President Trump touted the U.S. as the "hottest" and "most respected country in the world" on Sunday as he reached the six-month mark of his second White House term.
In a Truth Social post Sunday, the president claimed his second term is "being hailed as one of the most consequential periods of any President."
"In other words, we got a lot of good and great things done, including ending numerous wars of Countries not related to us other than through Trade and/or, in certain cases, friendship," he continued.
"Six months is not a long time to have totally revived a major Country. One year ago our Country was DEAD, with almost no hope of revival. Today the USA is the 'hottest' and most respected Country anywhere in the World. Happy Anniversary!!!" he wrote.
Trump's Truth Social post celebrating six months of his second term. Screenshot: Truth Social.
Zoom out: Trump's administration has negotiated threeceasefiredeals between six countries since he took office in January, but efforts to generate an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Israel and Hamas haven't materialized.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours if he returned to the White House.
Between the lines: In a separate Truth Social post, Trump touted his approval ratings, claiming that his numbers among Republicans have gone as high as 95% in "various polls."
It's unclear which polls the president was referring.
According to Gallup, Trump's June approval rating was 40% among voters across both parties, down from 47% when he took office in January.
When broken down by party, 86% of Republicans approved of Trump's job as president in June. 36% of Independents and 1% of Democrats agreed.
A CBS News/You Gov poll published Sunday showed similar numbers. Overall, the president had a 42% approval rating, with 89% of GOP, 32% of Independents and 5% of Democrats giving their approval.
Zoom out: Trump said in his post that his numbers had been boosted by "Radical Left Democrats" exposing the "Jeffrey Epstein hoax."
No polling conducted since he ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to release grand jury transcripts related to Epstein has yet been made public.
"People like Strong Borders, and all of the many other things I have done. GOD BLESS AMERICA. MAGA!," Trump added in his post.
The U.S. still intends to put a baseline tariff of 10% on many smaller countries, despite recent suggestions it could go higher, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday.
Why it matters: It's a small sign of relief for the market, which has watched nervously as President Trump repeatedly suggested in recent days that baseline rates could go to 15% or even 20%.
Catch up quick: Earlier this month, Trump sent letters to dozens of countries, unilaterally setting tariff rates as of August 1. Hundreds more are expected in the coming days.
So far, only one of those countries, Indonesia, has made a nominal deal for a better rate than the letter imposed, though it's not clear if that arrangement is anywhere close to finalized.
The Yale Budget Lab estimates that Americans — including the impact of the August 1 letters — now face the highest tariff rate since 1910, an average cost of $2,800 per household this year.
What they're saying: "You should assume that the small countries, the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa, they will have a baseline tariff of 10%," Lutnick said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday.
"The bigger economies will either open themselves up or they'll pay a fair tariff to America," he said.
Zoom out: Lutnick said August 1 was a hard deadline, and that no nation was going to "negotiate away" tariffs entirely.
"10% is definitely going to stay. Many countries will pay higher," he said.
The intrigue: CBS released a new poll Sunday morning showing 60% of respondents oppose tariffs, and 61% believe the administration is putting too much emphasis on tariffs.
Lutnick dismissed the finding."They're going to love the deals that President Trump and I are doing. They're just going to love them," he said.
He also dismissed any concerns about tariffs causing prices to rise. "I think you're going to see inflation stay right where it is," he said.
The recent CPI report showed inflation has been creeping steadily higher in recent months, including in the goods categories most exposed to tariffs.
What to watch: With 12 days to go until the deadline, a number of countries and blocs, like Japan, South Korea, and the European Union, are actively negotiating with U.S. officials to lock in lower rates.
As smoke and debris swirled over the Syrian presidential palace, the chatter in the West Wing grew louder: Benjamin Netanyahu is out of control.
What they're saying: "Bibi acted like a madman. He bombs everything all the time," one White House official told Axios, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. "This could undermine what Trump is trying to do."
A second senior U.S. official also pointed to the shelling of a church in Gaza this week, which led President Trump to call Netanyahu and demand an explanation. "The feeling is that every day there is something new. What the f***?"
A third U.S. official said there's growing skepticism inside the Trump administration about Netanyahu — a sense that his trigger finger is too itchy and he's too disruptive. "Netanyahu is sometimes like a child who just won't behave."
Netanyahu's spokesperson Ziv Agmon did not respond to a request for comment.
Why it matters: Six U.S. officials tell Axios that despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted this week's escalation in Syria on Friday, this week ended with the White House significantly more alarmed about Netanyahu and his regional policies.
However, Trump has so far refrained from public criticism and it's unclear if he shares his advisers' frustrations. It is not totally clear whether he shares his advisers' recent concerns about Israel's actions in Syria.
Driving the news: On Tuesday, Israel bombed a convoy of Syrian army tanks en route to the city of Suwayda to respond to violent clashes between a Druze militia and armed Bedouin tribesmen, which had killed over 700 people as of Saturday according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Israel claimed the convoy crossed into a zone of southern Syria it demands be demilitarized, and that the Syrian military was participating in attacks on the Druze minority, which Syria denies.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack asked his Israeli counterparts on Tuesday to stand down to allow for a diplomatic resolution, and the Israelis committed to do so, according to a U.S. official.
Instead, after a pause, Israel escalated the strikes. On Wednesday, Israel dropped bombs on Syria's military headquarters and near the presidential palace.
Friction point: "The bombing in Syria caught the president and the White House by surprise. The president doesn't like turning on the television and seeing bombs dropped in a country he is seeking peace in and made a monumental announcement to help rebuild," a U.S. official said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Netanyahu and his team to stop on Wednesday.
Netanyahu agreed to do so in return for the Syrian military withdrawing from Suwayda.
But by then countries including Turkey and Saudi Arabia had conveyed angry messages to the Trump administration about Israel's actions, and several senior U.S. officials had complained directly to Trump about Netanyahu.
Behind the scenes: Among those officials wereBarrack and White House envoy Steve Witkoff — both close friends Trump's, according to a U.S. official.
The general belief in the White House was that Netanyahu bombed Syria because of domestic pressure from Israel's Druze minority and other political considerations.
"Bibi's political agenda is driving his senses. It will turn out to be a big mistake for him long-term," a U.S. official said.
