada to belittling Europe to freezing Ukraine out of his war negotiations.

• All presidents are free to conduct foreign policy as they see fit. He can also rid his government of DEI staff and offices, and fire as many unprotected government workers as he chooses. There's a difference between shattering expectations and shattering laws.

Between the lines: Alex Pfeiffer, White House principal deputy communications director, told us everything Trump is doing is democratic — "in fact, the most democratic thing possible. President Trump won the election, made promises in the election and is enacting those promises."

• "Elon is a White House employee," Pfeiffer added. "He and political appointees act on behalf of the president to do the things voters voted for. ... Letting bureaucrats run everything is the opposite of democracy."
• "President Trump is restoring control to the people ... swiftly enacting what was voted on," Pfeiffer continued. "And that is as democratic as it gets."

Our thought bubble: Axios tries to cover Trump's actions seriously and clinically without overreacting to random social media posts, given his penchant for ephemeral provocation.

• Our aim: Arm readers with facts and context for making sense of the velocity of news and change.

The bottom line: The first Trump term seemed unprecedented, and sometimes was. This one is authentically unprecedented in totality.

• Shoot us questions you have for future columns: [email protected], [email protected].

Go deeper: Startup America — our column on Trump's Day 1.

Ask NFL executives their biggest fear, and it has nothing to do with fans, players or TV rights. It's drones — which are hard for authorities to track, and almost impossible to stop if ever unleashed on an open-air stadium.

• Ask U.S. intelligence experts their biggest fears, and you'll inevitably hear dire warnings of drone swarms — domestic or foreign — targeting American soil.
• Probe deeper, and you'll learn that the vast majority of these drones are made by China — and, therefore, conceivably controllable by America's greatest adversary. TikTok is accused of being a security threat — but it can't spy or drop bombs.

Why it matters: Look at the skies of Syria, Russia — or, many squinted and said, New Jersey — and the future of terrorism and warfare is on vivid display. Drones gather intelligence, guide artillery and shape battle plans.

Between the lines: The NFL's fear is based on gaps in authority among local, state and federal authorities. A league source calls the lack of coordination is "potentially dangerous and unsustainable."

• "Laws, regulations and enforcement mechanisms have not caught up with the technology and proliferation of these machines," the source said.
• "The general distrust in institutions, and general paranoia about the 'deep state,' makes unidentified flying objects that dwell over our communities particularly menacing. Are we being watched? If so, by whom? And they sound like swarms of insects."

State of play: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt began her first briefing by confirming something that had long been apparent — last fall's feverish drone spottings in the Northeast were mostly sightings of ... airplanes.

• "After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons," she said, citing news she'd been told "directly" by President Trump in the Oval Office, and echoing what the Biden administration had contended.
• The epidemic of coverage tailed off with the Christmas holidays, as people moved on and the planes kept landing. "Many of these drones were also hobbyists — recreational, and private individuals that enjoy flying drones," Leavitt added. "In time, it got worse, due to curiosity.  This was not the enemy."

Reality check: Amid the goofy sightings, the true domestic drone threat is under-discussed, defense executives tell Colin Demarest, author of Axios Future of Defense.

• The Pentagon is spending big to dominate drone defense with drone-neutralizing technology, including "meaningfully improved" protections against small drones.
• Drones' bloody consequences are apparent in the Middle East, where the U.S. Army has deployed drone zappers in a rush to defend troops.

How it works: Dropping drones is no easy task. It requires spotting, identifying, tracking and intercepting, Colin explains.

• That last part can be accomplished with a multimillion-dollar missile (looking at you, Red Sea), bullets, electronic interference or something as primitive as a net or cage.
• Drone swarms only complicate this: What's a decoy? What's deadly? Who's the target? Which do you shoot?

What to watch: Jonathan Moneymaker, CEO of BlueHalo, a next-generation defense firm based in Arlington, Virginia, told Colin that as threats escalate from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), as the FAA calls drones, "our legislation to protect the homeland has not kept pace."

• Moneymaker said there's a critical need to empower local authorities, through the Department of Homeland Security, to deploy countermeasures around airports, power stations, military installations and surrounding communities. "We have the technology to be ready," he said. "We need the legislation to catch up. We will either address this before we suffer a major drone attack in [the U.S.], or we will address it after — but we will address it."

Get Axios Future of Defense, Colin Demarest's weekly newsletter.

