Axios PM

June 10, 2026
๐ช Happy Wednesday afternoon! Today's newsletter, edited by Alex Fitzpatrick, is 884 words, a 3ยฝ-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.
โก๏ธ Situational awareness: President Trump told reporters that the U.S. would hit Iran "hard" again today, following strikes last night.
- Trump added that Iran has been "playing us for suckers" during peace talks. More from Barak Ravid.
1 big thing: Better sunscreens are coming soon

The FDA approved a sunscreen ingredient that's popular in Europe and Asia after years of calls from dermatologists and others to do so, Axios' Adriel Bettelheim reports.
- The move marks the first big update for U.S. over-the-counter sunscreens since the late '90s.
๐งด The substance, called bemotrizinol, protects against both ultraviolet A and B rays, and has low levels of absorption through the skin.
๐ฉโโ๏ธ The American Academy of Dermatology said the move "marks an important public health step."
- It also noted that many other countries have nearly twice as many approved sunscreen ingredients as the U.S.
2. ๐ถ๏ธ Haberman-Swan book reveals Trump team's leak fears

President Trump's top aides so feared leaks about their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files that they held multiple damage-control meetings in the classified confines of the Situation Room, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write in "Regime Change," their hotly awaited book about Trump's second term.
- In a New York Times Magazine excerpt, posted today ahead of the book's publication on June 23, the two Times reporters describe in cinematic detail how top Trump officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, gathered in the Situation Room last summer to debate how to manage the growing scandal.
- The White House is now abuzz over the leak about leak control.
Vance had "floated to colleagues an extraordinary P.R. gambit โ that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein," Swan and Haberman report in the excerpt, "Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files."
- "Vance told the group he believed all the files should be released as soon as possible," the authors write.
- But Trump, they add, wanted "the whole Epstein issue buried, and he was snapping at anyone who mentioned it. His staff largely avoided the subject in their conversations with him, forced to worry among themselves."
๐ The intrigue: Joe Scarborough said on MS NOW's "Morning Joe," just after the excerpt was posted, that "Regime Change" will be "one of the most important books on the Trump presidency."
- Less than an hour later, Trump, known to watch "Morning Joe," posted on Truth Social: "Joe Scarborough's ever shrinking, low rated show, one of the most inaccurate detailers of truthful facts on television, is being crushed in the ratings."
- Scarborough promptly read the post on the air.
Swan and Haberman write that "relationships at the top of the Justice Department were by now beyond dysfunctional."
- Dan Bongino, a top MAGA podcaster who was then Trump's deputy FBI director, seethed about the Epstein snafus: "This is going to be President Trump's Iran-contra."
- "The Epstein crisis," the authors write, "had exposed something that some of Trump's closest advisers spent months refusing to see. The president could break institutions, redirect the federal government against his enemies and bring the world's richest men into the Oval Office bearing tribute. But he could not, it turned out, make Jeffrey Epstein disappear."
In the days before publication of a Wall Street Journal scoop about Trump and Epstein, Trump, in an "effort to quash the story, had called News Corp.'s chief executive, Robert Thomson; News Corp.'s owner, Rupert Murdoch; and The Journal's editor in chief, Emma Tucker. Practically shouting, the president told Tucker, who is British, that she must 'hate America.'"
- Emma Tucker tells Mike: "For the record, I LOVE America!"
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Axios: "Just as President Trump has said, he's been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein. And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him."
- Read the excerpt (gift link) ... Preorder the book.
3. โก๏ธ Catch me up

- ๐ญ Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be visible near one another in a "mini parade of planets" this week. How to watch.
- ๐ค The government should be able to block or deter dangerous AI deployments, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei writes. Go deeper ... Read his essay.
- ๐ธ Inflation hit its highest rate in over three years in May, as the economic fallout from the Iran war ripples through the U.S. economy. Go deeper.
- ๐ข AI firms are fueling red-hot demand for Manhattan office space, The Wall Street Journal reports. Gift link.
4. ๐ธ Pic to go: Massive Minnesota mural

A new mural painted on the grass at Minneapolis' Boom Island Park is creating a stunning foreground for the city's skyline, Axios Twin Cities' Nick Halter writes.
- It's the first U.S. painting in the "Beyond Walls" handshake series by Franco-Swiss artist Saype, who has done similar work in 21 other countries.
๐ค Saype said in a statement: "Beyond Walls speaks to the invisible connections that unite people beyond borders, cultures, and differences."
- Go deeper ... Get Axios Local.
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