The America that marched for George Floyd five years ago is gone, buried beneath a backlash that has hardened — for now — into a new political and cultural order.

Why it matters: Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer shocked the national conscience. But what looked like historic momentum for racial justice has collapsed — eclipsed by a reactionary movement backed by the full force of the U.S. government.

• Still, activists aren't giving up: They're recharging and refocusing their efforts — shifting from mass protest to defending what remains, and planting the seeds for what's next.
• The fight has moved from the streets to the margins: In courtrooms, classrooms and city councils, a quieter form of resistance is taking shape — often out of the spotlight, but no less determined.

Zoom in: Civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, Urban League, and NAACP are investing in long-term infrastructure — working to build durable political power and economic resilience in Black communities.

• Angela Rye, a political strategist and former adviser to the Congressional Black Caucus, is leading a 12-city "State of the People Power" backed by over 200 local and national partners.
• Rev. Jamal Bryant's boycott of Target over its rollback of DEI commitments — which dented the retailer's Q1 sales — shows how economic pressure is becoming a central tool of resistance.
• Selwyn Jones, George Floyd's uncle and co-founder of the Justice 929 Organization, is launching the MYTH app this summer to help record police interactions and alert emergency contacts in real time.

What they're saying: "Progress isn't a straight line. It swings like a pendulum," NAACP president Derrick Johnson told Axios.

• "And for some people, especially younger folks, it can feel like we're going backward. But the truth is we're still perfecting democracy, and the Black community has always been at the center of that work."

Flashback: While the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery stirred anger and protests in early 2020, it was Floyd's murder on May 25 — captured on camera and seen around the world — that ignited a global uprising.

• Statues toppled. Streets filled. Cities pledged reforms. Fortune 500 companies embraced diversity initiatives.
• For a moment, it felt like transformative change was coming.

Five years later, the pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction.

• DEI: On his first day in office, President Trump ordered a government-wide purge of DEI programs and offices — the opening salvo in a systemic effort to dismantle the racial justice agenda that emerged in 2020.
• Civil rights: The Trump administration has moved aggressively to unravel President Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legacy, including by reorienting DOJ priorities to focus on "anti-white racism."
• History: Trump ordered a federal review of Confederate monuments toppled during the 2020 protests, targeting what he called a "concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history."
• Police reform: Days before the anniversary of Floyd's murder, the Justice Department scrapped proposed consent decrees for the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments — and dropped nearly a dozen other investigations into alleged police abuse.
• Refugee policy: The administration has effectively ended most refugee programs — except for one tailored to white South African farmers, justified by Trump's false claims of "white genocide."

Zoom out: The racial justice backlash hasn't been confined to government.

• Major corporations that once championed diversity initiatives have slashed DEI staff, removed racial equity language from mission statements, and dropped even the appearance of activism.
• Open racism, antisemitism, and white nationalism have flourished online, with viral incidents — like the cases of Shiloh Hendrix and Karmelo Anthony — fueling toxic tribalism and fundraising.
• Prominent MAGA influencers have even launched a campaign to convince Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of murdering Floyd.

The big picture: Advocates, experts and Floyd family members tell Axios that the 2020 racial reckoning has a mixed legacy, with victories often overlooked amid today's backlash.

• Most Americans say the heightened focus on race and racial inequality following Floyd's death did not lead to improvements for Black Americans, according to a February survey by the Pew Research Center.
• But civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who has represented the families of Floyd, Taylor, and countless others in the Black Lives Matter era, argued there has been incremental progress — especially in police accountability.

In the five years since Floyd's death, dozens of cities and states have passed bans on no-knock warrants, expanded crisis response teams and introduced civilian review boards — wins drowned out by public fatigue.

• The NAACP's Johnson acknowledged that fatigue, but he pushed back against the idea that people have stopped fighting.
• "No one is resting," he stressed. "We've earned the right to reflect. But we are still organizing, still fighting — because not only do our lives depend on it, this democracy does too."

President Trump yesterday declared himself the biggest "fiscal hawk" in Washington.

• He then spent the next hour urging Republicans to unite behind the most budget-busting legislation in modern U.S. history.

Why it matters: Trump's "big, beautiful bill" is projected to add trillions to the deficit over the next decade — rattling conservatives who have long warned that the U.S. is barreling toward fiscal catastrophe.

• Some Republicans now find themselves trapped between two of the party's most animating principles: Deficit reduction vs. absolute loyalty to Trump.
• That tension is threatening to derail Trump's vision for a new "Golden Age," which the White House hopes will begin in earnest with a vote on the House floor this week.

State of play: Trump and his aides have brushed off warnings that his ambitious tax-and-spending bill — combined with his pledge not to touch Social Security and Medicare — could balloon the national debt, which now tops $36 trillion.

• White House officials emphasize they inherited sky-high deficits from the Biden administration, and say their policy mix of spending cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and pro-growth policies will bring them down.
• The White House Council of Economic Advisers projected that the bill would boost GDP by 4.2% to 5.2% in the short run — a staggering level of growth that goes far beyond the mainstream consensus.
• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went as far as to claim that the bill "does not add to the deficit," and that it would actually save $1.6 trillion through spending cuts and Medicaid work requirements.

Reality check: Independent budget experts see that as laughable.

• The Joint Committee on Taxation projects the House reconciliation bill would increase deficits by $3.8 trillion through 2034.
• The Penn Wharton Budget Model projects deficits of almost $3.3 trillion, even when accounting for "positive economic dynamics."
• Moody's, which downgraded the U.S. credit rating on Friday, estimates that extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts alone — a central component of the bill — would add $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

What they're saying: "This tax bill's enormity is being underplayed ... [It] will cost more than the 2017 tax cuts, the pandemic CARES Act, Biden's stimulus, and the Inflation Reduction Act combined," Jessica Riedl, a budget specialist at the conservative Manhattan Institute, told Yahoo Finance.

• Jim Millstein, a former chief restructuring officer at the Treasury Department, warned that most deficit projections "assume consistent economic growth."
• "Just imagine the Trump tariffs ... cause a recession," Millstein told Bloomberg. "They are risking a fiscal disaster."

The other side: Some Republicans argue that not passing the bill poses a more immediate threat. If Trump's 2017 tax cuts are allowed to expire, taxes would rise for 62% of filers, according to the Tax Foundation.

• Some conservatives also reject the notion that cutting taxes should be equated with the type of deficit spending that Congress approved during the Biden administration.
• "If you think a tax cut is a cost, you're standing in the shoes of the government, not the American people," anti-tax activist Grover Norquist told the Washington Post. "Tax cuts are income to Americans and a loss to the bureaucracy."

The bottom line: The cost of interest on America's national debt is already soaring. If rates remain as high as they are now, the U.S. could owe $40 trillion more in interest payments alone over the next 30 years.

In the hours before and after Air Force One touched down in Riyadh, President Trump's team plunged into a frenetic diplomatic blitz, aiming to defuse four of the world's most volatile crises — all at once.

Why it matters: Trump came to the Middle East chasing $1 trillion in foreign investment. But under the pageantry of the Gulf summits, he's betting that a whirlwind of personalized diplomacy can succeed where decades of U.S. policy have failed.

Zoom in: "As I have shown repeatedly, I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world, even if our differences may be profound," Trump said in his keynote speech at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum.

1. Syria: Trump stunned the audience — and drew a standing ovation — by announcing that he would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, offering the new government "a chance at greatness" after the fall of the Assad regime.

• He also agreed to do what no U.S. president has done for 25 years: Meet with the Syrian president.
• Until recently, Trump had privately referred to Ahmed al-Sharaa — who was placed on the U.S. terror list due to his ties to al-Qaeda — as "a jihadi."
• He now plans to "say hello" to Syria's new leader on Wednesday, and is sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet with his counterpart in Turkey later this week.

2. Israel-Hamas: Hours before Trump departed for Riyadh, in between negotiating sessions with Iran in Oman, his envoy Steve Witkoff secured a deal for the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who had been in Hamas custody for 584 days.

