Two grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton plan to launch a private university focused on science and tech, located on the company's old HQ campus near downtown Bentonville, Arkansas.

Why it matters: The future university plans to offer innovative, flexible pathways to jobs in automation, logistics, biotech and computing — fields crucial to Northwest Arkansas' future.

• Building talent in STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) is a priority for the U.S., China and other countries racing to compete in the global economy.

State of play: Steuart and Tom Walton, grandsons of Sam Walton, are set to announce the school Thursday at the Heartland Summit in Bentonville, an invitation-only gathering of policymakers, entrepreneurs and investors focused on economic development in the middle of the U.S.

• Plans call for the yet-to-be-named STEM-focused higher education institution to be a model of modern, flexible learning, based on the site of the "home office" where the world's largest retailer was built from Sam Walton's five-and-dime.

The inaugural undergraduate class, in coming years, is expected to be roughly 500 students, "growing to about 1,500 undergraduates and 500 non-degree learners over time."

• "The school will offer stackable, flexible credentials aligned with fast-moving, in-demand fields such as computing, technical management, automation and logistics, and biomedical technology," the announcement says.

What they're saying: Steuart Walton, a member of Walmart's board, told Axios in an interview with Axios that higher education "should move at the speed of innovation. This institution will stay agile and grounded, built to meet the world as it changes."

• "We have the opportunity to build a new model of higher education, designed for the realities of today's economy and the challenges of tomorrow, and set a new standard for what's possible," he added in a news release.
• Tom Walton said in the interview: "Our grandad, Sam Walton, built Walmart from Bentonville. There's no reason the next great enterprise can't rise from here, too."

The big picture: The university is the latest in a string of philanthropic work from the Waltons that continues transforming this town of about 60,000 people and the larger Northwest Arkansas region of nearly 600,000 into a regional powerhouse.

• In the past 20 years family members have invested in world-class art museums, a medical school and holistic wellness, as well as trails, public art and other civic-oriented development. All have been economic engines for Arkansas.

Flashback: Walmart's original home office campus is being vacated in phases as nearly 15,000 employees populate a new flagship 350-acre campus across town.

• Steuart and Tom Walton said in 2022 they would buy the old HQ and surrounding parcels for about $60 million.
• A mixed-use development, which would include the new university, is now planned at the site.

The grandsons acquired nearly 3,000 acres of mostly undeveloped land in nearby Bella Vista last year. They've not announced plans for the parcels but said they would be centered on outdoor recreation, hospitality and retail development.

• The Alice L. Walton Foundation bought 100 acres in Bentonville for a future health care campus earlier this year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the dance begins, with several specific moves:

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

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

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

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

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

Axios' Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

President Trump has done more unprecedented, lasting things in 80 days than many presidents do in a four-year term.

Why it matters: There are 1,382 days to go in this term.

So let's step back and appraise the indisputable acts of power that have changed America in Trump's first two months and three weeks, as synthesized by Axios' Zachary Basu:

1. A new global economy.

• Trump has declared an all-out war on globalism, detonating every one of America's trading relationships — allies and adversaries alike — by imposing the largest tariffs in nearly a century.
• Trump's push for a manufacturing renaissance has helped secure at least $1.6 trillion in U.S. investment pledges. But his tariff rollout melted markets globally and dramatically raised the threat of a recession.
• The renewed trade war with China carries the biggest potential blast radius, with the world's two largest economies engaged in a tit-for-tat escalation that could snarl global supply chains.

2. A new world order.

• The rules-based system forged after World War II is dead: Trump has withdrawn from multilateral institutions, threatened to expand U.S. territory to Greenland, Gaza and Panama, and alienated America's closest allies.
• Canada, stewing in nationalist fervor from Trump's tariffs and his "51st state" mockery, has declared our close relationship "over" and is looking to other allies for security and economic cooperation.
• Europe is in the midst of its own radical transformation, singed and stunned by Trump's tariffs, constant insults, undermining NATO and siding with Russia over Ukraine.
• Years of U.S. strategy designed to isolate China is up in flames, with Asian allies turning to Beijing for trade refuge and Taiwan fearing it could meet the same fate as Ukraine.