Another U.S. official said the damage the Israelis had done to their standing at the White House over the past week didn't seem to be breaking through to them. "The Israelis need to get their head out of their asses," the official quipped.
Between the lines: The tensions over Syria came just days after Netanyahu's visit to D.C., in which he met Trump twice and the two leaders seemed closer than ever in the afterglow of the war with Iran.
In addition to Syria and the attack on the church in Gaza, the murder of Palestinian American Saif Musallet by a mob of Israeli settlers last weekend also sparked pushback from the Trump administration toward Netanyahu's stridently pro-settler government.
Amb. Mike Huckabee, who days earlier had visited Netanyahu's corruption trial in a show of support, released a series of statements calling the attack "terrorism" and demanding answers. On Saturday, he also visited a Christian community in the West Bank that had been targeted by settler attacks.
Huckabee, long an effusive supporter of Israel, also criticized the Israeli government this week for making it harder for American evangelicals to obtain travel visas.
The other side: The Israelis were surprised by the U.S. pushback over the Syria strikes.
A senior Israeli official said Trump had encouraged Netanyahu to hold parts of Syria during his first weeks in office and hadn't previously expressed concerns about Israel's interventions in the country.
The official stressed that Israel only intervened after its intelligence indicated the Syrian government was involved in attacks against the Druze. The official denied any domestic political considerations.
"The U.S. wants to keep the new Syrian government stable and doesn't understand why we attack in Syria, because of attacks on the Druze community there. We tried to explain to them that this is our commitment to the Druze community in Israel," the senior Israeli official said.
State of play: The instability in Syria is a major concern to the administration. On Saturday, Rubio posted on X that the regime in Damascus needs to help bring peace and stop the killings.
But a senior U.S. official said Israel shouldn't be able to decide whether the Syrian government can exert its sovereignty over its own citizens and territory.
"The current Israeli policy would lead to an unstable Syria. Both the Druze community and Israel will lose in such a scenario," the official said.
The big picture: This was hardly the first time Netanyahu tested Trump's patience.
He's pressed on in Gaza for months despite Trump's desire for an end to the war.
In Syria, he bet once again that he could escalate dramatically without destabilizing the region or his relationship with Trump.
And Trump aides have become more and more aware in recent months of the influence far-right Jewish supremacist elements in Netanyahu's coalition have on policy. This dynamic has also become more evident to the broader MAGA movement.
The bottom line: U.S. officials who spoke to Axios cautioned that Netanyahu's luck, and Trump's goodwill, could run out.
In his second term, President Trump is making a habit of taking action on topics plucked from America's popular imagination that had previously been non-existent in Washington's policy playbook.
Why it matters: Trump's voracious appetite for generating attention and marketing his policies has bred ideas that inject the power of the presidency into deep recesses of American life and culture.
Driving the news: This past week, Trump announced that Coca-Cola had agreed to use real cane sugar in Coke. For decades, high-fructose corn syrup has sweetened the drink. (The company hasn't confirmed his claim.)
The topic has been steadily gaining attention in the U.S., with interest in Mexican Coke — which uses cane sugar — rising for years, according to Google Trends.
The big picture: We all know "kitchen-table issues," the topics shaped by decades of campaign trail debates. But these are "group-chat issues" — stuff you'd text your friends about that doesn't usually get picked apart by policy wonks.
Alcatraz: Trump stunned the country by announcing this spring that the notorious prison island — closed for more than 60 years — would be reopened. The move is inspired "more by symbolism than necessity," Axios' Marc Caputo reported.
The penny: The administration took action on the ultimate pocketbook issue by announcing plans to discontinue the 1-cent coin. While the move makes economic cents — pennies now cost more to make than they're worth — the bigger impact could the cultural ripple of an extinct piece of American iconography.
Gulf of America: Trump caught Americans off guard when he edited U.S. maps on his first week in office. The seemingly superficial move led to profound fallout over press freedom and geopolitics.
JFK files: He indulged a decades-long national fascination about the JFK assassination by releasing 63,000 pages of records — a topic that had largely been left to amateur sleuths and conspiracy theorists. While the records added color to the understanding of the event, there were no bombshells.
Reality check: Trump finds himself on the other side of a group-chat issue with his posture on the Jeffrey Epstein case.
He is fighting against the populist current demanding more information and transparency around Epstein's sex trafficking operation, while disavowing his supporters who continue to press him.
Zoom in: On some lesser-noticed, Seinfeldian issues, Trump addressed everyman gripes with the stroke of a pen.
He signed executive orders to maintain "acceptable water pressure in showerheads" and curb the use of paper straws.
Astronomer CEO Andy Byron has resigned from the company after a video of him canoodling with chief people officer Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay concert went viral.
Driving the news: Astronomer co-founder and chief product officer Pete DeJoy is currently serving as interim CEO, the company announced late Friday.
What they're saying: "As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met," the company said in a statement Saturday.
"Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted."
Catch up quick: Astronomer put out an initial statement on Friday, more than 24 hours after the video went viral, saying that its board had initiated a formal investigation into the matter.
The company made clear that as of Friday afternoon, Byron had not issued a personal statement and all comments circulating online were fake.
It also corrected misinformation being spread online that another employee from the Astronomer HR team was in attendance at the concert.
Between the lines: CEO reputation is often tied to the company's reputation.
The scandal has also raised concerns about its workplace culture under Byron.
Yes, but: Byron is not the first chief executive to lose his job over an interoffice relationship.
Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw was fired late last year for having a consensual relationship with the company's chief legal officer and in 2019, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook was also fired for engaging in a relationship with an employee.
What's next: The board of directors has begun a search for its next CEO, according to the latest company statement.
It is unclear whether Cabot will be replaced. She is currently on administrative leave pending a formal investigation.
What to watch: The software company became a household name overnight, and it could use this momentum to shift the narrative and reintroduce itself to nontraditional B2B audiences.
In Saturday's statement, the company took this posture saying, "Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI. While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not. We're continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems."
An aggressive pressure campaign forced President Trump to flinch on the Jeffrey Epstein case — exposing a rare moment of weakness inflicted not by his enemies, but by his most loyal supporters.
Why it matters: Forget resistance mounted by Democrats, moderate Republicans or even the courts. The most destabilizing opposition of Trump's second term has come from within: an online MAGA army known for its extreme devotion.