• On Monday, Trump sent Witkoff and White House hostage envoy Adam Boehler to Doha to push for a broader hostage and ceasefire deal.
• The stakes are high. Israel has vowed to undertake an operation to occupy and flatten all of Gaza if no deal is reached before Trump's trip ends.

3. Russia-Ukraine: Trump is pushing hard for the countries to hold direct talks this week for the first time in three year, even floating the idea of joining Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey later this week.

• Zelensky confirmed he'll travel to Istanbul for the talks. Despite being the one to propose negotiations, Putin has yet to confirm his attendance.
• Trump said Tuesday that he's sending Rubio, Witkoff and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg to Istanbul to help broker a ceasefire, and suggested Russia could face massive sanctions if they won't play ball.

4. Iran: Days after the conclusion of a fourth round of nuclear talks in Oman, Trump issued a public ultimatum urging Iran's leaders to accept a new nuclear deal or face a return to "massive maximum pressure."

• "I have never believed in having permanent enemies," Trump said in Riyadh, offering Iran "an olive branch" while stressing that the Islamic Republic can never have a nuclear weapon.
• "This is not an offer that will last forever. The time is right now for them to choose — we don't have much time," he warned.

Reality check: In Ukraine, Gaza and beyond, Trump's supreme confidence in his own dealmaking abilities hasn't yet been backed up by results.

• But bumps in the road might not stop him from declaring victory, as he did last week when a partial truce with the Houthis gave him cover to end an operation he'd begun to see as a costly boondoggle, the NYT reports.

The big picture: Trump has branded his Middle East diplomacy as a repudiation of both neoconservative interventionism and liberal internationalism — and as proof that his transactional, "America First" approach is delivering where past U.S. presidents failed.

• He portrayed the Gulf region's transformation as the product of local ambition and authoritarian stability — not Western values or American-led nation-building.
• "The gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits, like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities," he said.
• "Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves."

On everything from international diplomacy to personal business, hostage negotiations to investment deals, Gulf countries are President Trump's partners of first resort.

Why it matters: Trump, who arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, is spurning traditional democratic allies in favor of Gulf monarchies — drawn by their wealth, deal-making and growing global clout.

Breaking it down: Each of Trump's ten most recent predecessors made their first international trips to Canada, Mexico, the U.K. or NATO HQ in Brussels.

• Trump chose Saudi Arabia twice (though he did attend Pope Francis' funeral first this time around).
• He'll also stop this week in Qatar and the UAE, with all three legs of the trip expected to focus on huge investment commitments for AI, aircraft, weapons and more.

Zoom in: Trump's personal business empire in the Gulf is also growing, with projects under development in all three countries he'll be visiting.

• Trump has hosted the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour at his U.S. properties, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm received $2 billion from the kingdom's Public Investment Fund.
• In recent weeks, the Trump Organization has revealed plans to build luxury properties in both Dubai and Doha.
• The Trump family's crypto venture also announced that an Emirati-backed investment firm would use its new stablecoin to complete a $2 billion transaction — drawing massive outcry from Congress.

Behind the scenes: Officials from all three countries have an unusual level of access in Washington, where Gulf money has long bankrolled an army of lobbyists, influencers and think tanks.

• The Qatari prime minister and the Emirati national security adviser were both granted dinners with Trump on recent visits despite not being heads of state.
• Qatar's influence in Trumpworld has been a source of particular concern among pro-Israel Republicans, who accuse the Gulf nation of financing Hamas and other Islamist groups. Qatar denies that.

The big picture: Trump has been looking to the Gulf states for more than just their checkbooks.

• Trump turned to Saudi Arabia to host U.S.-Russia talks, and later U.S.-Ukraine talks. Trump was also interested in meeting Vladimir Putin in Riyadh, along with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
• While that meeting hasn't happened, and Trump has now floated the idea of a summit in Istanbul, the kingdom has built ties with both warring countries and the White House and remains a key player in the diplomatic efforts.
• That's new for a country that's long been a power within the Arab world, but not beyond it.

The Qataris and Emiratis are more experienced international intermediaries, and Trump has leaned on both repeatedly.

• Qatar has mediated the release of Americans detained in Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Gaza — most recently American-Israeli Edan Alexander, who was freed by Hamas on Monday after 584 days in captivity. Qatar is also a mediator in the Gaza ceasefire process.
• The UAE coordinated the release of Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina from a Russian prison last month, as it had with basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022. The Emiratis have also been involved in coordinating a "day after" strategy for Gaza with the U.S.

Between the lines: The Biden and Obama administrations also turned to Qatar and the UAE in similar situations. Call it continuity with Trumpian twists — like Qatar's "gift" of a Boeing 747-8 to be used as the new Air Force One.

• For Gulf rulers, Trump offers something his predecessors didn't: fewer lectures, more arms deals and a direct line to U.S. power insulated from Congress.

The intrigue: The U.S. first went to the Emiratis to help bring Iran to the table for nuclear talks, but Tehran made clear they preferred to work with another small oil-rich Gulf state: Oman.

• Oman is still mediating those talks, and White House envoy Steve Witkoff also turned to them to mediate a truce with the Houthis in Yemen.

Friction point: The Iran talks, the Houthi deal and the chumminess with Qatar are all happening with very little input from another key U.S. partner in the region, Israel — to the irritation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The bottom line: If there's a crisis breaking out, or money to be made, Trump is likely to look first to the Gulf states.

Top MAGA influencers Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer and Mark Levin broke sharply with President Trump Monday over his decision to accept a $400 million private jet from the Qatari government.

Why it matters: The revolt marks one of the few times since Trump's return to power that key voices in his base have publicly questioned his judgment — revealing cracks in a MAGA coalition built on unwavering loyalty.

• Trump, who will visit Qatar as part of his Middle East trip this week, has scoffed at criticism of the royal family's extraordinary gift, saying it would be "stupid" to turn down a new Air Force One.
• But for pro-Israel Republicans, Trump's coziness with Qatar — which they see as a chief sponsor of Hamas — crosses a red line.

What they're saying: "I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him. But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million 'gift' from jihadists in suits," tweeted Loomer, an influential MAGA conspiracy theorist who played a key role in ousting national security adviser Mike Waltz.

• Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, two of the most prominent pro-Israel voices on the MAGA right, have expressed deep alarm at Trump's growing ties with Qatar — a U.S. ally that denies accusations that it finances terrorist groups.
• "Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, all the rest, that's not America First," Shapiro said on his top-rated podcast.

The intrigue: Shapiro also warned that the Trump family's crypto ventures — including the president's meme coin — are inviting "influence peddling" allegations that could damage the MAGA agenda.

• "I think if we switch the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we'd all be freaking out on the right," Shapiro said. "If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop."

Between the lines: Democrats have already stalled stablecoin legislation over Trump's crypto dealings and are now demanding investigations over the Qatari plane.

• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested on Fox News that Trump's acceptance of the gift could be unconstitutional, arguing that it's "not worth the appearance of impropriety."

Yes, but: The rare criticism was not uniformly vociferous across the MAGAverse.

• Some pro-Trump podcasts made only glancing references to the story on Monday, and other influencers paired mild discomfort with continued expressions of trust in the president.
• Many MAGA loyalists landed on the same strategic response they embraced after Signalgate: Don't give the media — or Democrats — an inch.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s short time leading America's health agencies has already destabilized the uneasy alliance that vaulted him into President Trump's Cabinet.

Why it matters: The "Make America Healthy Again" movement — a loose umbrella of vaccine skeptics, wellness influencers, and anti-pharma crusaders — was envisioned as a revolution against the medical establishment.

• But its attempt to integrate with the federal health apparatus — and the MAGA purists who comprise the backbone of Trump's base — has so far proven deeply dysfunctional.

The big picture: The anti-establishment takeover of Health and Human Services — a sprawling agency that accounts for the largest share of domestic federal spending — has become one of the most chaotic experiments of Trump's second term.