3. A vast expansion of executive power.

• Trump is testing — and in some cases, obliterating — legal boundaries around presidential authority, including by punishing his political enemies and major law firms caught in the crossfire.
• Courts are grappling with hundreds of lawsuits challenging Trump's ability to override Congress on spending, immigration and federal employment — and facing intense pressure from his base over "traitorous" rulings. Attorney General Pam Bondi said this weekend on "Fox News Sunday" that since the inauguration, "we've had over 170 lawsuits filed against us. That should be the constitutional crisis right there. Fifty injunctions — they're popping up every single day."
• Trump has installed loyalists atop the Justice Department and FBI — declaring himself the country's "chief law enforcement officer" — and purged career officials and lawyers viewed as insufficiently MAGA.

4. A shrinking federal government.

• Elon Musk's DOGE cost-slashing has resulted in mass layoffs and the dismantling of whole agencies, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• An estimated 60,000 federal workers have been fired in a broad effort to reduce the size of government, with deeper cuts still coming. Thousands have been reinstated, either through court orders or because officials moved impulsively.
• Changes to Social Security phone services: The Social Security Administration posted on X that beginning next Monday, officials "will perform an anti-fraud check on all claims filed over the telephone and flag claims that have fraud risk indicators. … Individuals who are not flagged will be able to complete their claim without any in-person requirements." SSA found that changing an existing account over the phone was a rife source of fraud.

5. A sealed border.

• Illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest levels in decades, a testament to Trump's aggressive approach to curbing immigration through any means possible.
• That includes the unprecedented invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which Trump used to deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious mass prison in El Salvador.
• Trump also has taken aim at legal immigrants, revoking visas for college students involved in pro-Palestinian activism on the grounds that their presence could have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences."
• In both cases, lack of due process has deeply alarmed immigration activists and civil libertarians — while Trump's broader crackdown has had a chilling effect on foreign travel to the U.S.

🔮 Coming for subscribers: Axios AM Executive Briefing — with expertise from Axios tech policy reporters Maria Curi and Ashley Gold — is about to publish a subscriber-only special report on the collision of AI and Washington. Subscribe here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🔮 Coming for subscribers: Axios AM Executive Briefing — with expertise from Axios tech policy reporters Maria Curi and Ashley Gold — is about to publish a subscriber-only special report on the collision of AI and Washington. Subscribe here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's tax-cut negotiators say big progress has been made on Capitol Hill, and are optimistic about final passage by summer despite the measure's complexity, Treasury officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: With markets plunging after President Trump's tariffs, top administration officials see the extension of Trump's first-term tax cuts — set to expire at year's end — as a chance to show consumers and businesses that he has a broad growth and affordability agenda to benefit them.

State of play: Bessent on Saturday tweeted praise for the Senate's early-morning adoption of a "mega-MAGA" budget plan — which includes tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling — as "a major step toward pro-growth tax certainty and economic strength."

• "Making ... Trump Tax Cuts permanent will reward work, drive investment, and give families room to grow. Now it's time for the House to finish the job," Bessent added.
• Trump posted on Truth Social Friday night: "Big business is not worried about the Tariffs, because they know they are here to stay, but they are focused on the BIG, BEAUTIFUL DEAL, which will SUPERCHARGE our Economy. Very important. Going on right now!!!"

Behind the scenes: Trump and Bessent have both signaled urgency on the tax cuts. Administration negotiators say they've learned from Trump's 2017 tax-cut fight to get it done as quickly as possible.

• Administration officials are optimistic about final passage before Congress leaves for August recess.

What they're saying: "We're able to deliver on the urgency because of the unity" between the White House and congressional leaders, a Treasury official tells Axios.

• "Locking in tax policy will provide stability and certainty in the economy, and remove uncertainty for families, workers and small businesses," the official said. "Productivity will come from certainty. Growth is a big piece of this."

Joe Rogan, the podcaster MAGAworld can't ignore, warned his listeners about "people who are not criminals ... getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons."

Why it matters: As the Trump administration "has rushed to carry out deportations as quickly as possible, making mistakes and raising concerns about due process along the way, the [right's] unified front in favor of President Trump's immigration purge is beginning to crack," the New York Times notes.

Case in point: A Salvadorian national living in Maryland legally was wrongly deported to El Salvador, the Department of Justice has admitted in court papers, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• The erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was first reported by The Atlantic. He hasn't been convicted of gang-related crimes.