Driving the news: After nearly two weeks of relentless discourse — fueled in large part by MAGA influencers — Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday night to seek the release of grand jury testimony in the Epstein case.
Though the move is a long shot to produce new evidence — and falls far short of the sweeping disclosures demanded by his base — it still marked a clear shift in posture.
Trump had insisted this week that the "Epstein files" were a "hoax" ginned up by Democrats, disavowing supporters and even calling them "weaklings" for believing in a wider conspiracy.
The episode was triggered by a memo from the DOJ and FBI, first reported by Axios, that concluded there was no hidden "client list," no evidence of blackmail and that Epstein died by suicide.
Zoom out: In this upside-down government, traditional checks and balances mean little to a president who has vastly expanded executive power, flouted norms and bent institutions to his will.
The most meaningful accountability Trump faces now comes from his most hardcore supporters, who are increasingly flexing their muscle to remind him of the movement he founded.
Zoom in: Six months into his second term, Trump has hardly broken a sweat steamrolling his traditional opposition.
He enacted his crowning legislative priority on July 4 — fulfilling an ambitious, symbolic timeline crafted with GOP leaders months in advance. Along the way, he broke the rebellious Freedom Caucus and neutralized skittish Republicans worried about deficits and Medicaid.
The judiciary is still a thorn in his side, but the Supreme Court dashed one of the most significant checks on Trump's power by limiting lower courts' ability to block his policies through nationwide injunctions.
Inside the administration, key watchdogs have been replaced by loyalists as Trump and his aides continue to hunt for "Deep State" forces who could thwart his agenda.
Between the lines: Trump's dominance makes it all the more extraordinary — and likely unnerving — that his most significant pushback is coming from a base that typically offers him unconditional loyalty.
The big picture: MAGA has lashed out at the Trump administration repeatedly in recent months, sensing that the president's hardline stances on core issues are being compromised.
On the Middle East, leading "America First" voices like Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have expressed deep frustration at Trump for his pro-Israel policies and military strikes on Iran.
On Ukraine, Trump's pivot to supplying offensive weapons capable of striking inside Russia confounded MAGA loyalists who had been conditioned to view Kyiv as a corrupt instigator of the war.
On immigration, Trump's suggestion that undocumented workers in hospitality and agriculture could be spared from deportation drew major backlash and cries of "amnesty" from hardliners.
The latest: After having been a driving force of the Epstein disclosure push, the MAGA movement returned to a staunch Trump defense stance following the Wall Street Journal's story about an alleged 2003 letter from Trump to Epstein.
A growing number of Democratic-leaning states and cities are weighing proposals to ban federal immigration agents from wearing masks and require them to display IDs when making arrests.
Why it matters: Images of masked, armed agents in plain clothes grabbing people off the streets and rushing them into unmarked vehicles have alarmed many Americans — and put pressure on lawmakers to respond.
The big picture: The proposals could set up another constitutional showdown between states and the federal government over immigration enforcement and civil liberties, as the Trump administration pushes mass deportations.
Just as conservative-leaning statesenacted their own tougher immigration measures during the Biden administration, blue-leaning states and cities now want guardrails in place to check some of the Trump administration's tactics.
Zoom in: Democrat-led state legislatures in California, New York and Massachusetts are discussing or have introducedbills that would ban federal agents from wearing masks in most operations.
Meanwhile, local leaders in Chicago, Albuquerque and several towns in Southern California are considering proposals to ban masks and require federal agents to wear IDs.
Supporters argue that such rules would hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the same standards followed by local law enforcement officers, who are required to wear badge numbers with their names.
Those restrictions for state and local law enforcement are in place partly to avoid impersonators from staging fake traffic stops and arrests.
Another reason some communities want federal agents to be easily identifiable: Raids by ICE agents in plain clothes sometimes have led nearby residents to believe that people were being kidnapped.
The other side: Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, says any state and local restrictions on ICE agents would "demonize" the agents.
McLaughlin claims there was an 830% increase in assaults on ICE officials from Jan. 21 to July 14 compared with the same period in 2024 — a stat that immigrant rights advocates have disputed.
"States can't regulate what federal law enforcement wears," U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon posted on X.
What they're saying: "They're grabbing people off of our streets and disappearing people, and it is terrifying," California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said at a press conference last week announcing the state's proposal to make ICE agents more identifiable.
The push for new rules for ICE agents reflects "a dialog right from certain folks who are expecting us to do our job, which is to protect them," Mario Trujillo, a City Council member in Downey, Calif., told Axios.
The California proposal would require local, state and federal officers in California to reveal their identities — via name tags, badge numbers, or other visible markers — and prohibit face coverings.
The intrigue: The idea has become a campaign issue in the Albuquerque mayor's race, with incumbent Democratic Mayor Tim Keller facing a challenge from fellow Democrat Alex Uballez, a former U.S. attorney.
Albuquerque should "require federal agents to visually identify themselves as federal law enforcement" and "ban the use of masks in immigration enforcement operations occurring within city limits," Uballez wrote in a plan.
Keller hasn't said whether he supports the idea, but is urging residents to call Albuquerque police if they want to verify whether an ICE raid is occurring in the city.
Zoom out: While states wrestle with passing their own restrictions on ICE agents, Democrats in Congress are pushing a long-shot effort to require the agents to wear badges and ban them from wearing masks.
A coalition of 21 Democratic state attorneys general also has urged Congress to pass a ban on federal immigration agents from wearing masks or plainclothes during enforcement operations.
Between the lines: In Latino communities, there are rising concerns about ICE impersonators assaulting women, Elida Caballero Cabrera, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Equality Center, told Axios.
"The reality is that when federal law doesn't protect people, it is up to the states and cities to protect our most vulnerable communities."
President Trump has signed into law the GENIUS Act, which will mean that many mainstream banks and fintechs will try to make stablecoins a part of everyday life in America soon.
Why it matters: With clear legal guidelines for the killer app of blockchains, dollar-backed tokens, lots of companies are going to soon jump into the business.
The big picture: There are two ways stablecoins might improve the bottomline of regular people.
Savings. On exchanges like Coinbase and apps like Paypal, users can buy stablecoins with dollars and earn 4% interest on their money (for now). That blows away bank savings rates.