• Trump has already been forced to pull two major health nominations — former Rep. Dave Weldon for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director and Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat for surgeon general — after scrutiny of their records.
• The Food and Drug Administration's top vaccine regulator, Peter Marks, abruptly resigned in March in protest of Kennedy's "misinformation and lies" about vaccines.
• As a measles outbreak spread in Texas, the White House became so frustrated by the lack of clear and fast communications by HHS that it set up a parallel press shop, as Axios scooped last month.

Between the lines: Kennedy's top health picks include contrarians who are critical of the medical establishment — but unwilling to fully embrace the MAHA movement's more conspiratorial views on vaccines.

• National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya and FDA commissioner Marty Makary were brought in as high-profile critics of COVID-era orthodoxy who boast mainstream academic credentials.
• But neither man fully endorses Kennedy's most controversial positions, particularly on childhood vaccines and autism — making them targets for the anti-vaccine purists who view them as insufficiently radical.

Zoom in: Trump's nomination of nutrition influencer Casey Means to be surgeon general last week has become the latest flashpoint in the unraveling of the MAHA coalition.

• Means and her brother, White House adviser Calley Means, became key faces of Kennedy's movement after authoring a New York Times best-seller that railed against the food and pharmaceutical industries.
• Their message — that metabolic dysfunction and chronic illness stem from institutional corruption — helped popularize the MAHA brand among wellness influencers and libertarian-minded reformers.

But Casey Means' nomination to be the face of public health messaging has drawn fire from all sides.

• Anti-vaccine activists argue she isn't sufficiently committed to Kennedy's views on vaccine safety, especially the more fringe beliefs he espoused before leading HHS.
• Kennedy's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, claimed she was promised that the Means siblings wouldn't get jobs inside HHS — and that "someone" is "controlling" Kennedy's decisions.

The intrigue: Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who successfully lobbied Trump to fire national security adviser Mike Waltz and much of his team, has trained her eyes on the Means siblings.

• Loomer has openly mocked Casey Means as a "woo woo woman" who "literally talks to trees and spiritual mediums" — drawing backlash from Calley Means, who suggested Loomer was taking money from the medical industry.
• Kennedy has vigorously defended Means' qualifications, arguing that her popularity among "MAHA moms" poses "an existential threat to the status quo interests, which profit from sickness."

The other side: Other top MAGA influencers, including Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump Jr. and Megyn Kelly, have praised Casey Means' appointment and emphasized the need for coalition harmony.

• "If you merge MAHA and MAGA, it's like 1932," former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon said on his "War Room" podcast, predicting a political realignment on par with FDR's New Deal coalition.
• "You govern forever."

The bottom line: HHS will be at the center of major policy debates over Medicaid cuts, abortion access, vaccine policy, medical research and the future of public health infrastructure.

• But the deep divisions within its Frankenstein coalition are threatening to tear MAHA apart before those battles can even begin.

America's tech titans backed President Trump's promise of a new "Golden Age" with seven-figure checks, glowing public praise and front-row tickets to his inauguration.

• So far, those favors remain unreciprocated.

Why it matters: Big Tech has been in MAGA's crosshairs for years. Even as Trump revels in the industry's dramatic realignment and personal overtures, the core tensions in the relationship are far from resolved.

• The famously transactional president knows exactly how much leverage he has over "these internet people," as he referred to them last week.
• "You know, they all hated me in my first term," Trump mused during his commencement speech at the University of Alabama. "And now they're kissing my ass. All of them."

State of play: Most major corporations have suffered from Trump's hurricane of tariff announcements and the ensuing economic uncertainty. But for Big Tech, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

1. Meta, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote the playbook on making up with Trumpworld in the weeks after the election, is nearly a month into an FTC antitrust trial over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

• The case was initially brought during Trump's first term, which ended with Trump being banned from Meta's platforms after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
• Zuckerberg's MAGA pivot and personal lobbying have failed to convince Trump or his FTC chair to drop the case, which could force Meta to break up its social media empire.

2. Google, which donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration, is facing two landmark antitrust cases from the Justice Department — one targeting its search dominance, the other its advertising business.

• A federal judge ruled last month that Google has maintained an illegal monopoly on online advertising, and DOJ attorneys feel confident that Google could be forced to sell off Chrome in the separate search case.

3. Apple, which in February announced a $500 million investment in the U.S. over the next four years, struck gold by persuading Trump to exempt phones, computers and chips from his China tariffs.

• But the relief may be short-lived: CEO Tim Cook warned the remaining tariffs still could cost Apple $900 million this quarter alone, even as the company diversifies its supply chain.

4. Amazon, which paid $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary, was accused by the White House of a "hostile and political act" last week after a report that it planned to display how tariffs were increasing product prices.

• Trump immediately called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — and then publicly praised him for "[solving] the problem very quickly" after the company issued a statement denying the report.
• Amazon still faces a major antitrust trial in September, with Trump's FTC chair Andrew Ferguson recently vowing to "never back down from taking on Big Tech."

Between the lines: Elon Musk belongs in his own category — not just because the billionaire has become one of Trump's most powerful advisers, but because his companies have suffered enormous brand damage as a result.

• Tesla's sales and stock have slumped amid boycotts, tariff shocks and reputational fallout — particularly in Europe and China, where Musk's close alignment with Trump is a liability.
• SpaceX is largely thriving, however, and the Washington Post reports that the U.S. has encouraged countries facing the threat of tariffs to license Musk's Starlink.

The intrigue: Out of the major tech companies represented at the inauguration, the biggest winner may be a foreign one: TikTok.

• Trump has declined to enforce a law requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or face a U.S. ban.
• The White House has offered no timeline or enforcement plan, frustrating U.S. rivals who had hoped to take advantage of the popular app's disappearance.

The other side: There are a few key areas where tech CEOs are seeing upside from Trump.

• The administration has gone to bat for Apple and Meta in its fight against European antitrust fines and digital service taxes.
• It has also severely weakened the CFPB, which under Biden went after Big Tech's digital wallet plans.

What to watch: The Trump administration's full-throated embrace of AI development — and its rollback of Biden-era safety rules and export controls — has been tech's biggest overall win.

• That AI policy shift benefits companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia, but it's also a boon to Big Tech's own AI investments and their positioning for lucrative government contracts.
• OpenAI's Sam Altman and Microsoft's Brad Smith will testify on Capitol Hill Thursday at a Senate Commerce hearing on the topic of "removing restraints on the AI supply chain."

A $2 billion crypto deal involving President Trump's family and a foreign government is threatening to derail bipartisan stablecoin legislation that Congress has been working on for months.

Why it matters: Democrats see the potential for gob-smacking corruption in Trump's lucrative crypto projects, which they consider to be the clearest conflicts of interest in a sea of new business ventures launched by the president and his inner circle.

• The Trump family's crypto dealings could now jeopardize legislation that the crypto industry has aggressively lobbied for as a way to gain legitimacy and legal clarity in the U.S.

What's happening: Senate Democrats unveiled a sweeping new proposal Tuesday to ban presidents, lawmakers and their families from issuing, endorsing or sponsoring crypto assets, Axios' Stephen Neukam scooped.

• The new bill comes days after Senate Democrats suddenly voiced opposition to the GENIUS Act — landmark bipartisan legislation that would create the first-ever regulatory framework for stablecoins.
• Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) introduced bills targeting Trump's multibillion-dollar meme coin, which Murphy called "the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president."

Over in the House, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) led a Democratic walkout of a joint hearing on crypto regulation, plunging the session into chaos in hopes of drawing new attention to Trump's alleged "corruption."

Between the lines: Democrats have long accused Trump and his family of profiting from the presidency. But on two particularly brazen crypto projects, Trumpworld may have flown too close to the sun.

1. The official website for Trump's meme coin invited its top 220 investors to an "intimate private dinner" with the president later this month, with a "VIP White House Tour" offered to the top 25 holders. References to the White House were later scrubbed from the website.
2. World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto venture, announced that an Emirati state-backed venture fund would use World Liberty's new stablecoin to complete a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance.

