President Trump, with the clock ticking and congressional investigators closing in, plans to govern even more imperially, hell-bent on stretching executive power, targeting those on his enemies list, pardoning allies, and daring the courts and Congress to slow him down, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: Trump and his allies are exploring executive action on new tariffs and immigration restrictions, and asserting greater control over spending. On X over the weekend, Trump discussed targeting and perhaps jailing Democrats who investigate administration officials. He claimed politically motivated harassment.

Trump is retooling his White House by elevating the one official who's synonymous with his all-gas-no-brakes style: Stephen Miller, who took over for Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff yesterday.

• Watch Miller and Russ Vought, the White House budget director, to understand how this approach will unfold. Both are architects and advocates of vastly expanding presidential power, believing there are virtually no restraints on what Trump can do as president.
• The Swamp can expect tougher sledding: Miller, unlike most of his predecessors, is driven more by ideology than by meetings with lobbyists or industry groups. "Stephen gives zero f*cks what K Street thinks," a Trump confidant told us.

🔎 Between the lines: Midterm losses pushed Presidents Clinton and Obama to the center. Trump's instincts are the opposite: Assert maximal power. The playbook:

1. Restore MAGA. Two years ago, MAGA — mostly its network of podcasts, YouTubers and online activists — was a powerful, united force in media and politics. Today it's a hot, divided mess. Trump's attention to his base drifted. Now Vice President Vance and Miller desperately want to rebuild and rev up MAGA. That's why ending the Iran war, curtailing aid to Israel and pushing harder on RFK Jr.'s MAHA agenda are suddenly top-tier topics.
2. Rule by pen. Miller, Vought and White House lawyers have been drafting executive actions to govern without Congress, with Justice Department opinions ready to defend them, Reuters reported just before the election. Remember: Vought was an architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for maximizing executive power in Trump II.
3. Target enemies. Before, it was pure payback. Now, it's also a preemptive warning that the Trump administration will target anyone, including elected members of Congress who target them. Trump ally Roger Stone told us: "Many Democrat lawmakers are going to find themselves under indictment and fighting conviction. Watch."
4. Purge the "deep state." The Supreme Court's ruling in a case about independent agencies, Trump v. Slaughter, widened the president's power to remove officials. "The Slaughter case gives the president tremendous powers," Trump said in an Election Day phone interview with CBS News' Robert Costa. The June ruling handed Trump the power to fire the heads of the FTC and other independent regulators (like FERC) for any reason or no reason.
5. More monuments. Trump's pharaonic need to gild the White House, build a ballroom, erect a triumphal arch and slap his name on buildings is also an exercise in raw power. He told New York Magazine's Ben Terris why he's honoring himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will." No one can stop him.

The Republican resistance: Expect very little inside the new Congress. The reason: Most of Trump's Capitol Hill critics are gone. What's left is a much smaller, but more Trumpian, band of middle-aged and older white Republicans with margins too small to matter much.

• The Trump bet: Congressional Republicans will quickly feel Democrats are overreaching and unify in solidarity with Trump, even if it's forced or begrudging.

🥊 Yes, but: One of Trump's most predictable attributes is his unpredictability. He said on election night that he'll "work together" with Democrats. What that may look like (with a heavy emphasis on "may"), based on reporting by Axios' Marc Caputo:

1. Soften aspects of immigration enforcement, particularly regarding masked agents harassing U.S. citizens.
2. Find common ground with MAHA's healthy food agenda, which has become the subject of vicious post-election infighting among Trump insiders.
3. Sign legislation from the new Congress that would undo massive Medicaid cuts in his "One Big Beautiful Bill."

The bottom line: Trump is still Trump. He's 80 and it shows. But he meets force with force and he'll go down swinging the more Democrats attack him.

• "Trump and his team are at our best when our backs are against the wall," one adviser told Caputo. "Trump comes out fighting. We're full-throated and full-throttle."

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Nvidia doesn't have a clear succession plan for CEO Jensen Huang, as growing spy-scandal revelations threaten his hold on the chips giant he founded, built and personified.

• Why it matters: The peril for Huang (pronounced wong) shows the vulnerabilities of an iconic company being so dependent on one executive — with huge risks to investors, customers and, in this case, the AI economy, Axios' Nathan Bomey and Emily Peck report.