Yes, but: While your deposits won't be lent out like banks do and are 100% reserve-backed, they don't have FDIC insurance.
Shopping. Osama Bari, with the D24 Fintech Group, tells Axios that he's looking for instant rebates coming soon for stablecoin transactions. So a consumer might get an instant $2 back when they buy $100 watch. That's at least in part because retailers don't pay interchange fees when they get paid with stablecoins.
What we're watching: Adoption. It can be tough to get people to use new payment systems if they are accustomed to another way and it alreadyworks pretty well.
However, stablecoins might mean consumers will start getting a better deal.
The bottom line: It remains to be seen how the traditional finance industry implements the law.
Incumbents might push back hard before any of these kinds of perks become widespread.
President Trump sued the Wall Street Journal on Friday over a story describinga "bawdy" birthday letter bearing his name that the outlet says was given to Jeffrey Epstein, new court filing shows.
The big picture: Trump had threatened to sue a day earlier, saying he personally warned the WSJ and owner Rupert Murdoch "that the supposed letter" was "a FAKE."
The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Dow Jones, which owns WSJ, told Axios that they have "full confidence in the rigor and accuracy" of their reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit, according to a spokesperson.
Zoom in: In the 18-page filing, Trump's legal team slammed the WSJ report as "false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and disparaging" and is seeking at least $20 billion for damage.
"Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump's character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light," the filing said.
Catch up quick: In his Thursday night Truth Social post, Trump wrote "Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so."
The letter, which the WSJ reports that it reviewed, was in an album that Ghislaine Maxwell put together in 2003 for Epstein's birthday, according to the outlet.
The WSJ reported that Department of Justice officials reviewed pages from the album years ago, but that it wasn't clear if the DOJ under Trump looked at the documents for its report that concluded there's no evidence to suggest Epstein was killed or kept a "client list."
Zoom out: It's the first lawsuit the president has filed against a media company while in office.
The number of media and defamation lawsuits involving Trump or his businesses as either the plaintiff or defendant quadrupled since 2015, when he began his political career, compared to the prior three decades, according to an Axios analysis of public databases.
Currently, the White House is still in a legal battle with the AP over barring its reporters from public spaces.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
Why it matters: A pair of explosive developments gave MAGA influencers the cover they needed to suspend nearly two weeks of unprecedented infighting over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files.
First, the Journal's report that Trump sent Epstein a lewd and bizarre birthday card in 2003 drew threats of a lawsuit from the president and a furious defense from his supporters.
Second, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of all relevant grand jury testimony in the Epstein prosecution — the first substantive gesture toward transparency after shutting down the case entirely.
Reality check: The temporary kumbaya likely won't erase the movement's deeper suspicions.
It's unclear whether a judge will even authorize the release of the sensitive grand jury material — or whether those documents will reveal anything new.
MAGA still wants comprehensive receipts about Epstein's powerful clients, the scope of his sex trafficking operation and the nature of his death in prison in 2019.
Driving the news: You could almost hear MAGA's sigh of relief Friday, after weeks of being torn between the movement's long-held theories about Epstein and Trump's apparent disinterest in addressing them.
The shocking details of the alleged letter reported by the Journal — a vulgar doodle, a mysterious type-written note and no hard evidence of its authenticity — gave MAGA influencers reason enough to dismiss it as fake.
Trump's personal outrage and directive to Bondi satiated some MAGA calls for transparency while offering the movement a common enemy: the mainstream media.
"We're seeing a unifying moment. The band is back together," MAGA podcaster Jack Posobiec told Axios.
"He gets attacked just relentlessly by the Wall Street Journal in such an uncalled for way, and we have his back 100% against this smearing and this slandering," Charlie Kirk added on his show.
"Nothing unites MAGA quite like fake news."
Yes, but: What comes next is uncertain. Another episode in the vein of Bondi's previous blunders — including the distribution of "Epstein Files" binders that contained little new information — could be deeply damaging.
"The disclosure they're offering should have been done months ago. I'm not really sure this fixes anything, just shows that they had the info the whole time and didn't prioritize its release," one MAGAworld operative told Axios.
The bottom line: The MAGA civil war over Epstein is on pause. Given the movement's extraordinary penchant for deference toward Trump, it might stay that way.
But this is also a base that values receipts and doesn't take kindly to being gaslit. A lack of disclosures could reignite the fighting.
"This is what MAGA has been waiting for — Trump against the system," Steve Bannon texted Axios, namechecking Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch.
He then added: "No holds barred. Finish what we started."
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is moving forward with plans to force a vote on requiring the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, despite attempts by President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to dampen his efforts.
Why it matters: The push by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has proven popular in Congress, with most Democrats and some on the GOP's right flank supporting it.
Democrats spent the week repeatedly trying to force a vote on Khanna's measure to force the Justice Department to place the Epstein files on a publicly accessible website within 30 days.
Nearly a dozen House Republicans were co-sponsoring a similar bill introduced by Massie and sponsored by Khanna as of early Friday morning.
Driving the news: After numerous unsuccessful efforts to swat away the Epstein issue, President Trump announced Thursday that he had directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case.
Johnson, meanwhile, had the House Rules Committee prepare a nonbinding resolution that calls on the Justice Department to release all information pertaining to Epstein — a way to address the issue while minimizing backlash from Trump.
But the House speaker hasn't committed to holding a vote on that measure, telling reporters: "We'll determine what happens with all that. There's a lot developing."
What they're saying: Massie told Axios those concessions aren't sufficient and that he still plans to move forward with his discharge petition, which forces a House vote on his binding bill if it is signed by 218 members.
As with his 2015 push to depose then-House Speaker John Boehner, Massie said he intentionally timed it so that the vote could be forced shortly after the lengthy August recess.
Massie said of his colleagues: "You're going to fundraisers, you're going to town halls, you're going to the grocery store, you're going to the beach — you're going to hear from people."
"When they come back, I think there will be a big appetite for signing the discharge petition, which is why I have encouraged people to co-sponsor it before they go on recess," he added. "Otherwise, they're going to get the question, 'Why haven't you supported this already?'"
Between the lines: With most if not all Democrats and at least 10 Republicans expected to sign, the discharge petition will likely obtain the necessary signatures to force a vote.
The real question is whether Johnson will once again employ the procedural maneuver he used in April to kill a discharge petition allowing House members who are new parents to vote by proxy for several months.