Vice President Vance tweeted that a court document shows Abrego Garcia is "a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here."

Reality check: Garcia has not been convicted of gang-related crimes. A confidential informant told ICE that he was, according to a court filing.

• It's unclear if any of his tattoos are gang-related.

Rogan calls this case "horrific":

• Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer for The New Yorker who has reported extensively on immigration, dives into the ordeal of Andry José Hernández Romero, "The Makeup Artist Donald Trump Deported [to El Salvador] Under the Alien Enemies Act."

Blitzer draws on interviews with Andry's American attorneys, his mother, and members of his home community in Venezuela, where he had been a cherished part of the local theatre scene and, as one resident notes, a "great talent of our town."

• "There was something painfully desperate in their insistence," Blitzer writes, "as if seeing images of Andry for myself would help correct an otherwise stunning cultural misunderstanding."
• "One key misunderstanding seems to center on tattoos — the kinds that Andry, and many of the other deportees, have."

Go deeper: Trump takes Venezuelan deportation case to Supreme Court

National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and other senior officials used their personal Gmail account for government business, the Washington Post reports.

Why it matters: The administration's handling of sensitive information is already under scrutiny, and Gmail is even less secure than Signal.

Waltz used Gmail for things like his calendar and unclassified work documents.

• Those materials are not as sensitive as the attack plans at issue in Waltz's now-infamous Signal thread, but experts told the Post they still should be somewhere more secure than personal email.
• Another senior national security aide used Gmail for "highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict," the Post reports.

What they're saying: NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement to Axios: "This is the latest attempt to distract the American people from President Trump's successful national security agenda that's protecting our nation.

• "Let me reiterate, NSA Waltz received emails and calendar invites from legacy contacts on his personal email and cc'd government accounts for anything since January 20th to ensure compliance with records retention, and he has never sent classified material over his personal email account or any unsecured platform."

Go deeper... Scoop: Jeffries rips "unqualified" Waltz over Gmail report

Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes.

The White House plans to impose its own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room in coming weeks, taking over a function long managed by the reporters themselves through the White House Correspondents' Association.

Why it matters: It's the latest — but likely not the last — effort by the White House to take a heavier hand in shaping who covers President Trump. In public and private, White House officials make it clear they are determined to upend decades-old press corps traditions.

Behind the scenes: Some members of the correspondents' association (WHCA) have been looking for ways to de-escalate. A senior White House official told Axios that a WHCA member had privately raised the possibility of changing the organization's bylaws so the sitting White House press secretary, currently Karoline Leavitt, always serves as WHCA president.

• The tough-sell argument for the change: Rekindle collaboration between WHCA and the White House, and ensure buy-in from both.
• The official called the possibility an "interesting idea," but said they're "skeptical the association's board could pull it off."
• WHCA says it "exists to promote excellence in journalism as well as journalism education, and to ensure robust news coverage of the president and the presidency." Members could be expected to roundly reject the idea of a press secretary as their president.

The backstory: Prominent seats in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room are coveted because it's easier to catch the press secretary's eye to ask tough and probing questions. Those correspondents' interactions are also more likely to be showcased on TV.

• In February, the White House began designating the pool of reporters who accompany Trump in tight spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One — another function the WHCA had controlled for generations. WHCA said in response: "In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps."

The Associated Press on Thursday asked a federal judge to reinstate the wire service's access to pooled events, which has been sharply curtailed by the White House. "AP has now spent 44 days in the penalty box," Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the newswire, said at the hearing.

• WHCA's decision to support AP in its dispute with the White House prompted the changes in the pool structure.

How it works: Discussing the coming seating chart, the senior White House official said plans have already been formalized for a "fundamental restructuring of the briefing room, based on metrics more reflective of how media is consumed today."

• The new layout will include representatives of TV, print and digital outlets. The digital assignments will include both online influencers and newer organizations such as Axios, NOTUS and Punchbowl.

"The goal isn't merely favorable coverage," said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss plans that haven't been announced. "It's truly an honest look at consumption [of the outlets' coverage]. Influencers are important but it's tough because they aren't [equipped to provide] consistent coverage. So the ability to cover the White House is part of the metrics."

