The $400 million jet that President Trump says the Air Force plans to accept from Qatar would be worth 100 times more than every other presidential gift from a foreign nation combined since 2001, according to an Axios analysis of State Department data.

Why it matters: The prospect of such a lavish gift from the Qatari royal family raised major ethics concerns and sparked rare backlash from a set of influential MAGA media stars.

By the numbers: Presidents reported a mere $3.8 million worth of gifts from foreign countries between George W. Bush's inauguration and 2023 — the most recent year data was available.

• Until now, the biggest gift has been a "hand-made and specially commissioned bronze sculpture depicting two horses" given to President Obama from Saudi Arabia, estimated to be worth roughly $500,000.
• Gulf nations — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain — account for a stunning share of the most lavish and expensive gifts offered to American leaders.
• Axios' analysis excluded gifts reported by first ladies and other members of presidential families.

Zoom in: In a mid-flight interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday, Trump said the current Air Force One plane is "much smaller" and "much less impressive," adding that "we should have the most impressive plane."

• The president argued the plane would be a gift to the U.S., not him personally. "I get nothing, I get to fly it like any other president would."
• "My attitude is, why wouldn't I accept a gift? We're giving to everybody else," he told Hannity.

State of play: The Constitution prohibits anyone in the U.S. government from receiving a personal gift from a foreign head of state without the consent of Congress.

• Congress has allowed presidents and all federal employees to keep gifts from a foreign government as long as they don't exceed $480.
• Presents valued over that amount may be accepted, but they must be turned over to the National Archives.

The big picture: U.S. presidents have been presented with gifts ranging from books to paintings to antiques to diamonds, and even animals, from foreign countries.

• Obama received a crocodile attack insurance policy during an official visit to Australia in 2011. The framed policy was later transferred to the National Archives.
• President George W. Bush was gifted a puppy by Bulgaria's president. The pup was placed with another family.
• Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan both received baby elephants. Eisenhower's Dzimbo made his permanent home at the National Zoo, as did Reagan's Jayathu.

Editor's note: This story was corrected to note that presidents reported $3.8 million in gifts between 2001 and 2023 (not 2024).

Go deeper: Trump says it would be "stupid" not to accept free jet from Qatar

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is battling a series of major setbacks that portray the Pentagon as an agency in deep turmoil — including a fresh bombshell report on his use of Signal and the brutal defection of a one-time close ally.

Why it matters: The new revelations raise questions about Hegseth's ability to run the nation's largest government agency and who's been privy to typically secret Defense Department communications.

• It's been a tumultuous few days at the Defense Department, with several officials fired.
• The Pentagon's chief spokesperson Sean Parnell pointed to "disgruntled former employees" as he denied reports Sunday that Hegseth sent details of planned U.S. attacks against Yemen's Houthi rebels in a Signal chat group that included his wife, brother and lawyer.

Zoom in: Since Thursday, Hegseth's top leadership team has been decimated, overtaken by backstabbing that's more reminiscent of President Trump's first term than the current administration.

• Former top Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, who left office days ago, wrote in a Politico opinion piece Sunday "the last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it's becoming a real problem for the administration."
• It's hard to see Hegseth "remaining in his role for much longer," added Ullyot, who maintains he resigned despite a Defense Department official saying he was asked to leave.

Top officials Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick were fired after being placed on leave during an internal investigation into "unauthorized disclosures" of national security information.

Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, left his job for another role at the Defense Department. He helped lead the leak investigation.

The New York Times first reported Sunday that Hegseth "shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer." Hegseth created the group in January before he was confirmed as defense secretary, per the NYT, citing unnamed sources.

What they're saying: Parnell claimed on X that the reports "relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage" Hegseth's and Trump's agenda, without elaborating further on how he knew of the sources used by the outlets reporting on the matter.

• "There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story," added Parnell, who replaced Ullyot earlier this year.
• "What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump's agenda."
• A New York Times spokesperson said Monday the outlet is confident in the accuracy of its reporting.
• "The Pentagon has not denied the existence of the chat, and its assertion that there was no classified information shared in any chat is beside the point when it comes to our story, which did not characterize the information as classified," the spokesperson added in the email.
• Representatives for the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.

The other side: The three officials who had been fired hit back at Hegseth's team Saturday, saying "unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."

• "At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of 'leaks' to begin with," they said in a joint statement that Caldwell shared on X.
• Ullyot weighed in, writing in his op-ed that the agency didn't conduct polygraph tests as originally promised. He accused Hegseth's staff of "spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door."

Between the lines: Ullyot's unusually public broadside targeting Hegseth came four months after he called him "the best choice to reform the Pentagon."

• Ullyot was closely connected to the Defense Department's purge of DEI-related content from its website that led to public outcry when images of national heroes like Jackie Robinson were briefly removed.

Go deeper: Top Trump officials' Signal blunder becomes top news story of 2025

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

Rebecca Falconer contributed reporting.

Three top political reporters — Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf — will be out July 8 with "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America," based on 300+ interviews over 18 months.

• "The whole world was against me, and I won," President Trump told the authors in an interview 10 days before his second inauguration.

Why it matters: "2024" promises revelations about "how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats."