In that case, Republicans eventually folded and reached a compromise with Johnson. Massie said he is not worried, however, because "that affected 435 people ... and the Epstein sex trafficking ring is a lot bigger than that."
Similarly, Khanna told Axios: "Being allowed to vote in the House is important. But the release of the Epstein files, to the MAGA base, matters 100 times more to them. So I think it's a totally different situation."
Yes, but: Some Republicans who signed onto the discharge petition demurred on the question of whether they would agree to a compromise.
"I'll just have to strategize with Thomas and Marjorie [Taylor Greene]," said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).
Said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.): "I haven't thought that far through the strategy piece yet. I just wanted to get on that resolution because I do believe transparency is important."
Other right-wing hardliners are using GOP leadership's nonbinding resolution as cover not to sign, arguing that Trump won't sign a bill with the actual force of law like the Massie-Khanna measure.
Said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas): "If you're the president of the United States, and you're trying to, I don't know, enforce separation of powers, then you go, 'Well, I'm not going to sign this.' So you wouldn't expect the president to sign that."
What's next: GOP leadership is considering cancelling votes next week, in part to delay Massie's efforts.
Johnson told reporters on Friday that Republicans remain unified on the issue, despite Democratic efforts to sow division within the party.
"We will see how all this develops. We're in line with the White House, there's no daylight between us. We want transparency, and I think that will be delivered for the people," he said.
A top Secret Service official was the target of a "swatting" incident at his home on the Fourth of July, according to an agency official.
Why it matters: While the incident didn't lead to any harm, it's another example of just how difficult it's become for law enforcement to rein in the wave of hoax calls.
Zoom in: Someone called 9-1-1 on July 4 to falsely report that the senior-level official's daughter was running around the house with a weapon, Michael Centrella, assistant director of the Secret Service's office of field operations, told a small gathering of tech executives Thursday at the Deepfake Resilience Symposium in San Francisco.
The voice on the phone appeared to be trying to mimic the agent's, but law enforcement is still investigating whether the caller used a precise deepfake of the agent's voice or just a synthesizer to sound like a man around his age, Centrella added.
However, the bad actor's plan was foiled by a simple fact: The agent doesn't have a daughter, and his local law enforcement knew that.
The Secret Service asked Axios to keep the name of the official who was targeted anonymous to protect them and their family from copycat attacks.
What they're saying: "We were able to protect [the senior official] and not have a major incident," Centrella said. "But you've seen these cases now across the country, they are very impactful."
The big picture: "Swatting" — where a bad actor calls call 9-1-1 and reports a fake incident, resulting in armed police officers responding to a home address — has been on the rise in D.C. in recent years.
AI tools have made voice cloning easier, and bad actors can easily spoof phone numbers to make themselves harder to detect.
Threat level: Beyond the possibility of a frightening interaction with police, the calls are also troubling because they indicate the caller knows their target's personal address.
In this case, the targeted agent is a very private person, and it's difficult to find details about his personal life online.
What to watch: Local law enforcement is continuing to investigate the incident, including whether the official's voice was duped.
The director of Israel's Mossad spy agency visited Washington this week seeking U.S. help in convincing countries to take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, two sources with knowledge of issue tell Axios.
The spy chief, David Barnea, told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Israel has been speaking in particular with Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya.
Why it matters: The Israeli government's goal of removing much of Gaza's population is hugely controversial. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government claims such a "relocation" would be "voluntary," U.S. and Israeli legal experts have labeled it a war crime.
Behind the scenes: In their meeting earlier this week, Barnea told Witkoff that Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya had expressed openness to receiving large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza, the two source say.
Barnea suggested that the U.S. offer incentives to those countries and help Israel convince them.
Witkoff was non-committal, and it's not clear if the U.S. will actively weigh in on this issue, one source said.
The White House, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the foreign ministries of Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication.
But the White House cooled on the idea after getting significant pushback from Arab countries, U.S. officials say, and it hasn't gone anywhere.
Israeli officials say the Trump administration told them that if Netanyahu wants to pursue this idea, Israel needs to find countries that are willing to take Palestinians from Gaza.
Netanyahu tasked Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency with finding countries that would agree to receive large numbers of Palestinians displaced from the Gaza Strip.
The big picture: Nearly every Palestinian in Gaza has been displaced during the war, often multiple times. Most buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.
Israel has been developing a plan for moving all two million residents of the enclave to a small "humanitarian zone" near the border with Egypt.
That plan has sparked concerns in Egypt and many Western countries that Israel is preparing for the mass displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza, something Netanyahu's ultranationalist coalition partners and many inside his own party have been pushing for years.
A senior Israeli official claimed that, as part of the understandings with the three countries, the transfer of Palestinians would be "voluntary and not forced," and that Israel would commit to allowing any Palestinian who leaves to return to Gaza at any time.
However, the idea that such mass departures could be considered "voluntary" under the circumstances has been disputed.
What they are saying: When Netanyahu visited the White House last week, Trump was asked about this issue and deferred to the Israeli Prime Minister.
Netanyahu said Israel is working with the U.S. "very closely" to find countries that will agree to take Palestinians from Gaza and stressed that "we are getting close to finding several countries."
"I think President Trump had a brilliant vision. It's called free choice. You know, if people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn't be a prison," Netanyahu said.
After the dinner a senior Israeli official told reporters that Trump has shown interest in continuing to push the "relocation" of Palestinians from Gaza. The White House didn't comment at the time.
GOP Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt is running a new ad more than 200 miles away from his Houston-area district.
Why it matters: Hunt sees an opening in the Texas Senate race. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is faltering in Republican primary polling, and mega-MAGA challenger Ken Paxton is under the microscope for his divorce.
The new Hunt ad is a clear effort to introduce himself to voters outside the area he represents.
The ad presents Hunt as a family man, showing himself with his wife and three young children.
"Family, faith, freedom. These are the values that define Texas, and they're the values that define Wesley Hunt," the ad says.
Zoom in: The commercial aims to paint an implicit contrast with Paxton, whose wife last week filed for divorce.
Angela Paxton, a Texas state senator, said she was divorcing her husband on "biblical grounds" and alleged that he had committed adultery and that they had been living separately for more than a year.