What they're saying: Trump has denied profiting from the presidency, telling NBC's "Meet the Press" that he started his crypto venture "long before the election."

• "I haven't even looked," Trump claimed.
• "Stablecoin legislation should be passed on a bipartisan basis. President Trump is dedicated to making America the crypto capital of the world and revolutionizing our digital financial technology. His assets are in a trust managed by his children, and there are no conflicts of interest," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Axios.

Zoom out: Democrats erupted over news of the foreign deal, demanding an investigation by the Office of Government Ethics and warning of a "quid pro quo that could endanger national security."

• At a closed-door meeting last week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told his caucus to withhold support for the GENIUS Act so Democrats could force changes to the legislation.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued the stablecoin bill "will make it easier for the president and his family to line their own pockets," warning: "This is corruption and no senator should support it."

The bottom line: The crypto world was thrilled to see Trump take up the mantle of advocate-in-chief, especially after years of perceived hostility from the Biden administration.

• But the Trump family's aggressive business tactics may end up costing the industry the very legitimacy it's been chasing.

President Trump's grand economic vision relies on a simple tradeoff: that Americans will accept short-term personal sacrifice — higher prices, fewer options, slimmer profits — in service of long-term national strength.

Why it matters: Trump is breaking sharply from free-market orthodoxy in his second term, blending bursts of anti-capitalism with a top-down, nationalist agenda for American dominance.

Critics on the left and right warn of an emerging "MAGA Maoism" — a movement that demands ideological purity, glorifies economic sacrifice, and embraces state power as a means to reshape society.

• Trump's strongman instincts — and his deep skepticism of cultural elites and bureaucrats — have only intensified the provocative comparisons to China's revolutionary leader.

What they're saying: "MAGA Maoism is spreading through the populist right," former congressional speechwriter Rotimi Adeoye wrote for The Washington Post last month.

• James Surowiecki, the first journalist to deduce that the White House used trade deficits to calculate its reciprocal tariffs, argued Monday that Trumpism is "becoming perversely, farcically Maoist."
• Drew Pavlou, an Australian anti-communism activist, wrote on Substack that "the entire world is now held hostage to Trump and his primitive, strangely Maoist worldview."

Reality check: Trump's worldview is driven not by Marxist theory, but by a deeply held belief that America has been getting ripped off for decades.

• He's constrained by the rule of law, unlike China's totalitarian state — and there's no comparison to the mass death and violence committed by Mao Zedong's communist regime.
• Plus, much of Trump's agenda remains pro-capitalist: He champions private industry, not state ownership, and his appeals to sacrifice are rooted in geopolitical competition — not class struggle.
• White House spokesman Kush Desai told Axios in a statement: "The Trump administration's policies are delivering much-needed economic relief for everyday Americans while laying the groundwork for a long-term restoration of American Greatness."

But listen to recent rhetoric from Trump and his top advisers, and it's clear why the analogy has gained traction.

• "We are a department store, and we set the price," Trump told Time when asked about tariff rates. "I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price ... and they can pay it, or they don't have to pay it."
• "Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more," Trump mused last week when discussing potential supply shortages.
• In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Trump said he'll personally call CEOs who make business decisions — such as advertising price increases from tariffs — that are "wrong" or "hurtful to the country."

The intrigue: The MAGA movement sees industrial labor as the backbone of American identity, and is pursuing a vision steeped in nostalgia and nationalism.

• "This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here and your grandkids work here," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Trump intends to usher in the most prosperous decade in American history — but not at the cost of the spiritual degradation of the working class,"

• Bessent even suggested on a podcast that fired federal workers could help supply "the labor we need for new manufacturing" — drawing comparisons to Mao's policy of relocating urban elites to rural areas for "re-education."

The big picture: Trump's embrace of centralized economic power is just one piece of a broader governing style that borrows heavily from strongman traditions.

• Ritualistic praise: Trump's televised Cabinet meetings always begin with his secretaries showering him in praise — casting the president as the only leader capable of restoring America's greatness.
• Loyalty tests: Trump and his aides have carried out mass purges of career officials deemed insufficiently loyal, including at the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community.
• Civil society: Trump has sought retribution against the media, law firms, NGOs, and political opponents. Some Chinese see echoes of the Cultural Revolution, when nearly all of society's institutions were destroyed.
• War on academia: The Trump administration has cracked down on dozens of universities over alleged antisemitism and DEI programs, moving to weaken elite liberal institutions seen as hostile to MAGA.
• Military spectacle: The Pentagon plans to host a massive military parade — featuring 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles and 50 helicopters — on Trump's birthday in June, which coincides with the Army's 250th anniversary.

The bottom line: There will be no communist revolution under Trump. But his second-term style reflects ideas the U.S. has long fought against — now reframed in nationalist terms.

President Trump warned American families this week that they may have to make do with fewer — and more expensive — holiday toys.

• But for Trump's own inner circle, a veritable Golden Age is well underway.

Why it matters: Trump's family has enjoyed a historically lucrative first 100 days, leveraging its proximity to power — and raking in billions — through a flood of ethically murky business ventures.

Most presidents try to avoid even the appearance of using the office or public policy for personal enrichment.

• But Trump has blended official power and personal business in unprecedented ways — and often in plain sight.

What's happening: Trump, his sons and their associates have launched a wave of high-dollar projects monetizing their proximity to the most powerful government in the world.

• World Liberty Financial: The Trump-backed crypto venture, where founders include Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and his sons, has raised more than $550 million by selling tokens to buyers around the world. Trump himself serves as the company's "chief crypto advocate," while his administration pursues policies — including a federal crypto reserve — that have boosted the value of assets held by the firm.
• OFFICIAL TRUMP: The president's meme coin surged more than 60% last week after its website advertised an "intimate private dinner" with Trump for the top 220 coin-holders — plus a "special VIP" reception and White House tour for the top 25. The website later scrubbed references to the "White House."
• The Executive Branch: Donald Trump Jr. and his business partners — including Witkoff's sons, Zach and Alex — are launching an exclusive D.C. club with a $500,000 membership fee, pitched as a private hangout for donors and business moguls to rub shoulders with top Trump officials.
• Foreign deals: At least 19 foreign Trump-branded projects will be in development over the next four years, according to ethics watchdog CREW. Just this week, the Trump Organization announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar. Trump, whose first foreign visit will be to Saudi Arabia, also hosted a Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament at his Doral club in Florida last month.
• Merchandise: The Trump Organization is selling "Trump 2028" hats, a nod to the president's musings about an unconstitutional third term. Trump hawked Bibles, sneakers, perfume and trading cards during the 2024 campaign, and his political operation continues to rely on MAGA merchandise to raise funds.
• Corporate boards: Dominari Holdings, a small public financial services company with headquarters in New York's Trump Tower, saw its stock price surge more than 1,200% in about six weeks after Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined its advisory board and took equity stakes worth millions. Trump Jr. also has been named to the board of a digital firearms retailer, called GrabAGun, that's due to go public this summer.

The other side: Allies note that Don Jr. and Eric Trump have long maintained business careers independent of their father's political office, and say their recent ventures are consistent with that history.

Zoom in: A New York Times investigation found that World Liberty Financial solicited secret multimillion-dollar payments from other crypto startups, offering cross-promotion and perceived proximity to Trump.

• The company marketed these "token swaps," first reported by Blockworks, as "mutual investments." But several executives saw them as thinly veiled endorsements-for-cash.
• World Liberty has denied any impropriety, characterizing the pitches as standard industry practice.

The intrigue: World Liberty's many foreign investors include Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto billionaire who bought $75 million worth of tokens while facing an SEC lawsuit for alleged fraud.

• Sun has denied the charges, and the SEC paused his case in February to consider a potential resolution.

The latest: On Thursday, Zach Witkoff and Eric Trump announced that Emirati state-owned firm MGX will use World Liberty's new stablecoin to complete a $2 billion deal with crypto exchange Binance.