The backstory: The three were colleagues at the Washington Post during the 2024 cycle. Amid Post travails, the trio scattered after the election:

• Dawsey is now a political investigations and enterprise reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Pager is a White House correspondent for the New York Times. And Arnsdorf is a senior White House reporter for the Post.

💭 Pager tells me: "We set out to write this book more than a year before Joe Biden met Donald Trump on the debate stage in Atlanta, because we felt uniquely situated to tell the behind-the-scenes of this historic rematch."

• Dawsey says the authors "obtained recordings and notes of many meetings and traveled across the country."
• Arnsdorf adds that after covering the campaigns in real time, the reporters retraced "every step once we knew the outcome, to pinpoint what really mattered. Even if you read all the daily news coverage published in 2024, you'll find something new on every page."

Go deeper.

This year's epic, relentless news cycles were driven by months of near-unprecedented political violence and uncertainty — plus the Olympics, according to Axios' annual analysis of Google Trends data.

Why it matters: Even in a wild election year, America's short attention span for news led to dramatic ups and downs in search trends as the media pivoted from one major story to the next.

The big picture: The Paris Games were the news event that saw the largest spike in interest compared to the others analyzed by Axios.

• The election itself — peaking on Nov. 5 — and the Pennsylvania assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump were runners-up.
• On the lighter side, the next two biggest peaks were for the total solar eclipse in April and Mike Tyson's return to boxing against YouTuber Jake Paul.

Zoom in: Only a small handful of people and news events managed to hold public attention over long-term periods.

• Trump, of course, was one of them. He became the first former president convicted of felony crimes, survived two assassination attempts and was the first Republican to win the popular vote in two decades.
• Attention on President Biden shot up after his catastrophic debate performance in June and peaked around July 21, when he dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Harris after weeks of not-so-private pushing from a prominent group of Democrats.
• Elon Musk attracted search interest all year — but it boomed in October and early November as he unleashed unprecedented sums of cash to get Trump elected and personally campaigned in Pennsylvania.
• Israel and Gaza received consistent attention year-round but was rarely the top search at any given moment.

Among celebrities and athletes, Taylor Swift once again commanded an outsize share of attention.

• The deaths of O.J. Simpson and former One Direction singer Liam Payne made them two of the most searched people of the year.
• Search interest in Sean "Diddy" Combs peaked twice, once when federal agents raided his home in March and again after federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking and racketeering in September.

What we're watching: Trump-driven news cycles — backed by the power of the White House bully pulpit — could be like nothing we've seen in the last four years.

Go deeper: Revisit the moments that shaped the election.

Americans want to hear less about politics from public figures — and Republicans really don't want to hear it, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Why it matters: After an election season where endorsements from celebrities frequently made news, the survey found Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of celebrities, big companies and athletes sounding off on politics.

By the numbers:

• Just 39% of Democrats approve of celebrities piping up on political issues — but only 11% of Republicans and 12% of independents (24% for the whole sample).
• Same with pro athletes: 39% of Democrats approve of them speaking up — but just 16% of Republicans and 15% of independents (26% overall).
• Small business is a big exception: 43% of people are happy to hear from entrepreneurs. That breaks down to 49% of Dems, 41% of Republicans and 33% of independents.

Zoom out: The poll also found that most Americans are trying to avoid political news. Go deeper.

Apple is closing in on a $4 trillion stock market valuation, powered by investors cheering progress in the company's long-awaited AI enhancements to rejuvenate sluggish iPhone sales.

Why it matters: The company has pulled ahead of Nvidia and Microsoft in the race to the monumental milestone, thanks to an about 16% jump in shares since early November that has added about $500 billion to its market capitalization.

Go deeper: What Apple's AI knows about you

This Sunday on "60 Minutes," Lesley Stahl interviews the recently retired Mossad agents who masterminded the exploding pager operation against Hezbollah.

Why it matters: The stunning, decade-long Israeli plot to manufacture and sell booby-trapped devices sparked chaos among Hezbollah's leadership and helped devastate the group's operations.

• The pager attack — and a similar remote detonation of walkie-talkies the next day — was part of a dramatic escalation between Hezbollah and Israel that drove thousands of civilians from their homes on both sides of the conflict.
• Israel ultimately killed Hezbollah's top leaders and reached a ceasefire with the Iran-backed group that remains fragile.

Zoom in: "60 Minutes" agreed the agents could wear masks and alter their voices to keep them anonymous for the report, which airs at 7:30 p.m. ET or after football on CBS and Paramount+.

• The agents told Stahl they tested the devices "multiple times in order to make sure there is minimum damage."
• "If we push the button the only one that will get injured is the terrorist himself. Even if his wife or his daughter will be just next to him, he's the only one that going to be harmed."

Reality check: Lebanese health authorities said at least two children were among the 37 people killed in the attack. More than 3,400 were injured.

Women will hold a record number of state legislative seats next year, filling about a third of seats nationwide.

Why it matters: The most notable increases were in New Mexico and Colorado, where women will make up most lawmakers for the first time, AP reports.

By the numbers: 19 states will increase the number of women in their state legislatures in 2025, according to Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics.

• Female GOP state lawmakers, at least 851, will break the record set last year.

Yes, but: The uptick was small. And at least 13 states saw losses in female representation.

Go deeper: The Resistance goes quiet