Ken Paxton responded by saying: "I could not be any more proud or grateful for the incredible family that God has blessed us with, and I remain committed to supporting our amazing children and grandchildren."
Hunt — who has yet to formally announce a Senate bid — is spending in the "six figures" to air the commercial in the Houston and Dallas media markets, according to a source familiar with the buy.
Hunt has been running a separate ad in the Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Waco, and Amarillo areas highlighting his military background.
State of play: Polls have shown Cornyn trailing Paxton by a significant margin.
But senior Republicans worry that Paxton, who had previously been impeached (and acquitted) by the Texas legislature on bribery and corruption charges, is damaged goods and would face a competitive general election against a Democrat.
Other Republicans, including Hunt and GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson — who served as White House physician during Trump's first term — are weighing possible bids.
Cornyn, who was first elected in 2002, has maintained the support of party leadership.
Trump has remained neutral in the contest, and White House officials told Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) during a meeting last week that the president would wait to see if Cornyn could close the polling gap.
President Trump seeks to use both monetary policy and trade policy to help the U.S. government reduce the burden of its debt. It's a major departure from what has long been considered best practice for economic policy.
Why it matters: The president's arguments for interest rate cuts suggest he seeks "fiscal capture," where monetary policy is set not based on economic conditions, but on what will be most helpful for the government as it seeks to manage its interest costs.
That can lead to "fiscal dominance," where debt service needs become the core focus of a central bank, rather than economic stabilization. This tends to cause higher inflation and higher long-term interest rates.
Similarly, the desire to use tariff revenue as a major ongoing funding source for the U.S. government is at odds with other goals of trade policy, like re-shoring manufacturing and negotiating concessions with trade partners.
The big picture: Traditionally, the job of monetary policy is economic stabilization — trying to keep inflation and the labor market on an even keel. Whether the interest rate policies meant to achieve that make things harder or easier for fiscal policymakers is not supposed to be the Fed's concern.
Trump doesn't see it that way. The U.S. deserves rates "to be at 1%, saving One Trillion Dollars a year on Interest Costs," he posted Friday morning on Truth Social.
The Fed has net losses in the last couple of years, which Trump's budget director, Russ Vought, has cited as evidence of mismanagement.
Fed leadership has viewed the central bank's profits (which are passed on to the Treasury) or losses not as a goal, but as a downstream effect of the policies it sets in service of its economic goals.
Of note: In moments of emergency, it can make sense for the Fed to make funding the government on favorable terms its primary goal.
The Treasury and Fed worked in lockstep during World War II to fund the war effort, for example, and arguably something similar occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in normal times, it's a recipe for muddled policy, or worse.
"The Fed controls interest rates to manage the business cycle," wrote Mike Konczal with the Economic Security Project. "[A]dding a second objective, managing the debt load, requires a second independent tool, or else the Fed will fail at both."
State of play: Similarly, the traditional aims of trade policy tend to include geopolitical strategy, defending domestic industries and gaining access to foreign markets.
Whatever revenue that tariffs happen to raise has been viewed as a fortunate side effect, not the reason for acting.
Now, White House economists project that tariffs will raise about $2.8 trillion over the next decade, a key factor in their deficit projections that are far sunnier than those of outside forecasters.
What they're saying: "This 'fiscal capture' of tariff policy shouldn't seem peculiar," wrote Macquarie strategists Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry in a note this week.
"After all, there are a myriad of reports that Trump's desire to replace the Fed's Chair also comes from a need to 'fiscally capture' monetary policy, thus reducing the federal government's interest burden should debt levels rise," they added.
This creates a risk of higher long-term interest rates. "As markets uncover the 'fiscal capture' narrative," they wrote, "the US yield curve may steepen further, with the 30-year yield rising relative to short-term yields."
The bottom line: High tariffs could stick around longer and long-term interest rates might spike higher if fiscal dominance prevails.
Congress on Friday voted to cut nearly $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, marking a devastating blow for PBS and NPR.
Why it matters: The cuts will have a significant impact on local station groups that rely on federal funding to survive. Many are expected to shutter without it.
While NPR and PBS nationally are mostly funded by nongovernment sources, such as corporate sponsorships or viewer/listener donations, local member stations are heavily reliant on CPB funding.
Those stations are often the only sources of local news programming in rural communities amid a steady decline of local newspapers.
Yes, but: While the cuts target NPR and PBS, the national organizations won't feel much of the impact.
Only around 1% and 15% of NPR's and PBS' national revenue comes through CPB, respectively.
The majority of federal funding is allocated to local member stations, which use it for day-to-day operations.
Some of those stations do pay small dues to the national PBS and NPR entities to access nationally syndicated shows, newsgathering and resources, but many rural stations that will be hit hardest by the funding cuts don't currently pay those dues.
State of play: The cuts were included in a sweeping rescissions package meant to claw back more than $9 billion in federal spending.
The package included nearly $1.1 billion in funding for for CPB through 2026 and 2027.
The House voted in favor of the broader rescission package Friday after the Senate voted 51-48in favor of the package early Thursday morning. The bill passed the upper chamber with only Republican support. It now heads to President Trump to sign into law.
Senate Republicans who voted against the package included Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), whose states rely heavily on public media in rural areas.
Between the lines: Every member station of NPR or PBS is expected to feel the impact of the cuts.
NPR has 386 public radio grantees that operate around 1,300 stations across the country. Around 40% of them are classified as rural stations.
PBS has nearly 350 member television stations.
Of note: For some vulnerable NPR affiliate stations, CPB funding can make up to 50% of their total budget.
Without CPB funding, PBS estimates that roughly 15% of its stations will be unable to operate.
What they're saying: "This vote is an unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions, and an act of Congress that disregards the public will," said Katherine Maher, President & CEO of NPR
Zoom out: While Republicans have made some efforts to defund public media in the past, support for NPR and PBS have historically been considered non-partisan.
In 2012, then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during a debate that he was "going to stop the subsidy to PBS," if elected.
Ahead of Trump's second term, Project 2025 wrote in a detailed memo foreshadowing the president's agenda ways the administration could pull funding for public broadcasters. The Trump administration started taking actions to scrutinize public broadcasters shortly thereafter.
The big picture: The cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to strip funding from public broadcasters.
Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order to essentially gut international broadcasters that rely on congressionally appropriated funds, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently shook up his communications team, and now the outspoken Democrat is turning many of Donald Trump's brash political tactics against the president himself.
Newsom and his team have used online trolling, meme wars, mocking TikTok videos, insults such as "cuck," and even a lawsuit against a media company — in this case, one accusing Fox News of misleading reporting — to create an edgy resistance.
Why it matters: In the lead-up to a potential 2028 presidential campaign, Newsom is essentially acknowledging that many of Trump's tactics are effective — and he's betting they can help Democrats reach more voters in the attention economy.
Newsom remains coy about a White House run, but he's increasingly acting and sounding like a candidate.
He's also sat for lengthy podcast interviews with conservative figures, and last week made a trip to the early primary state of South Carolina.
Driving the news: In the aftermath of Trump's attacks on Newsom's handling of the fires in Los Angeles this year, the governor retooled his rapid-response operation in ways that resemble that of Trump.
Over the weekend, Newsom's office called Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a "fascist cuck" — a term Trump's team often uses to attack its opponents — after Miller criticized a judge's ruling and called the judge a "communist."
"Sorry the Constitution hurt your feelings, Stephen," Newsom's office wrote on social media. "Cry harder."
In response to Trump dodging questions this week about releasing more information on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Newsom's team posted a TikTok that included an old photo of Trump and Epstein with Nickelback's "Photograph" playing.
Newsom aides also have taken to posting various "Star Wars" and "Simpsons" memes to mock Trump.
Following another Trump move, Newsom sat for a four-hour interview with Navy Seal-turned-podcaster Shawn Ryan. Trump had been on Ryan's show during last year's campaign.
What they're saying: "In today's fractured media environment, it's never been more important to communicate immediately and effectively. Governor Newsom gets that," Newsom spokesperson Lindsey Cobia told Axios.
"While the Trump administration uses these tactics to demean and belittle the powerless, Gavin Newsom is using them to stand up to the powerful and call out the authoritarian methods of the current White House occupant."
By the numbers: At a time when Democrats are wrestling with low poll numbers and are searching for ways to counter Trump, Newsom's approach has earned him millions of new followers across social media platforms.
That's far more than potential 2028 Democratic rivals such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (286,700 followers), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (382,600), and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (1.4 million), but behind others such as former Vice President Kamala Harris (9.1 million) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (4.1 million).
Reality check: Followers don't equal votes.
They can, however, be a sign of enthusiasm.
Between the lines: Newsom also has been trying to shed what his team feels is the unfair caricature of a San Francisco liberal — which is what Trump's campaign attacked Kamala Harris as in 2024.
In his conversation with Ryan, Newsom discussed how he has a "business mindset" and talked about his frustration with San Francisco regulations when he was a young entrepreneur.
Newsom also said the Biden administration "failed" in its border policies that Trump exploited in the last election.
He said he's not for decriminalizing border crossings, a concept several Democratic presidential candidates embraced in the 2020 primary.
Newsom launched his own podcast this year and has had calm interviews with prominent conservatives such as Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Newsom has had some trouble booking conservatives on his show — a few have declined because they believed that participating could help him politically.
On her popular conservative show, Megyn Kelly told Tucker Carlson in April: "I've said I'm against conservatives going on his podcast because I think it's helping him train for 2028, and I don't think we should help him."
Carlson agreed and said he'd declined an invitation from Newsom because he thought that "the point of this is not to have a real conversation or to answer questions. The point of this is to rehabilitate" Newsom.
President's Trump's audacious plan to convert Alcatraz back to a maximum- security prison could come with a hefty price tag: $2 billion, administration sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Trump's plan has been derided by Democrats, but the president is so intent on building a new prison on Alcatraz Island that administration officials have figured preliminary estimates of the costs and made repeated visits to site, the sources say.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday toured the island in San Francisco Bay.
Bondi's department oversees the Bureau of Prisons, which would run the facility. Burgum's agency owns the land and manages the site — which has been a tourist attraction since 1973 — through the National Park Service.
Zoom in: Two administration officials say Trump hasn't made a final decision on what he wants to do with the island, and it's unclear what the precise costs would be. As described to Axios, there are three general options on the table:
A "supermax" prison complex that would cost more than $2 billion. It would require razing all of the island's decrepit structures and building from scratch.
A scaled-back prison that would cost $1 billion and not occupy the entire island.
Putting the project out to bid for private prison contractors to build and operate. This option is the least likely of the three, the sources said.
"We're still in the early stages," an administration official said. "We need a lot more study, a lot more specificity, before the president decides. But $2 billion might just be too much money for him."
Another reason the most-expensive option might not be the choice: It would take too long to build, and Trump wants to do as much as possible while he's in office.
Zoom out: Alcatraz closed as a prison in 1963, after less than 29 years in operation. It famously housed some of the federal prison system's most notorious criminals, including Chicago gangster Al Capone.
The U.S. government closed the prison after deeming it too expensive to operate. The structures deteriorated quickly in the bay's saltwater environment, and food and water had to be brought to the prison, while waste had to be shipped out.
Some in the administration also have noted that there's a healthy population of whales in the bay and there are worries that the boat traffic required for large-scale construction project on Alcatraz would interfere with them.
Another argument against the project: The U.S. prison population — already one of the world's largest relative to the population — has been declining for years and is projected to decrease even more.
The big picture: Trump's interest in Alcatraz is motivated more by symbolism than necessity, according to those who know his thinking. Alcatraz, featured in many movies, has a space in the cultural consciousness as a tough place, and the president likes that.
"When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm," Trump wrote May 4 on Truth Social. "That's the way it's supposed to be.
"He likes it because it's tough," one adviser said.
In that respect, an Alcatraz prison jives with the administration's messaging on immigration, which seeks to communicate such cruelty that migrants self-deport.
Immigration enforcement is one of the few clear growth opportunities for the incarceration-industrial complex. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" increased funding for immigration enforcement and could be a source of funding for a new Alcatraz if Trump moves forward with the idea.
What they're saying: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat whose district includes Alcatraz, said in a statement that "the planned announcement to reopen Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary is the Trump administration's stupidest initiative yet."
"It should concern us all that clearly the only intellectual resources the administration has drawn upon for this foolish notion are decades-old, fictional Hollywood movies," she said.