• The investment will formalize ties between the Trump family's crypto venture, a foreign government, and Binance, which pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
• "This is only the beginning," Witkoff declared in Dubai, where 10,000 attendees gathered this week for a major crypto conference.

What to watch: Privately, top Republicans fear that if Democrats win back the House, they'll spend the two years before 2028 holding high-profile hearings on allegations of Trumpworld profiteering.

• That's exactly what the House GOP did when it won the majority in 2022, with an impeachment inquiry that sought to tie President Biden to Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings.
• Few elected Republicans have expressed public concerns about the Trump family's business ventures.

The bottom line: Trump's first term blurred the line between public office and personal gain. His second term has erased it — turning the presidency into a profit engine for his brand and bloodline.

President Trump charged into office at the peak of his powers — more popular, more disciplined, more ambitious than ever before.

• But after months of mega-MAGA shock and awe, the illusion of invincibility is fading.

Why it matters: Storm clouds have gathered over Trump's 100th day in office today, darkening a milestone his team envisioned as a showcase for his history-making second term.

• Trump now has the worst 100-day approval rating of any president in the last 80 years — lower than at this point in his turbulent first term.
• But unlike in 2017, Trump's own policies are triggering deep economic pessimism — threatening to blow a hole through a floor of support he's always been able to count on.

The big picture: There's no question that Trump's first 100 days have been enormously consequential, fueled by the revolutionary vision, hard-edged rhetoric and blinding pace demanded by his supporters.

• But compare today's status quo to the MAGA triumphalism on display from November through January.

1. Polling: One week after his inauguration, Trump's approval rating peaked at 52% — an astonishing turnaround for a president whose support had fallen to 34% when he left office in 2021.

• Today, his average approval mark has slid to 44%, driven by abysmal polling on the top issue he was elected to fix: the economy.

2. Economic outlook: Many CEOs believed Trump when he promised a "new golden age" powered by deregulation, lower taxes, savvy dealmaking and other pro-business policies.

• But his chaotic tariff rollout has blindsided corporate America, roiled global markets, dragged down consumer confidence and dramatically raised the risk of a recession.

3. Immigration: Trump's Day One border crackdown has thrilled his supporters, with the White House eager to spend Day 100 highlighting its high-profile deportations of alleged migrant criminals.

• Border security remains Trump's best issue, but cracks are beginning to emerge as the courts restrain his powers and voters raise concerns over violations of due process.

4. DOGE: Elon Musk was a permanent fixture in the early weeks of the administration, as Trump and his Cabinet rallied behind his efforts to slash billions from the federal budget.

• But Musk quickly became a political liability: His mass firings and chaotic rehiring of some federal workers are now estimated to have cost taxpayers $135 billion — wiping out most of the $160 billion that DOGE claims it saved.

5. Russia: Trump entered office vowing to end the war in Ukraine "on Day One," touting his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his credibility as a dealmaker.

• Trump now claims that promise was a figure of speech and an "exaggeration," and is threatening to walk away from negotiations amid stalled progress.

What they're saying: "In his first 100 days, President Trump has delivered on hundreds of promises and already accomplished his two most important campaign goals — the border is secure and inflation is ending," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

• "The next 100 days will consist of trade deals, peace deals and tax cuts. More American greatness is on the way."

Between the lines: Trump benefited in his early weeks from a spellbound public, with onetime skeptics willing to give him a chance after inflation and illegal border crossings surged under President Biden.

• The vaunted "Resistance" from Trump's first term, meanwhile, was left paralyzed and demoralized after Democrats' disastrous election.
• Big Tech, media companies, universities, law firms and foreign countries all "bent the knee," highly sensitive to Trump's immense power and desperate to stay out of his crosshairs.

But 100 days in, the fever has broken:

• Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its freeze on federal funding, while other top universities are forming a "private collective" to push back against Trump's threats.
• Some of Trump's most influential allies — Musk, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, investor Bill Ackman — have spoken out against his tariffs.
• Canada, fuming from Trump's persistent vow to make it America's 51st state, just elected Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney on an openly anti-Trump platform. Other foreign allies are banding together to counter U.S. tariffs.
• Democrats are still deeply unpopular, but young stars such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Pete Buttigieg are tapping into a hunger for generational change.

The bottom line: Even the strongest political machines are beholden to fickle American voters. Trump's challenge now is to stop a slow descent from becoming a free fall.

Elon Musk arrived in Washington as the most powerful political outsider ever, brimming with Silicon Valley swagger and bipartisan buy-in for his goal of streamlining the federal government.

• He's leaving with his reputation wounded, relationships severed, companies in crisis, fortune diminished — and little to show for DOGE but chaos and contested savings.

Why it matters: Musk may not have achieved his audacious goal of cutting $2 trillion from America's debt, but the disruption he unleashed inside the federal government — for better or for worse — will reverberate for decades.

Zoom in: Musk has publicly acknowledged the enormous toll that DOGE — which he's characterized as a patriotic, existential project — has taken on his private life.

• He's still beloved by President Trump, but his favorability ratings have plummeted amid scrutiny of DOGE's mass layoffs, sweeping program cuts, and unprecedented access to Americans' personal data.
• For Wisconsin's Supreme Court election this month, Democrats painted Musk — who poured $25 million into the race — as a corrupt, unelected oligarch with his eyes set on dismantling Social Security. The message stuck, and Musk's GOP-backed candidate lost.

By the numbers: Tesla, battered by boycotts, protests and even firebombings, saw its net income plunge 71% in the first quarter — triggering Musk's decision this week to scale back his involvement in DOGE.

• Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, celebrated the end of "this dark chapter," but warned: "The brand damage caused by Musk in the White House/DOGE over the past few months will not go away."
• Musk's net worth has declined by a staggering $122 billion this year — nearly matching the $160 billion in government savings claimed by DOGE, which budget experts believe is wildly inflated.
• Musk, who bankrolled Trump's campaign to the tune of $288 million, still remains the world's richest man.

Zoom out: Inside the government, Musk's slash-and-burn campaign has fundamentally reshaped how federal agencies operate — and in some cases, whether they operate at all.

• DOGE spent one of its first weekends "feeding USAID into the wood chipper," gutting an agency that millions of people around the world rely on for food, water, shelter, disease surveillance and disaster relief.
• Musk's team then tried to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a financial watchdog created after the Great Recession to protect people from being ripped off by banks and other institutions.
• His DOGE team has since gone agency by agency, infiltrating sensitive IT networks — including the Treasury Department's centralized payments system — in the name of rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse."

In some cases, DOGE has exposed seemingly frivolous examples of government spending, like a $360,000 grant to reduce social discrimination of recyclers in Bolivia.

• The administration's aggressive marketing of these findings has helped reinforce the widely held view that Washington is bloated, inefficient and overdue for reform.
• But the DOGE team's credibility has repeatedly been undermined by mistakes, duplications and false assumptions uploaded — then quietly deleted — on its online "wall of receipts."
• Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — one of several Cabinet officials to clash with Musk — accused the billionaire of overpromising and under-delivering in a West Wing shouting match last week.

What they're saying: "DOGE's verified savings have been less than 1/10 of 1% of federal spending," says Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow and budget expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

• "There have been embarrassing accounting errors, lots of public statements that turned out to be false or misleading, or actions slapped back by the courts."

Between the lines: Republicans have celebrated as DOGE has slashed wasteful contracts, canceled leases and fired unproductive employees. But its cuts to the IRS threaten to reverse any progress made on reducing the deficit.

• "The spending savings are so small that they will be undoubtedly overwhelmed by the significant tax revenue losses which result from gutting IRS tax enforcement," Riedl tells Axios.
• "It makes a mockery of claims that DOGE is really just about cutting deficits."

The bottom line: Musk will remain a force in American politics long after his DOGE days are over, especially with his acolytes strategically installed in high-profile positions throughout the federal government.