• Major legacy outlets will still be included. But expect some to have diminished visibility compared with their customary spots in the first few rows. "We want to balance disruption with responsibility," the official said.

The big picture: WHCA President Eugene Daniels announced in an email to members Saturday that the association is canceling a planned appearance by comedian Amber Ruffin as the featured entertainer at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 26.

• White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich on Friday night tweeted a clip of Ruffin on a Daily Beast podcast conversation about her preparations for the dinner, where she referred to Trump administration officials as "kind of a bunch of murderers."
• Budowich asked: "What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this?"

In announcing there'll be no headliner at next month's dinner, Daniels wrote: "As the date nears, I will share more details of the plans in place to honor journalistic excellence and a robust, independent media covering the most powerful office in the world."

• "As a first step," Daniels added, "I wanted to share that the WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year. At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists."

Axios has sought comment from Daniels about the impending seating changes.

• Axios' Hans Nichols contributed reporting.

President Trump seriously considered firing national security adviser Mike Waltz over this week's humiliating Signal chat leak, but cooled down and talked himself out of it — partly to deny his critics the satisfaction, Trump insiders tell Axios.

Why it matters: We're told Waltz's job is safe for now. But he has gotten crosswise with several other top officials. "Mike is gonna make it," a top West Wing insider said. "Now it's up to Mike to make things better."

Behind the scenes: Trump officials say he was madder that Waltz had Jeffrey Goldberg's number in his phone than he was about the exposure of sensitive military strike details. Waltz's sloppy explanation to Fox News' Laura Ingraham made things worse.

• Trump was fuming about Tuesday night's interview, where Waltz said "we're going to figure out how this happened" — even though he's the one who mistakenly added Goldberg. (This is the national security version of the "Hot Dog Guy" meme.)
• In Trump's impulsive first term, Waltz might've been fired. This time, Trump didn't want the media to take a victory lap. As a senior White House official told Axios on Day 1 of the fiasco: "We all know that you don't give the mob what it wants."

The intrigue: Waltz has had trouble adjusting to the job. The former Green Beret has gone into an advisory role after being a congressman who's used to being a star. And he's surrounded by high-powered officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's top foreign policy envoy, Steve Witkoff.

• Vance and Waltz both visited Greenland yesterday. On the plane ride back, Vance counseled Waltz about "working more collaboratively," a top official said.
• Rubio is among those who have had frustrations with Waltz.

The big picture: Some America First celebrities, including Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have long been suspicious of Waltz's neocon roots. And Trump's inner circle doesn't like some of his hires.

• Steve Bannon texted that Waltz kept his job because "we hate the globalist media even more than we hate neocons."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Axios' Tal Axelrod contributed reporting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Stef Kight and Andrew Solender contributed reporting.

Go deeper: Trump plays with fire — by choice.

More registered voters say the U.S. is heading in the right direction (44%) than at any point since early 2004, though a majority (54%) still say the country is on the wrong track, according to an NBC News poll out this morning.

Why it matters: President Trump has enjoyed some of his highest approval ratings in the early days of his second term — though the specifics of his aggressive policies have begun to irk Americans in recent polling.

• But as the president rolls out a cascade of controversial actions, Democrats are the ones hitting new polling lows — underscoring frustration within the party that lawmakers are being flattened by a GOP steamroller.

Driving the news: Trump's job approval rating in the new NBC News poll (47%) matches his all-time highs in NBC News polling throughout his political career (37% "strongly approve," 10% "somewhat approve").

• 1,000 registered voters were polled March 7-11, with a margin of error of ±3.1%.

The other side: The Democratic Party reached an all-time low in popularity in NBC polling dating back to 1990.

• A net 27% of those polled said they have positive views of the party (20% positive and 7% very positive).
• CNN's latest polling also found that the Democratic party's favorability rating among Americans is now at just 29%, a new low in in the outlet's polling dating back to 1992.

Go deeper: Focus group: Trump swing voters in Michigan have buyers' remorse

Third Way, the well-connected center-left Democratic think tank, today will launch an 18-month Signal Project, including polling, to identify Trump administration actions "that are most relevant to key voters and how best to frame those issues."