When Trump first announced his idea for Alcatraz, Pelosi said it was "not serious."
But the visits by Bondi and Burgum underscored the president's interest.
"People thought it was a joke, an offhanded remark," another official said. "But the president is serious. And if he's serious, we're gonna do it."
Late-night comedy shows face a slew of challenges as streaming and hyper-partisan politics puts more pressure on traditional networks and comedy, respectively.
Why it matters: Late-night shows used to be the crown jewel of big broadcast. Now, they present more risks.
Zoom in: CBS on Thursday said it was canceling "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" after the next season in May 2026.
The network said it was "purely a financial decision," related to challenges in the late-night time slot, and was "not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount."
Reality check: The late-night comedy show format, split between an opening monologue, short interviews and comedic bits, is hard to preserve for an on-demand audience in streaming, as most clips air nearly instantaneously on social media.
Late-night shows, like the rest of linear television, are struggling from declining ad revenues amid consistent if not higher production costs associated with live daily telecasts.
Between the lines: In a hyper-partisan world, comedy targeting politics risks alienating sizable audiences or drawing ire from people in power.
President Trump has in the past taken aim at late-night comedians, calling ABC's Jimmy Kimmel "one of the dumbest human beings ever" and NBC's Jimmy Fallon "not very funny."
He's called "Late Night" host Seth Meyers "dumb and untalented" while demanding that NBC parent Comcast "pay a BIG price" for what he says are "political hits" against him and the Republican Party.
Those jabs come as broadcasters face unprecedented regulatory pressure from the Trump administration's FCC. Comcast/NBC, Paramount/CBS and Disney/ABC have all announced changes to their DEI policies as the the FCC investigates their diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Of note: Stephen Colbert was a vocal critic of the president and his policies. CBS' parent Paramount this month settled a lawsuit with Trump that legal experts believe it otherwise could've won in court
Zoom out: The past few years has seen a slew of late-night shakeups as networks grapple with declining viewership and ad revenue.
Samantha Bee's "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee" on TBS was cancelled a few months earlier.
James Corden, formerly host of CBS' "The Late Late Show," also abruptly exited in 2022. His show was reportedly losing around $20 million annually.
Yes, but: One surprising late-night success has been on cable news.
Fox News Channel's "Gutfeld!," starring conservative comedian Greg Gutfeld at 10pm ET, has been a ratings bonanza for Fox News, often drawing higher ratings than its late-night broadcast counterparts.
What to watch: NBC executives years ago reportedly discussed moving the time slot for "Late Night with Seth Meyers" or taking other cost-cutting measures.
House Democrats passed up what appeared to be a golden opportunity to block a bill codifying $9 billion in DOGE cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid. In leadership's telling, victory was never a real possibility.
Why it matters: That analysis may not be enough to ward off fierce backlash from the Democrats' grassroots base, which has been demanding lawmakers use every tool at their disposal to fight the Trump administration.
While $9 billion is a comparatively paltry sum in a federal budget measured in trillions, targets like NPR and PBS hold great symbolic value for many of Democrats' core voters.
Even among House Democrats, there wasn't total unanimity about either the legal or political reasoning leadership gave for not doing more to fight the bill.
What happened: There was considerable speculation that Democrats would employ a raft of delay tactics to force Republicans to vote on the rescissions package after a Friday deadline set by the Impoundment Control Act.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) spoke for just 15 minutes ahead of the vote on the rescissions bill — nowhere near the nearly nine-hour speech he gave to delay the "big, beautiful bill" earlier this month.
Democrats also opted not to bog down the House Rules Committee with amendments, instead introducing a handful of measures aimed at forcing the release of the Justice Department's files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Ultimately, Republicans passed the bill just after midnight on Friday, nearly 24 hours before the deadline. Democrats unanimously opposed it, as did Reps. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), but that wasn't enough to stop it.
What we're hearing: House Democratic leadership communicated to its members Thursday night that pushing the vote past the deadline would not have the kind of kill-shot effect some believed, according to a half dozen House Democrats.
Members were told that leadership consulted lawyers who said the deadline only applied to the Senate, allowing the upper chamber to pass the bill with a 51-vote threshold within a certain timeframe.
Even if that weren't the case, lawmakers were told, the rescissions would only be invalid for the period between the deadline and when the bill passed the House — which would likely just be hours.
That was in addition to speculation proffered earlier in the day that the Trump administration would simply ignore the deadline if it proved to be a meaningful legal impediment.
What they're saying: "House Republicans continue to robotically rubber stamp Trump's agenda and give it the force of law. The only people who didn't try to stop this parade of horribles are the so-called moderate House Republicans," Jeffries spokesperson Christie Stephenson told Axios in a statement.
"In the event Senate Republicans had failed to advance Trump's rescissions bill within a 45-day window, the legislation would have lost its filibuster-proof privilege and required bipartisan support in order to become law."
"Since Senate Republicans cleared the bill under 45 days, the writing was on the wall that this Republican Congress would pass this cuts bill into law by any means necessary."
What we're hearing: Not everyone was satisfied. In conversations both inside and outside a Thursday night Democratic caucus meeting, Rep. Josh Riley (D-N.Y.) pushed back on that analysis, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with his comments.
A lawyer who previously served as counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Riley argued that Democrats should delay the bill anyway to create standing for a lawsuit against the rescissions, the lawmakers told Axios.
Asked for comment, the New York Democrat told Axios: "I haven't had a chance to talk to the leader about it. I don't know whose staff I was talking to, but I talked to some folks."
Some lawmakers argued there was a political case for delay as well, with Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a progressive member of Democratic leadership, telling Axios: "I think every little thing is part of a bigger picture. It's a puzzle being built — you've got to stop every piece."
Yes, but: Most House Democrats who spoke to Axios deferred to leadership's analysis, with even some senior House progressives saying they believed the political case for delaying the bill was as flimsy as the legal argument.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the former Progressive Caucus chair, told Axios: "We have a very clean message right now coming out of this about what this means for appropriations, congressional power, plus the damage that it's doing to USAID and public broadcasting."
"I just think it gets all messy if you try to make it a procedural argument," she said.
Said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.): "If there's a viable way to do that, I'm sure that there's a great appetite for it. But if there's not, we need to fight the battles we can win."
