Axios C-Suite: What Jim learned this week (April 11)
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I'm going to share intel picked up from top officials in government, AI and business. It was shared confidentially, but with the knowledge I'd use it without sourcing it.
🚨🐘 Red alert: Republicans are bleeding support everywhere, which explains why they assume the House is gone and the Senate is in play.
- The numbers don't lie. In seven special House elections, Dems are beating their '24 margins by 18.5 points on average. Across 11 flipped state legislative seats, it's 17.6.
- President Trump himself remains popular with Rs who align with him more than the GOP. But he's losing young white men and Hispanics as well as MAGA influencers (Tucker) and bro podcasters (Joe Rogan) — the new '24 coalition that turned D.C. red.
- Why it matters to you: Assume wild volatility and chaos in Congress — and more of the same in the '28 presidential race.
🔥 The war ahead: Tucker Carlson (or someone like him) seems virtually certain to run in '28 as a true America First, anti-war, anti-Israel, probably anti-AI hardliner.
- Read this Axios piece to fully understand how many — and how hard — MAGA media stars turned on Trump this past week. Some want him ousted NOW.
- That sentiment is breaking through. CNN's Aaron Blake noted that six of the top 15 podcasts on Spotify this week were from Iran-critical former and current Trump allies.
- Why it matters to you: Both parties expect tense, tumultuous ideological primaries in '28, with socialism and true America First MAGA animating base voters.
💸 Unintended consequences: Government officials, investors and AI IPOs-in-waiting share a big, growing concern: the Iran war's destruction of the Gulf money machine.
- The U.S. tech industry built its future on the assumption that trillions in Gulf sovereign wealth would keep flowing into AI, both to fund companies and build infrastructure. Think of the Gulf wealth funds as the bridge capital between AI's promises and profits.
- Gulf sovereign wealth funds committed roughly $2.5 trillion to U.S. tech by early 2026. That money wasn't charity. It was a grand bargain: The Middle East offered the capital Silicon Valley couldn't raise domestically at the speed AI demands.
- What to watch, Part 1: Is there enough U.S. capital to fund massive '26 IPOs for SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks and others? Investors tell me: not without Middle East wealth. They'll be too busy repairing their defense systems, economies and infrastructure.
- What to watch, Part 2: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE need total destruction of Iran now. Otherwise, few will want to travel, move or invest there.
👀 ☎️ Fun, true, scary: Trump answers cell calls from reporters on his shit list, in part, because some use different numbers to disguise who's ringing.
- What's wilder: Trump is so quick to pick up calls that he's answered telemarketers! He sometimes listens to part of their pitch before hanging up.
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