President Trump and Elon Musk, arguably the two most unorthodox and influential American leaders of the 21st century, are practicing and fine-tuning a fused theory of governing power:

• Masculine maximalism.

Why it matters: Trump and Musk believe powerfully in maximalist action and language — which is being carried out by strong (mostly) white men — as blunt, uncompromising instruments to prove new limits both to power and what's possible.

• "Fix Bayonets," Steve Bannon, a first-term Trump official whose "War Room" podcast makes him one of the most widely followed outside MAGA voices, texted us. "We are 'Burning Daylight' — short window to get this done."

Trump, first in business and then politics, and Musk, first in business and now politics, are feeding off each other's natural instincts to do, say and operate by their own new rules.

• These instincts made them rich, famous and impervious to traditional rules, norms and even laws. Their success makes dissuasion by others futile, administration officials tell us.
• Trump and Musk view masculinity quite similarly: tough-guy language, macho actions, irreverent, crude — and often unmoved by emotionalism, empathy or restraint.

The big picture: So much has happened so fast, in so little time, that it's hard to measure what matters most in the first 24 days of the Trump presidency (not even a month yet!). But stepping way back and appraising the totality of actions, the biggest shift is the instant imposition of this new power theory across all of government and the Republican Party:

• There's no opposition to this maximalist approach among Trump's staff or major MAGA media voices. And it's extremely limited among Republican lawmakers: Some have privately expressed concerns about DOGE, and winced at Vice President Vance's salvo about judges not being "allowed to control the executive's legitimate power." But even most GOP senators who expressed initial reservations about Cabinet picks have turned supportive.

Here's the Trump-Musk formula:

1. Power asserted, power claimed: Trump and Musk, much like they did in the private sector, set their own new limits of authority by stating them emphatically and acting aggressively. Trump and Musk have moved to cut at least 10,000 federal workers, while vowing "large-scale reductions in force (RIFs)" as part of "workforce reform" ... and offered deferred resignation packages to more than 2 million federal workers. (A federal judge on Wednesday let the "buyout" program proceed. 75,000 workers have taken the deal.)

• Trump and Musk sought to freeze federal grants and loans that total in the trillions ... and targeted "hundreds of billions" in fraudulent federal spending. Musk's DOGE gained access to Treasury's highly sensitive payment system. Trump threatened a global trade war ... stripped security details from his own former secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and other former officials ... revoked the security clearance of former President Biden, ending his classified intelligence briefings ... and fired more than a dozen inspectors general — watchdogs who root out Executive Branch abuse.
• Trump's Pentagon deployed active-duty troops to the Southwest border. Trump's Justice Department pushed federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. And Trump pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who went to prison for political corruption.
• Trump, after campaigning as an American First hardliner, often sounds like limitless expansionist: saying the U.S. would "take over" Gaza ... and pushing to buy Greenland, make Canada the 51st state and take back the Panama Canal.

2. Precedents are for chumps: Both think conventional, polite, rule-following CEOs and leaders are suckers and conformists. They believe wimps and posers play by the rules, worry about hurt feelings or damaged lives, and seek consensus. So far, Trump and Musk have every reason to feel vindicated: Most Republicans in Congress have sat by idly, or applauded gleefully, as the two laid claim to congressional powers of the purse and scrutinizing Cabinet picks.

• Trump and Musk are freezing programs and firing federal employees — with scant scrutiny and little transparency. A Wall Street Journal editorial points out that Trump deliberately incited legal challenges with his executive order ending birthright citizenship, and by firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board: "Trump believes he'll win on both issues because he thinks previous Supreme Court rulings were wrongly decided." The Journal says Trump is on new legal ground by targeting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and USAID — both of which were established by Congress.

3. Let men be men: Yes, there are some powerful women around Trump — led by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

• But the vast majority of the public and private action is carried about by aggressive, white men, including Musk and his all-male DOGE posse; Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff who also is homeland security adviser and immigration lead; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News star and decorated Army combat veteran who's bringing some of Trump's most disruptive dreams to life.

4. Humiliate the humbled: Both Trump and Musk use public appearances and social media posts to bully and pummel critics across politics, media and culture. They scoff at calls for humility and grace when blessed with power. In the case of transgender people, they want to restore "biological truth" and "the immutable biological reality of sex," as a Day 1 executive order put it, by making it "the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female."