• Why it matters: Anything "that seems performative will be tuned out or backfire," Third Way says. "It is a painful irony that while our very democracy is at stake, a focus on 'democracy' (and the trashing of democratic norms) simply won't save it."

In unveiling the project, Third Way says: "Shuttering USAID, using government power to attack political opponents, firing indiscriminately, degrading the civil service, releasing J6ers, or blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion all are a combination of unwise, unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional. But none resonate much with key voters."

• So as an opening frame, the project will focus on "Risking Americans' Safety and Security."

Between the lines: Matt Bennett, a Third Way co-founder, told Axios that there's "real concern among Democrats that the Trump/Musk attacks were coming so fast and so arbitrarily that the opposition was having trouble with a coherent response.

• "The things we believe to be important — like foreign aid, or Trump actions that violate the law — don't always line up with voters' concerns," Bennett added. "We can fight back effectively ... but only if we are creating a singular narrative that is simple, memorable, and resonant. If we do that, Trump's allies will feel the heat."

🐘 The other side: Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita, who run Trump's outside political operation, told us in response to the Third Way plan that "no matter the approach, Americans know that for the last four years their safety — economically and physically — has been put in jeopardy."

• "One glaring flaw in their strategy: What happens when President Trump's policies work and deliver the change voters voted for? Once again, the Democrats — much like the Harris campaign — will be left having no position or a positive agenda for America."

Read the Third Way plan.

David Solomon — Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO — said after President Trump's visit to the Business Roundtable this week that "the business community understands what the president is trying to do with tariffs."

• "The business community is always going to want lower tariffs ... everywhere in the world," Solomon told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday. "At the moment, there is some uncertainty — the market is digesting that."

Solomon told Bartiromo that Trump projected a "sense of optimism" during his closed-door remarks Tuesday to the biggest-ever meeting of the BRT, made up of the CEOs of America's largest companies.

• Solomon, whose firm manages or supervises trillions of dollars in assets, praised the administration for being "engaged with the business community. ... That's a different experience than what we've had over the course of the last four years."
• He said business wants to see "more specific actions on the regulatory front to unleash more animal spirits. ... My expectation is you will see, as you get through the year, a pickup in activity across both the capital markets and M&A."

One CEO in the room for Trump's remarks told Mike: "Let's slow down and have a little perspective. We may not like how fast this is going, and have real concerns. But let's play a long game."

• The CEO told us that amid the current uncertainty, many BRT members are medium-term and long-term optimistic that Trump policies will encourage capital spending, economic growth and consumer activity.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke to BRT on Wednesday, emphasizing the Trump administration's commitment to reinvigorating U.S. capital markets and stock-launch (IPO) activity, and the importance of making Trump's tax cuts permanent.

🥊 Reality check: A front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal is headlined, "CEO Frustrations With Trump Over Trade Mount — in Private."

• Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a well-known professor at Yale School of Management, who organized a CEO Caucus in Washington on Tuesday, said he heard "universal revulsion against the Trump economic policies ... They're also especially horrified about Canada."
• Trump has been dismissive of CEOs' concerns about tariff uncertainty. Last weekend, he told Bartiromo they had "plenty of clarity."

Stephen Schwarzman — chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, and a top Trump donor — told reporters in India yesterday that the tariffs would, "at the end of the day," lead to a significant increase in manufacturing activity in the U.S., the Financial Times reports ($).

• "Given the size of the U.S., that tends to be a good thing for the world," Schwarzman said.

Solomon added that tariffs are getting the headlines, but CEOs "are excited about some of the tailwinds ... the move to lower regulation. Regulation has been a significant headwind to growth in investment."

• "Tax policy is going to be a big discussion as we move forward, energy policy," he said. "The more we can have certainty on the policy agenda ... the better that is going to support capital investment and growth."

Solomon concluded his Fox interview: "When there's change, there's uncertainty — it takes a while for people to absorb and adopt. But I continue to be incredibly optimistic about the United States and the direction of travel. We have an incredibly nimble and versatile economy."

• Go deeper: Watch Solomon's video.

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

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

Now, the public is weighing in:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Axios' Ben Berkowitz and Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nevertheless, risks for Trump are rising:

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

Around the world, old allies are flinching or fleeing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Axios' Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's start with the indisputable facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Axios' Neil Irwin contributed reporting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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