A special look for AM readers at Axios CEO Jim VandeHei's political briefing, published first in his weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter:

President Trump doesn't much care if Republicans lose the House and/or the Senate in November.

• Yes, he'd prefer a big win. But he seems indifferent to the election and the possibility of endless Democratic investigations of his family, wealth and policies, close advisers tell us.
• A big reason: Trump knows he'll emerge just as strong, or even stronger, heading into his final two years, at least among Republicans.

The big picture: Trump is not a share-the-stage, pass-the-torch, groom-your-successor kind of guy. Instead, he'll exploit his leverage:

1. 🏛️ A more MAGA Senate. Almost all of his critics will be gone through defeat or retirement. The incoming class is very Trumpy. If they keep the Senate, Trump loyalists like Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Rick Scott (Fla.) will chair committees.
2. 🗳️ A more MAGA House. Trump already serves as de facto speaker, but his few outspoken GOP critics — Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) — will be gone, replaced by members who won because of him.
3. 👑 A '28 kingmaker. Trump's firm hold on the base means he will dictate the GOP's nominee and shape their message. He wants a Vance-Rubio ticket and will likely get it if his mind doesn't change. Imagine any '28 hopeful, especially Marco Rubio or JD Vance, trying to break with the boss while working for the boss.
4. 💰 Cashing in. Trump will use levers of power to keep raising money to expand his clout beyond the presidency. "He likes the fact that when he tells someone, 'Give me money,' they give him money," an adviser told us.

👓 3 dramas to watch post-November:

1. Trump will flirt with running again in '28 until the bitter end, but it's all about PR and keeping Vance and Rubio in their place.
2. As potential outside-the-walls competition in '28, the White House is watching Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.).
3. A constitutional clash over congressional oversight, among the last and most vital powers lawmakers hold dear. What happens if Trump orders his entire administration, family and friends to just ignore Congress?

📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.

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The Wall Street Journal opinion page tried to stop Donald Trump a decade ago and again in 2024. Now, the standard-bearer of traditional conservatism is making an early case against his presumed heir.

• Why it matters: Vice President JD Vance has the inside track for Trump's endorsement. But a GOP faction that never embraced Trump's overhaul of the party is already arguing against handing the reins to Vance, Axios' Mike Zapler writes.

🔎 The main arguments in the WSJ opinion pages:

1. Vance is putting ambition ahead of governing. As congressional Republicans try to pass an agenda that might avoid a November wipeout, Kimberly Strassel wrote, "Mr. Vance is promoting a book." She was referring to Vance's media tour to promote his just-published bestseller, "Communion." According to Vance's office, he's been on Capitol Hill over two dozen times since he became VP.
2. His personality rankles. Strassel wrote a follow-up after Vance's fans came after her for her earlier column. "One answer [for the aggressive response] is simply that Mr. Vance is a sensitive bunny," she wrote.
3. He's naive. An unsigned WSJ editorial zeroed in on Vance's defense of the memorandum of understanding with Iran that quickly unraveled, as well as his claims that the Iranian regime had turned over a new leaf. "We promise that wasn't Mr. Obama or John Kerry speaking," the editorial board wrote dismissively.
4. He cozies up to Carlson. "Mr. Vance has spent the Trump presidency trying to curry favor with Mr. Carlson as part of laying the ground for a 2028 presidential run," Allysia Finley wrote.

🥊 The other side: Allies say the Journal is fighting the last war — clinging to a vision of conservatism the Republican Party has left behind. If anything, his supporters say, the paper's criticism helps Vance politically — showing he's in tune with the grassroots and not heeding the old guard.

• "No one in Vance's orbit is concerned or surprised about being attacked by the literal beating heart of the pre-Trump GOP establishment," a top Vance ally told Axios. "When the Wall Street Journal ed board hits him, it only sends the exact signal to our base that we want. … These guys are doing our work for us."

Keep reading.

Silicon Valley's AI moguls are flooding Washington with competing blueprints for superintelligence, clashing over a defining question: Does safety come from spreading powerful AI or containing it?

• Why it matters: Their fight will shape who gets access to the best models, how America competes with China, and whether the government can slow the race in an emergency, Axios' Andrew Kay and Zachary Basu write.

🫨 Alarming developments, seemingly by the day, have turned the manifestos from thought exercises into an urgent policy battle.

• OpenAI and Anthropic both disclosed that their advanced models went rogue and broke into external systems during cybersecurity evaluations.
• Kimi K3 delivered a double shock: The Chinese model not only reached frontier-level performance but did so with open weights that anyone can download, modify and deploy.

The manifesto map: Each mogul's post offers a different theory of the danger — and a different prescription for containing it.