• Both men like to provoke outrage — and outrageous responses. That makes Trump and Musk the center of the national conversation — and baits hyperventilating critics into outrageous responses. Trump and Musk have followed through on their promise to decimate DEI, targeting hundreds of such jobs. The Free Press wrote that the Trump administration, "and many of its highest-profile supporters, are fueling the idea that any minority with a job might not actually deserve it. These people see DEI everywhere."

5. Fused styles, fused worldview: As captured by Vance's AI speech in Paris this week, the most surprising twist in the Trump governing agenda reflects a fusion not just of the Trump and Musk styles but also their worldviews — nationalism with techno-optimism.

• Trump was indifferent or outright hostile to many Big Tech companies in his first term and most of his campaign. But now: Quick, vast AI expansion sits at the heart of his evolving economic agenda and philosophy. At the same time, Musk has been a vocal champion of nationalism. They're of one style, and increasingly of one shared mind and ideology.

Behind the scenes: Charlie Kirk — founder and president of Turning Point USA, MAGA's youth wing, and host of one of the most powerful MAGA podcasts — told us the "flood the zone" aggressiveness of the administration's first month will only increase as more top officials get confirmed and rolling. "This is just setting the foundation," Kirk said. "He's set a pace and said: My team can see the tempo I want."

• Kirk, who is very close to Trump, told us Trump's maximalist instincts are being amplified by his battle-hardened staff and Cabinet. "You have an entire Avengers team of people able to fulfill the president's wishes and orders," Kirk said. "When you're in exile for a couple of years, and have people writing your political eulogy, you enter with increased motivation and energy."
• Kirk, whose social media feeds are one of the most vivid reflections (and drivers) of MAGA sentiment, said his callers and followers are thrilled with what they're getting: "They knew he was serious. But they didn't know they'd get it so quickly, decisively and declaratively."

Reality check: Trump is very intentionally testing the limits of executive power. The WSJ editorial contends: "Trump may be wrong, but there is no constitutional crisis as the cases make their way through the courts."

What to watch: Democrats are beyond baffled on how to deal with Trump, Musk and maximalist power simultaneously. The opposition lacks anyone with a remotely similar social media and traditional media star power, or a coherent legislative way to slow or stop them.

• So Democrats are down to betting on the courts — or a future maximalist public backlash to maximalism.

Go deeper ... "Behind the Curtain: Purges, punishments, payback."

• Join Jim & Mike next Wednesday for a webinar on "How Trump Thinks" — with special guest Marc Caputo, one of the best-wired Trump reporters — as part of our AM Executive Briefing membership series. Subscribe here.

On the 15th day, he proclaimed Gaza ours.

Why it matters: There are two ways to view President Trump's epic, historic, shockingly unexpected declaration Tuesday evening that the U.S. should seize, control, develop and hold "a long-term ownership position" in war-destroyed Gaza.

1. It was a wild bluff — or bluster — to gain leverage in the Middle East. It's like threats of trade tariffs against Canada and Mexico — all-consumingly controversial, yet instantly ephemeral. This strikes most Republicans as the right interpretation.
2. The other: It fuses several Trump obsessions — his hope for a grand Middle East peace deal, his belief Gaza will be a hellhole for decades to come, and his genuine intrigue about developing the seaside land. U.S. officials tell us Trump's words were premeditated, and mirror ideas he floated to some staff and family members privately.

What he said: "The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip," Trump said, reading from notes in the East Room during the first formal news conference of his presidency, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. "We'll own it, and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site."

• Asked later who he envisions living in a rebuilt Gaza, Trump replied: "I envision the world people living there — the world's people. I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place."
• Trump, channeling his inner developer, added: "We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but: the Riviera of the Middle East. ... This could be so magnificent. ... We'll make sure that it's done world-class — it'll be wonderful for the people."

The big picture: Like everything with Trump, his views and motivations are gray despite being expressed in stark black and white.

• "He's moving the goalposts of crazy," a longtime adviser told us. "This time around, he's not intimidated by headlines or pundits: He's gonna throw out there whatever he feels like throwing out there."
• Trump's message to the Middle East, in the words of this adviser: "I can make it a lot worse for you guys, or you can come up with a better plan."

Reality check: There are massive obstacles to Trump's vision.

• The human toll would be staggering: 2 million Palestinians call Gaza home and haven't consented to being forced out of their territory, despite the colossal destruction from 16 months of war.
• The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have vehemently rejected Trump's plan to resettle those Palestinians on their territory. Not to mention the broader regional consensus, including in Saudi Arabia, that Gaza should be part of a Palestinian state — not an American one.