• "I can't speak more highly about any individual," Trump told reporters Wednesday, heaping praise on his billionaire adviser and top donor.
• "He was treated very unfairly by — I guess you'd call it the public, some of the public," Trump added. "He loves the country. He doesn't need to do this."

In less than 100 days, President Trump has squandered his polling strength on the two issues most fundamental to his re-election: the economy and immigration.

Why it matters: Trump's approval rating is cratering not because voters reject his goals — but because they're increasingly alarmed by his methods. That disconnect threatens to collapse the two most durable pillars of his political brand.

1. On the economy, the single most decisive issue of the 2024 election, Trump's polling has never been worse.

• A Reuters/Ipsos poll out Wednesday found 37% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy — his lowest rating ever, going back to the start of his first presidency.
• A Pew Research Center survey found Trump's overall approval rating has fallen to 40%, while confidence in his economic leadership has dropped to 45% — the lowest since tracking began in 2019.
• New Gallup polling out this week showed that a majority of Americans, for the first time since at least 2001, believe their economic situation is worsening.

2. On immigration, Trump is in a relatively stronger position — but cracks are starting to emerge.

• Despite a sealed-off border and a wave of high-profile deportations, Trump is now barely above water on his best issue, according to an average of polls by data journalist G. Elliott Morris.
• A new YouGov/Economist poll found Trump's immigration approval rating has dropped 10 points since April 16 — down to 45% — amid an escalating standoff with the courts over his deportation tactics.
• As Morris points out, Trump has effectively lost all of the ground he gained on immigration during the Biden presidency, when Americans shifted firmly to the right in response to the border crisis.

The intrigue: 50% of YouGov respondents said Trump should return Kilmar Abrego Garcia — an immigrant living in Maryland who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador — to the U.S. Just 28% said he shouldn't.

• Democrats have publicly clashed over their approach to the case — torn between defending due process and avoiding the optics of fighting for a man who crossed the border illegally and is suspected of MS-13 gang ties.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed the case as a "distraction," arguing it comes at a time when Trump is uniquely vulnerable on the economy and Republicans are eager to shift the focus back to immigration.
• Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who traveled to El Salvador last week, shot back: "I keep saying I'm not vouching for Abrego Garcia. I'm vouching for his constitutional rights because all our rights are at stake."

The bottom line: Trump's greatest assets — tough on borders, sharp on business — are becoming liabilities. That's a major red flag for a president whose chaotic style is only tolerated when it delivers results.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is locked in open warfare with his own Pentagon, a hotbed of distrust and dysfunction that commands the most powerful military on the face of the Earth.

Why it matters: No Trump Cabinet official has endured more turmoil in less time than Hegseth, who survived a nasty confirmation battle only to be burned — again and again — by leaks, blunders and now backlash from his own handpicked aides.

• President Trump so far is standing firmly behind Hegseth, a former Fox News host tapped to lead a radical overhaul of the largest and most complex agency in the U.S. government.
• But inside the Pentagon, the knives are out — testing Trump's tolerance for chaos when it's not his own.

Zoom in: Hegseth, whose on-camera talent helped endear him to Trump, lashed out Monday when asked about new reports that he shared sensitive military plans in a second Signal chat with his wife, brother and personal lawyer.

• Just days earlier, three top Pentagon officials — including two of Hegseth's closest aides — were fired after an investigation into alleged leaks. All three vigorously deny the accusations.
• "What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax," Hegseth said at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

"This is what the media does," he continued, turning to look directly into the camera.

• "They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me."

Reality check: Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, who resigned just last week, did not hide behind anonymity when he uncorked a scathing op-ed in Politico on Sunday suggesting Trump should fire Hegseth.

• Ullyot, a longtime Trump loyalist who touted his early support for Hegseth, said the Pentagon has been in "full-blown meltdown" for the past month — and that more "bombshell" leaks should be expected.

The intrigue: "This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News in an interview defending Hegseth.

• Leavitt's quote was then amplified by the Defense Department's rapid-response account on X — with the word "ENTIRE" in all-caps.
• The extraordinary claim — that the nerve center of American military power is actively working to sabotage its own civilian leader — reflects the depth of suspicion that has taken root inside the Pentagon.

Between the lines: Top MAGA influencers argue Hegseth is under fire precisely because he's been effective — citing rising military recruitment, the elimination of DEI programs, and the reduced influence of "warmongers."

• Democrats — and even some moderate Republicans — counter that he's invited scandal through a mix of inexperience, poor judgment and a culture of loyalty over competence.
• They point to Hegseth's confusing rollout of U.S.-Ukraine policy, the Signalgate saga, scuttled plans to give Elon Musk a top-secret briefing on China, and allegations of substance abuse.
• "I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That's a concern," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), the first Republican to call for Hegseth's firing, told Politico.

The bottom line: Trump is reflexively resistant to firing any official — let alone one MAGA fought so hard to confirm — who comes under scrutiny from the media.

• "Ask the Houthis how much dysfunction there is. There's none," Trump told reporters Monday, referring to the Iranian-backed group in Yemen that the U.S. has been bombarding for weeks.
• "Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him."

In his first 100 days, President Trump has declared more national emergencies — more creatively and more aggressively — than any president in modern American history.

Why it matters: Powers originally crafted to give the president flexibility in rare moments of crisis now form the backbone of Trump's agenda, enabling him to steamroll Congress and govern by unilateral decree through his first three months in office.

• So far, Trump has invoked national emergencies to impose the largest tariffs in a century, accelerate energy and mineral production, and militarize federal lands at the southern border.
• Paired with his assault on the judiciary, legal scholars fear Trump is exploiting loosely written statutes to try to upend the constitutional balance of power.

How it works: The president can declare a national emergency at any time, for almost any reason, without needing to prove a specific threat or get approval from Congress.

• The National Emergencies Act of 1976, which unlocks more than 120 special statutory powers, originally included a "legislative veto" that gave Congress the ability to terminate an emergency with a simple majority vote.
• But in 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional — effectively stripping Congress of its original check, and making it far harder to rein in a president's emergency declarations.

The big picture: Since then, presidents have largely relied on "norms" and "self-restraint" to avoid abusing emergency powers for non-crises, says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program.

• That precedent was broken in 2019, Goitein argues, when Trump declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress and access billions of dollars in funding for a border wall.
• President Biden stretched his authority as well, drawing criticism in 2022 for citing the COVID-19 national emergency to unilaterally forgive student loan debt.
• But Trump's second-term actions have plunged the U.S. firmly into uncharted territory — redrawing the limits of executive power in real time, and fueling fears of a permanent emergency state.

Zoom in: Trump's justification for his tariffs cites the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which can be invoked only if the U.S. faces an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to its national security, foreign policy, or economy.

• According to the White House, America's decades-old trading relationships — including with tiny countries and uninhabited islands — qualify as such threats.
• As a result, a 1977 law originally designed to target hostile foreign powers — and never before used to impose tariffs — is now being deployed to rewrite the global economic order.

What they're saying: "Troubling times call for serious responses. The previous administration left President Trump a nation in decline — financially vulnerable, with unsecured borders and dangerously unfair trade deals. The President is leveraging every tool the Constitution provides to Make America Great Again," White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement.

Between the lines: Trump's affinity for extraordinary powers extends beyond just the National Emergencies Act.

• He has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798, for example, to deport Venezuelan migrants who his administration claims are participating in an "invasion" of the United States.
• The ACLU recently raised alarms over Trump's flirtation with the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow him to deploy National Guard troops on domestic soil without state consent.
• "You would hope to see authorities like these used sparingly and reluctantly, as the last resort in an actual crisis situation, because they are a real departure from the constitutional norm," Goitein told Axios.

The bottom line: Trump campaigned on "saving America" — framing his return to power as an urgent, existential mission. Now that he's back in Washington, the sirens never stop.

Elon Musk has fathered at least 14 children with at least four women, intent on fighting civilizational collapse with a "legion" of genetically gifted offspring, according to an explosive new feature in the Wall Street Journal.