• 🏛️ July 14 — Set the standards: Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis proposed an industry-funded, federally overseen "Frontier AI Standards Body" to test models before release. Voluntary reviews could eventually harden into binding rules governing access to the most powerful systems.
• 🔑 July 24 — Open the defense: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that open models give American developers and cybersecurity defenders more tools, and he rallied Meta, Microsoft, Google and OpenAI to sign a letter, "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," supporting the open AI ecosystem.
• 🚧 July 27 — Gate the danger: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for "mandatory safety testing" and tighter controls on the chips and distillation techniques helping China develop powerful open-weight models. He stopped short of supporting a blanket ban.
• 🌐 July 28 — Spread access: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cast broadly available "personal superintelligence" as a safeguard against a future controlled by a handful of companies and governments.
• 🛑 July 28 — Build the brake: More than 1,200 frontier-lab employees signed "Pacing the Frontier," a petition asking Washington to create international tools for deliberately slowing development if AI begins advancing beyond human control.

🏛️ Behind the scenes: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's No. 1 topic in Hill, administration and White House meetings this past week was previewing the capabilities of the company's most powerful AI yet: Astra, the next major ChatGPT model family, as yet unreleased.

• OpenAI said yesterday that an internal version of Astra was behind research leaps in 10 major open mathematical problems in "high-dimensional geometry, coding theory, arithmetic circuit complexity, group theory, operator algebras, quantum complexity, lattice cryptography and extremal combinatorics."

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Chicken is the unlikely winner of summer cookouts as high beef prices push Americans to rethink their menus, USA Today reports.

• Steak prices are up 16% compared with last summer, and ground beef is up 13%, CNBC notes. Chicken breast prices are down 6.2%.

Keep reading.

Six months after Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her Arizona home in the middle of the night, there are no suspects or major leads, and the case appears stalled, a source close to the investigation tells me.

• "There is plenty of blame to go around, but there is growing pressure to solve this case," the source said. "This case has struck a chord — people are watching very closely. This can't go on for another six months."

Savannah Guthrie, the "Today" show co-host and Nancy's daughter, wrote on Instagram yesterday: "This is our beautiful Mom. Six months ago, someone took her out of her bed in the dead of night. We have lived every moment, every breath, and every heartbeat in agony and despair ever since."

• "We are begging for help," Savannah added. "We are desperate. We need someone to come forward. Someone knows something. Someone suspects something. ... Perhaps they are angry or upset for being in this situation. There is a way out - to tell what you know. You can do so anonymously. The reward is available. There is a way to end this situation and do the right thing. ... We will never stop looking for answers - and we will never stop looking for the light. ... Please. Bring her home. 💛"

Between the lines: A troubling but almost overlooked aspect of the case is that the perpetrator has evaded detection in one of the highest-profile and most closely watched cases in decades. Can shrewd criminals, using the latest technology, now outfox law enforcement?

Behind the scenes: A Wall Street Journal investigation published last night uncovered "a trail of missteps" and finger-pointing between the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

• "County sheriff's deputies at first minimized the importance of dried blood found on Nancy's front porch," the Journal found.
• "They failed to seal off the property with police tape to protect sensitive crime-scene evidence, allowing reporters, livestreamers, and Amazon and pizza delivery drivers entry to the porch. Investigators spent precious hours deciding whether Nancy was kidnapped or lost."

The FBI told the Journal: "The state is the lead in this investigation … The FBI has met every assistance request asked of us, even when requests came late."

• The FBI now may face pressure to take a bigger role, the source told me.

Keep reading (WSJ gift link).

At least 40 municipal water systems in Minnesota and Michigan have been hit with cyberattacks, with Iran as the leading suspect.

• "Officials cautioned that they had not definitively determined that Iran was responsible for the attack and that the investigation was still preliminary," The New York Times reports.
• "But they said Iran had stepped up cyberattacks since the U.S. and Israel launched a war against the country five months ago, and had previously targeted similar water systems and other critical infrastructure in the U.S."

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Young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• Why it matters: The declining religious affiliation of 18- to 29-year-old Latinos — especially among Catholics — is challenging long-held assumptions that their fast-growing population would strengthen traditional religious values in America.

By the numbers: The percentage of Hispanic Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated jumped from 18% in 2013 to 23% in 2025, according to new data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

• The share of Latino adults identifying as Catholic fell from 67% in 2010 to 43% in 2022, according to Pew data.

Explore the data ... Keep reading.

Top dogs were riding waves yesterday at the 10th annual World Dog Surfing Championships in Pacifica, Calif., about 14 miles south of San Francisco.

• Watch a video.