Human rights groups have already condemned the proposal as ethnic cleansing.

• Trump campaigned on ending foreign wars, but he left the door open last evening to sending U.S. troops to Gaza "if necessary." Left unmentioned was what would be done about Hamas, which remains a force in Gaza and has recruited 10,000-15,000 fighters since the start of the war, according to U.S. intelligence.
• Trump's "America First" allies in the Republican Party are quietly raising their eyebrows, especially with his administration actively in the process of dismantling USAID for using taxpayer dollars overseas.

Between the lines: People want to put a frame around Trump's most dramatic moves or public statements.

• But everyone on the inside knows it's Trump being Trump — feeling wholly confident, unrestrained, liberated to say and propose whatever pops into his mind.

The Gaza idea is a collision of three private Trump views:

1. He believes a big peace deal, with the Saudis at the center, is doable.
2. He was genuinely moved by the scope of the destruction of Gaza, and the realization it could take decades to rebuild.
3. He and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, see this as authentic prime real estate — "waterfront property" that could draft off all the power and money flowing through the Middle East.

But Trump seemed to undermine his hopes for a broader Middle East deal. The Saudis were furious with both Trump's idea, and his claim they would accept a deal that does not include a Palestinian state, sources tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

Behind the scenes: A source close to Trump said the Gaza overture was Trump's own idea, and he had been thinking about it for at least two months, Barak reports.

• A U.S. official said Trump presented the plan because he came to the conclusion that no one else had any new ideas for Gaza.

The bottom line: Chaos isn't an accident. Trump and his aides know that the tsunami of ideas, executive orders and proclamations makes it hard for opponents to unite around a single message.

• Think about you or your friends: Are you more intrigued or worked up by all his controversial nominees ... or Greenland ... or trade wars ... or USAID ... or Elon Musk ... or Ukraine ... or South Africa ... or TikTok ... or a new sovereign wealth fund ... or Trump's own crypto? No human can process this much he-did-what news this fast.

Axios' Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

• Go deeper: Dispatch from Axios' Barak Ravid.

There's an unspoken, ugly rule of American politics: Do unto the other what they have done unto you.

• Simply put: Copy the payback, punishments and precedent-shattering techniques practiced by the other party — if they prove effective.

Why it matters: In 30 years of covering this city, it's hard to recall any controversial new power grabs or moves not growing commonplace in American politics.

• That's why impeachment threats ... governing by executive order ... and ever-expanding presidential power are as predictable as winter follows fall.
• They did it to us. So we'll do it, too — on steroids.

The big picture: President Trump didn't start this trend, by any stretch of the imagination. But he stretches the trend beyond imagination.

• We're in uncharted territory, a new frontier. Republicans should fully expect future Democratic presidents to use and build on all these norm-busting moves.

Trump's new techniques and tactics, likely to be adopted by future presidents, include:

1. Fire critics and perceived enemies. Trump is ousting people across the bureaucracy and not hiding his motivation — payback. In the past, presidents griped about hostile forces inside government, but rarely acted beyond one-offs. They assumed they lacked the power. But courts are validating a broader presidential authority than had been presumed. Incoming presidents usually fixate on the cabinet. Trump is paving the way for them to instantly resurface huge chunks of government with loyalists.
2. Punish media companies for critical coverage. Trump has sued several news organizations for stories or even interview edits he disliked. Some of these organizations are settling the cases, enticing Trump and others to make this a permanent weapon. The Pentagon said it'll "rotate" four major news organizations — The New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico — from their workspace on Correspondents' Corridor beginning Feb. 14, and cycle in several friendly outlets. That's a new level of carrot-and-stick.
3. Reward political allies with pardons. This has always been done, for sure — but in smaller doses. Trump's sweeping clemency for Jan. 6 rioters, including people convicted of attacking police, set a new precedent for protecting people who defend your politics. Combine this with former President Biden's preemptive pardon of family members and political allies, and it's hard to see any real limits on setting friends or allies free.
4. Impunity with immunity. Trump helped shape a Supreme Court that granted all presidents presumed immunity for official acts in office. That codified a level of freedom and presidential power some assumed — but was never solidified. Now, it is. Fully expect more cases codifying presidential power to land on the Supreme Court docket. Trump wields power with few perceived restraints. Others will follow, especially when they control Congress.
5. Presidential profits. Presidents and their families can start businesses — or even currencies — and profit without restriction or outcry going forward. They always could — but most steered clear of the appearance of a conflict or profiting off their power while in office. It was seen as beneath the presidency. But Trump started promoting a memecoin three days before taking office — with paper value that reached tens of billions — with little outcry. Most Americans didn't realize there are basically no limitations on presidents profiting off their reins of power through new businesses or business deals. Now, they do.