Why it matters: The investigation reveals new details on how the world's richest man has used his vast wealth and influence to recruit, manage — and at times silence — the mothers of his many children.

The big picture: Musk has been outspoken in his support for natalism, but his motivations — and certainly his methods — diverge from the family-first conservatism driving the broader movement.

• Policies aimed at reversing America's declining birth rate have gained support within the Republican Party in recent years.
• Musk and many Silicon Valley elites see promoting procreation as a civilization-saving project — one rooted in elite reproduction, human capital, and long-term survival through space colonization or AI.
• Social conservatives like Vice President Vance champion natalism as a means of strengthening the nuclear family and Western culture, while some white nationalists frame it as a tool of demographic preservation.

Zoom in: Musk's obsession with producing babies in order to reverse population decline — a cause he has frequently promoted in public — has been on full display in his romantic relationships.

• "To reach legion-level before the apocalypse, we will need to use surrogates," Musk texted conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair while she was pregnant with his child, suggesting they recruit other women to accelerate his plans for more children, per the Journal.
• Musk later asked her to have the baby delivered via caesarean section — having previously claimed on X that C-sections allow for "a larger brain."

Driving the news: The Journal reports that Musk's longtime fixer Jared Birchall privately manages the billionaire's financial and PR arrangements — including non-disclosure clauses — with the women who raise his children.

• Musk urged St. Clair to spend time at a compound in Austin — acquired with the help of Birchall — where he envisioned all of the mothers and their children would ultimately live.
• Shivon Zilis — an executive at Musk-owned Neuralink who has four children and "special status" with the billionaire — lives in the gated community.
• Pop star Grimes, who has three children with Musk, refused to live at the compound and says she was bankrupted by a bitter custody battle.
• Musk has six children with his first ex-wife Justine, including a trans daughter whom he refuses to recognize because of her gender identity.

The intrigue: Musk has solicited other potential mothers on his social media platform X, according to the Journal.

• Crypto influencer Tiffany Fong says her earnings from the platform skyrocketed after she started interacting with Musk — then plummeted after she spurned his offer to have his baby.

Between the lines: Musk's relationship with St. Clair was the most recent to publicly implode.

• Musk offered St. Clair $15 million and $100,000 a month in exchange for her silence, but the relationship broke down — and ultimately spilled out into public view — after she contested elements of the agreement.
• Four days after St. Clair revealed the existence of their child, Musk withdrew the $15 million offer. When the two went to court over a paternity test, he cut her child support to $40,000 a month — and then again to $20,000.

It was not the first time that Musk and Birchall threatened financial retribution against mothers who considered pursuing legal options, according to documents viewed by the Journal.

• "Privacy and confidentiality is the top of the list in every aspect of [Musk's] life, every aspect, and his entire world is set up to be, like, a meritocracy," Birchall told St. Clair in December.

The bottom line: Musk says his business empire, political influence and private life are aligned around a singular mission: saving humanity and becoming a multi-planetary species.

• In his conception, SpaceX can use money from Tesla and his other companies to build its rockets, and xAI can help map out life beyond earth. But none of it matters, he has argued, without people.
• "If you don't make new humans, there's no humanity, and all the policies in the world don't matter," Musk said during a speech to an investor conference in Saudi Arabia last year:

Bruised by years of civil suits, criminal charges and a historic felony fraud conviction, President Trump is using his second term to delegitimize the very concept of white-collar crime.

Why it matters: Trump's belief that he was a victim of "lawfare" has tainted his view of the justice system. Paired with his crusade to crush the "Deep State" regulatory complex, Trump could enable a golden age of financial fraud, ethics watchdogs fear.

The big picture: At an institutional level, Trump's administration has moved swiftly in its first 80 days to narrow the government's mandate for enforcing fraud.

• In early February, Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE team effectively shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the post-recession agency created to protect Americans from predatory financial practices.
• Trump then paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, claiming the 1977 anti-bribery statute had been "stretched beyond proper bounds" and was hurting U.S. companies' ability to compete overseas.
• In March, Trump fired two Democrats from the Federal Trade Commission, taking aim at one of the government's top watchdogs for corporate fraud, consumer deception and antitrust violations.

By the numbers: The administration has paused, dropped or withdrawn enforcement actions against at least 100 corporations accused of misconduct, according to the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen.

Zoom in: On an individual level, Trump has used his clemency powers and influence to rehabilitate disgraced businessmen and politicians — turning fraud convictions and indictments into badges of loyalty.

• Eric Adams: The Justice Department dropped its corruption charges against the New York City mayor, claiming the case would interfere with his ability to cooperate with Trump's deportation agenda.
• Trevor Milton: Trump issued a full pardon to the Nikola electric vehicle founder, who was convicted of defrauding investors and later donated $1.8 million to help Trump's campaign.
• Carlos Watson: Trump commuted the Ozy Media founder's nearly 10-year prison sentence, which he was set to begin after his conviction for deceiving investors about his company's financials.
• Bitmex: The three co-founders and a former employee of the crypto exchange were granted pardons after pleading guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
• Devon Archer and Jason Galanis: The two former Hunter Biden associates — who were convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe — received clemency after cooperating in GOP investigations into the former president's son.
• Rod Blagojevich: After commuting his sentence in 2020, Trump granted a full pardon to the former Illinois governor, who was convicted of trying to sell Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

Between the lines: The crypto industry, where Trump's family has deep financial interests, has benefitted enormously from the president's vow to end the regulatory "war" waged by the Biden administration.

• The Justice Department this week disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and accused the Biden administration of "a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution."
• Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto mogul who was charged by the SEC with fraud and market manipulation, had his case paused after buying $75 million worth of tokens tied to a Trump-backed crypto venture.
• Democrats have expressed outrage over Trump's release of his own meme coin, which initially soared in value — then plummeted, wiping away gains for hundreds of thousands of people who invested.

What they're saying: "President Trump will always stand for law and order, ending the weaponization of the legal system, and rooting out fraud in the federal government," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said.

• "Every action he has taken in his second term reflects these priorities and is authorized by the Constitution," Fields added. "Ethics watchdogs that ignored the previous administration's egregious legal abuses against President Trump have no credibility today."

The bottom line: For Trump, the concept of "fraud" has become less a legal violation than a political label — one he applies freely to his enemies and erases for his allies.

• As part of Elon Musk's campaign to cut government spending, he and Trump repeatedly have claimed, without evidence, that Democrats are profiting from the alleged "fraud" uncovered by DOGE.
• For years, Trump also has insisted, again without evidence, that voter fraud is rampant. This week he ordered an investigation into former U.S. cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs for stating the 2020 election was secure.
• "He's the fraud." Trump declared. "He's a disgrace."

President Trump's epic tariff retreat shows there is no grand strategy for revolutionizing global trade, and that he's governing — as he always has — through gut instinct.

Why it matters: Trump's allies see a genius at work. His critics see a madman steering the economy toward crisis. And Wall Street sees, for the first time in weeks, a president who is receptive to external pain.

The big picture: Trump's stunning 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs — announced just one week after "Liberation Day" — caught virtually the entire world by surprise.

• In one fell swoop, Trump shelved his maximalist tariff ambitions, intensified his trade war with China, and unleashed one of the biggest stock market rallies since World War II.
• The tariff climbdown was vintage Trump: chaotic in execution, dramatic in tone, and instantly rebranded as a MAGA masterstroke.

What they're saying: "Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt scolded reporters.

• "You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history," tweeted White House adviser Stephen Miller.

Zoom in: The thinking in MAGA world goes like this: By imposing tariffs on every country in the world, Trump has gained leverage over the 75+ trading partners who have approached the White House eager to make a deal.

• China — which did not cooperate, and instead retaliated with its own 84% tariffs on the U.S. — has exposed itself as a "bad actor," argued Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
• "This was [Trump's] strategy all along. You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position," Bessent said, repeatedly denying that the market reaction played any role in the walk back.