What to watch: Republicans currently rule Washington and the courts — so they're full, content beneficiaries of all of this. But what happens when Republicans are inevitably out of power? 

• Power in Washington has swung wildly for 20+ years — Biden had two years of all-Democratic rule ... after first-term Trump had two years of all-GOP rule ... after President Obama had two years of all-Dem rule ... after former President George W. Bush had full GOP control ... after former President Clinton had two years of full Dem control.

Reality check: There's an asymmetry between MAGA and the Democratic Party as it currently exists.

• Democrats have a religious devotion to norms and institutions that Republicans simply don't share, and it's a unique feature of Trumpism to despise the "Deep State," mainstream media, and checks on executive power.
• Biden campaigned in 2020 on restoring normalcy. The 2028 Democratic nominee might well take a similar tack — though four years of Trump could push the party in a more brass-knuckle populist direction.

The bottom line: History shows the next Democratic president, with a Democratic Congress, will likely use — and expand — many of these powers. Biden did it! Trump did it! So I shall do it, too!

• Axios' Zachary Basu contributed reporting.

Go deeper: "Behind the Curtain: Purges, punishments, payback."

America has never witnessed so many people purged or punished by an incoming president so quickly. White House sources tell us this is just the beginning.

• On Friday night, a Defense Department memo said four major news organizations — The New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico — will have to move out of their longtime workspace on Correspondents' Corridor in the Pentagon, an unprecedented move, under a new Annual Media Rotation Program for Pentagon Press Corps.
• "Hope those hit pieces on Pete were worth it," a source close to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but not involved in the decision-making, told us.

Why it matters: President Trump long promised to oust and punish people his administration deemed political enemies or unfair critics. His administration is doing this faster, deeper and wider than many in Washington expected.

• Democrats on the Hill are warning that Trump is sometimes acting outside the law — and without regard for government services Americans rely on, and for the American tradition that a president must be subject to checks, balances, scrutiny and criticism.

The big picture: The danger in moving so fast, so wide is losing vital, seasoned talent in hard-to-fill, essential governmental roles. It sets a precedent for future presidents to quickly remake the government in their image or ideological mold — and extend the power of the presidency.

• Trump advisers see this much differently, of course. They argue the government is filled with anti-Trump activists and bureaucratic lifers who can be eliminated with little cost. The depth and breadth of actions in the first two weeks show the results.

Zoom out: In the first 12 days of Trump II, the president also revoked clearances and government security protection for several former officials.

• In a move with city-by-city repercussions across America, Trump temporarily froze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. A second federal judge, in Rhode Island, on Friday ordered a temporary pause.
• Trump also offered about 2 million federal employees the chance to resign and get paid through Sept. 30 under a "deferred resignation deal."

Zoom in: This is unprecedented territory for Washington governance. Take the early strikes against the FBI and its role in investigating and prosecuting those involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

• Not only did Trump take the unprecedented step of pardoning virtually all involved, including violent criminals. His team is hunting down those involved in the probe, ousting many. Some of these prosecutors and officials didn't choose the case but were assigned to do it, did their job, and moved on.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove identified more than a half-dozen FBI senior executives who were ordered to retire or be fired by Monday, AP reports.

• Bove asked for the names and titles of FBI employees who worked on investigations into the Capitol riot — a list the bureau's acting director said could number in the thousands.
• "Forcing out both agents and prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases would amount to a wide-scale assault on the Justice Department," the N.Y. Times notes (gift link).

Then consider the Friday night announcement about Pentagon workspace for top news organizations. Every administration has the option of who gets seats and who doesn't.

• But the message to mainstream media was unmistakable and not masked. The Pentagon said invitations will go out to the New York Post, One America News Network and Breitbart (Trump-friendly outlets), plus Huffington Post (which doesn't have a Pentagon correspondent and didn't request a space).

NBC News said in a statement: "We're disappointed by the decision to deny us access to a broadcasting booth at the Pentagon that we've used for many decades. Despite the significant obstacles this presents to our ability to gather and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and rigor NBC News always has."