Reality check: Plenty of Trump-friendly investors, such as hedge fund titan Bill Ackman, are thrilled with this development. But there's little evidence that it was the master plan all along.

• When an errant headline claimed Monday that Trump was considering a 90-day pause for all countries except China, the White House blasted it as "fake news."
• That same day, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote in the Financial Times: "This is not a negotiation. For the U.S., it is a national emergency triggered by trade deficits caused by a rigged system."
• As recently as Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spent hours on Capitol Hill publicly defending Trump's reciprocal tariffs — only to have the rug pulled out from under him in the middle of a hearing.

Between the lines: Whether or not Trump's plan was always to pause the tariffs for negotiations, the reality is that he was facing massive pressure on multiple fronts leading up to the decision.

• Five polls conducted entirely after "Liberation Day" showed a significant dip in Trump's approval rating, with a consistent majority of Americans expressing opposition to his tariff plans.
• MAGA influencers who played a major role in Trump's election were in open revolt as the stock market melted down, wiping out trillions of dollars in value.
• Corporate leaders privately flooded Trump officials with phone calls, urging the administration to be more tactical. Trump admitted to watching JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sound the alarm on Fox Business.
• Top financial institutions raised the odds of a recession, and — in what may have been the final straw — bond yields soared and triggered fears of a potential debt crisis.

The intrigue: Trump contradicted his own surrogates when he acknowledged Wednesday that he was concerned traders were "getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid" — and that "you have to have flexibility."

• "The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it's beautiful," Trump told reporters after his tariff reversal.
• In a hot mic moment as the market surged Wednesday, Trump mused to a Republican senator: "[Dow] up 2,500 points. Nobody has ever heard of it. Gotta be a record."

The bottom line: Trump's gut move may have saved the stock market — but it left the global trading system and American businesses in a state of whiplash.

• Tariffs are still much higher than they were a week ago, the U.S. in a full-on trade war with China, and recession is very much still a possibility.
• And now, a new question has emerged for CEOs and investors: When and why should they trust Trump?

President Trump's tariff revolution is rooted in a simple thesis: America has been humiliated and exploited by foreign nations for decades, and only he has the guts to make them pay.

Why it matters: Trump's personal victim complex has powered much of its political career. Now it's going global — with the entire world, not just Trump's domestic enemies, feeling the weight of retribution.

The big picture: Never mind that the U.S. boasts the world's largest economy, most powerful military, record household wealth, and historically low unemployment.

• Trump has been remarkably consistent in casting America as a global pushover, including in a 1988 interview with Oprah that resurfaced in the wake of this week's tariff announcement.
• "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," Trump declared in his "Liberation Day" speech Wednesday. "But now it's our turn to prosper."

Zoom in: From uninhabited islands to impoverished enclaves, no country is too small, too irrelevant, or too loyal to escape the wrath of a president who believes America has been cheated for decades.

• That includes Israel, where officials were shocked to face a 17% reciprocal tariff despite removing their own tariffs on the U.S. a day prior.
• It includes Lesotho, a tiny African nation where most people are too poor to import American goods, and which is now facing an existential crisis because of Trump's 50% tariff.
• It even includes the volcanic Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, whose population of mostly penguins was punished with a 10% tariff.

Zoom out: Trump is right that plenty of countries engage in unfair trade practices, and that globalization has hollowed out key parts of America's industrial base.

• China, the world's second-largest economy, has a long record of trade abuses: IP theft, forced technology transfers, state subsidies and market access restrictions for foreign companies.
• The European Union doesn't cheat the way China does, but it protects its own through generous agricultural subsidies and strict regulatory standards that often double as trade barriers.

But Trump's historic tariff barrage isn't about targeted leverage or negotiated fixes.

• It's about unwinding decades of perceived injustices through blunt force — even against countries incapable of "victimizing" the U.S.
• Trump believes the American people share his grievances, and he's willing to radically remake the global economic order, no matter the cost.

Between the lines: Victimhood — real and imagined — has always been central to Trump's political identity.

• His 2024 presidential campaign was fueled by grievances, beginning with the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
• He's cast every investigation and indictment as a "witch hunt," from Russia to Signalgate.
• He survived an assassination attempt, and used it to turbocharge the persecution narrative that underpins his brand.

"They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln," Trump publicly mused in 2020 and many times after.

• "I believe I am treated worse."

President Trump's global dealmaking blitz is facing new obstacles, with early optimism eclipsed by broken ceasefires, pissed-off allies and thinning patience at home and abroad.

Why it matters: Ten weeks isn't a long time in foreign policy. But it was Trump who promised instant results — and Trump whose "Art of the Deal" credentials are at risk if chaos consumes his early presidency.

Zoom in: Nothing has redefined America's relationship with the world like Trump's plans for sweeping tariffs, which will come to a head on Wednesday — or what he calls "Liberation Day."

• Leaders all over the world are seeking last-minute deals to avoid tariffs, while lamenting that Trump hasn't actually made clear what they could do to placate him.
• So instead, they're vowing retaliation — setting the stage for a massive global trade war that could plunge the U.S. and other countries into a recession.

"The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over," said new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The big picture: Trump is barely 70 days into his term. He's scored early victories in getting Latin American countries to cooperate on deportation flights, including a high-profile prison deal with El Salvador.

• And he may still clinch peace pacts for Ukraine and Gaza, or win major concessions on trade from China or the EU.

White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston said: "President Trump is the master dealmaker, and in just two months, he has made more progress than Joe Biden did in years. Since President Trump's return to office, foreign leaders have flocked to the White House, announcing historic investments and restoring America's dominance on the world stage."

But on at least five fronts, Trump's ambitions for big international deals are hitting early hurdles:

1. On Ukraine, Trump campaigned on securing a deal to end the fighting within 24 hours — though now he claims that promise was "a little bit sarcastic."

• Trump did get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, and to agree to stop bombing each other's energy infrastructure. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast doubt on the possibility of a peace deal any time soon.
• Trump said Sunday he was "pissed off" at Putin for his recent comments, and threatened additional oil tariffs if Moscow continues to stand in the way of a full ceasefire.
• He also fired a warning shot at Ukraine, after President Volodymyr Zelensky complained that the minerals deal Kyiv negotiated with the U.S. is "constantly changing."

2. On Gaza, Trump helped deliver a breakthrough before even taking office when his team worked with the outgoing Biden administration to secure a ceasefire.

• That truce is now over, and Israel on Monday announced it would massively expand its renewed ground operation in Gaza.
• Trump isn't actively pursuing his own proposal for the U.S. to displace Gaza's population to construct a new "Riviera." Instead, he's focusing on restarting talks to restore the ceasefire and free the remaining 59 hostages, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. Israeli and U.S. officials believe 22 of them are still alive.

3. On Iran, Trump issued an ultimatum demanding Tehran agree to a new nuclear deal within two months or face potential military strikes. That's led to further threats from both sides.

• Iranian leaders have rejected the idea of direct negotiations with the Trump administration, but left open the possibility of indirect talks.
• "If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing," Trump told NBC on Sunday.

4. On Greenland, Trump continues to insist that the U.S. "needs" to obtain the autonomous Danish territory, perhaps by military force.

• Vice President Vance laid out one path to a deal last week: Greenland votes for independence from Denmark, then signs a security pact with the U.S.
• The island's new prime minister announced a new coalition last week in part to unite against U.S. pressure.

5. On tariffs, it's unclear if Trump is actually using them as leverage to cut deals — as Wall Street once assumed — or if he wants the levies in place long-term.

• Blue chip companies have announced billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. to try to preempt the tariffs and get on Trump's good side — Exhibit A for why Republicans remain optimistic about his trade strategy.
• But countries uncertain of how to protect themselves from Trump's economic wrath are starting to look elsewhere.

In an extraordinary sign of how Trump's hardball tactics are reshaping the world, China, South Korea and Japan — three countries with deep historical grievances — agreed to respond jointly to U.S. tariffs, according to Chinese state media.