• NPR said in a statement to Axios: "This decision interferes with the ability of millions of Americans to directly hear from Pentagon leadership, and with NPR's public interest mission to serve Americans who turn to our network of local public media stations in all 50 states. NPR will continue to report with vigor and integrity on the transformation this Administration has promised to deliver. NPR urges the Pentagon to expand the offices available to press within the building so that all outlets covering the Pentagon receive equal access."
• N.Y. Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said in a statement to Axios: "This move to expel The Times and other independent, fact-based news outlets from the Pentagon's press spaces is a concerning development. The Department of Defense has the largest discretionary budget in the government, millions of Americans in uniform under its direction, and control of a vast arsenal funded by taxpayers. The Times is committed to covering the Pentagon fully and fairly. Steps designed to impede access are clearly not in the public interest."

The bottom line: Moves like this are designed to send signals and make plain the consequences of tough coverage.

• Go deeper: Some federal websites go dark.

Editor's note: Updates with NPR, N.Y. Times statements.

Over just eight hours on Inauguration Day, Presidents Trump and Biden forever stretched the immense public and private power of the presidency to once-unimaginable dimensions:

• Presidents can preemptively pardon family and friends in case of any accusation of grift or crimes.
• Presidents can pardon violent criminals convicted of sedition and violence in defense of their politics.

• Presidents and their families can start businesses — or even currencies — and profit without restriction or outcry.
• Oh, and they can do this with the presumption of presidential immunity.
• America doesn't have a king. But we're dancing close to king-like power.

Why it matters: Presidents could always pardon, profit or protect friends, family and allies. It just never has been done this broadly, this brazenly, this quickly. And with this much of a public shrug.

The big picture: So much of modern political and presidential power flows from precedent and imagination: doing unto others what the predecessors did — or did to them. And then stretching the hell out of it.

Biden, under the guise of protecting his family from unfair political and legal persecution, preemptively pardoned his brothers James and Frank Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, and John Owens and Sara Biden, the spouses of Valerie and James. This is unprecedented.

• "It's disgusting," Bill Daley — a longtime Biden friend who was White House chief of staff under President Obama — told us. It "confirms that there are serious concerns about culpability." Daley said the Bidens will never wipe this "stain" from the former president's legacy.
• Trump blasted the pardons, moments before offering his own to approximately 1,500 people convicted or charged in the Jan. 6  attack on the Capitol — including violent criminals who attacked police officers.

Trump also pardoned Enrique Tarrio, the fascist Proud Boy leader convicted of seditious conspiracy — and serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison — for coordinating the attack on the Capitol from outside Washington.

• Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 extremist members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convicted for plotting to violently overthrow the U.S. government and keep Trump in office.
• The sweeping acts of clemency stunned Washington and contradicted prior statements from Republicans — including Vice President JD Vance — that violent offenders should not be pardoned.

Between the lines: Biden, who earlier pardoned his son, Hunter, basically offered blanket immunity to family members who might be accused of profiting from this presidency.

Trump tested new limits by launching a surprise meme coin, $TRUMP, that vaulted him to crypto billionaire status two days before being inaugurated.

• Crypto insiders fear that $TRUMP — as well as the hastily launched $MELANIA meme coin — could destroy credibility that the scam-plagued industry has spent years trying to build.
• Remember, Trump once was a crypto skeptic and converted only during the 2024 campaign. He then became a beneficiary, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, of the industry's open wallet. What an ROI!

Most Americans don't realize there are basically no limitations on presidents profiting off their reins of power through new businesses or business deals.

• Thanks to the Supreme Court, presidents also enjoy the presumption of immunity for "official acts" if they're ever accused of crossing any legal lines.

So Trump and his family conceivably could make billions through deals worldwide, new businesses and new currencies, funding the family — or even a political movement — for a generation. Their only limitation is imagination.

• America has drifted into uncharted waters in the rule of law. Trump and future presidents can test the limits with a presumption of success. And Biden's final act of pardons show Democrats have lost a lot of ability to cry foul.
• Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday when asked about Trump's blanket Jan. 6 pardons: "We said all along that Biden opened the door on this."

We'll leave you with this: Now that presidential power is so broad, so deep, so uncontainable, why forfeit it? Well, here's an apparent loophole in the constitutional limit on two presidential terms:

• Trump or future presidents could simply run for a de facto third term — as the vice presidential nominee, with the understanding they will take power back once elected. That's but one of the once-unthinkable scenarios that seem more thinkable than ever.

Axios' Zachary Basu contributed reporting.