The mushrooming scale of the crisis:

1. Nvidia controls the most valuable commodity in the world, and one man controls Nvidia.
2. China is hungry to buy or copy Nvidia's chips, which could determine which superpower wins the AI race.
3. After denying it, Jensen Huang admitted Sunday to an affair with Alice Huang, an executive of a Singapore-based data center company who is believed by U.S. intelligence to be a spy for the Chinese government.
4. Jensen Huang was in frequent, chummy communication with President Trump during the affair.
5. Trump ignored warnings from the top of his administration and allowed chip sales that benefited the Chinese spy's company.
6. The Commerce Department was digging hard on Nvidia and the spy's company, until it abruptly wasn't amid Nvidia's interventions — reporting by The New York Times that opened a new front in the crisis yesterday. (Gift link)

🔭 The big picture: The storm over Nvidia "may exacerbate fears among investors over the durability of the AI boom, after a revolt against data centers by voters in America's midterm elections," The Economist notes.

• Go deeper: "Nvidia's crisis and the politics of an AI pause," by Axios chief tech correspondent Ina Fried.

Calley Means quickly rose from wellness entrepreneur to senior Trump health adviser — and now he's attacking the White House and suggesting top aides undermined the president's health agenda, Axios' Caitlin Owens and Adriel Bettelheim write.

• Why it matters: His scorched-earth campaign — which continued yesterday in comments to Axios — marks a stunning turn for one of the administration's most vocal advocates of the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.

Means, who is widely credited with brokering the alliance between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump in 2024, resigned from his administration post late last month.

• He told Axios he's going public with allegations of corruption — particularly involving former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — because "it is existential to the survival [of] America that we rid DC of Susie's brand of politics."
• Means launched his attacks Friday on "The Joe Rogan Experience" and continued them Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" and across social media.

🖼️ The big picture: MAHA leaders have complained for months about a lack of progress on issues around healthy foods and pesticide use.

The intrigue: The MAHA base sees new chief of staff Stephen Miller as an ally. Miller's wife, Katie, hosted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on her podcast and has posted photos of dishes with ingredients like raw milk.

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Gas prices fell below $4 per gallon today for the first time since July 19, to $3.98, per AAA tracking.

• Why it matters: High prices were highly visible election-season reminders of broader cost-of-living increases that helped fuel Democratic midterm gains, Axios' Ben Geman reports.

💡 What's happening: Falling gasoline costs follow recent declines in crude oil prices.

• Traders are responding to signs of potential U.S.-Iran diplomacy and ascendant Democrats' pledges to help force an end to the conflict.

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House Republicans will choose a new leader this morning after last week's devastating election losses, Axios' Kate Santaliz writes.

• Why it matters: Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (Ohio) will headline the battle for control of what's left of the Republican conference — with every other top position also up for grabs.

Scalise is pitching himself as the steady hand who can lead Republicans back to the majority, leaning on his decade of experience in leadership.

• Jordan is casting himself as the candidate for change, tapping into frustration among Republicans who believe last week's devastating losses demand a shake-up at the top.

👂 What we're hearing: Scalise allies are increasingly confident heading into today's vote, with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) arguing that calls to delay the leadership elections are a sign that Jordan's supporters don't have the votes.

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Axios White House reporter Marc Caputo writes from Miami:

State Department officials have quietly raised objections to El Salvador's gang-fighting efforts in Haiti — even as President Trump has offered his full support, according to diplomatic notes and informed sources.

• El Salvador issued a formal rebuke yesterday that questioned the "credibility" of the top U.S. diplomat in Haiti.

Why it matters: The controversy exposes the tension between Trump's MAGA foreign policy objectives and the professional diplomatic establishment in the State Department.

• "There is a class of bureaucrats who don't want to see the change in the Western Hemisphere that POTUS wants," a U.S. official told Axios.

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California voters rejected a first-in-the-nation tax on the net worth of billionaires, following a contentious ballot fight that generated huge spending by some prominent tech leaders.

• The defeat of the wealth tax is a win for Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, both Democrats, who opposed it. Critics said the tax would have pushed ultrawealthy taxpayers out of the Golden State.

Why it matters: Proposition 40 was the nation's biggest test yet of an idea progressives have long championed — raising taxes on the ultra-rich by targeting their investments, AP reports.

The count is 53% to 47%, with 83% of votes in.

• AP called the race last night. Most Californians vote by mail. Any ballot postmarked by Election Day that arrives within a week is counted, meaning it often takes days or even weeks for close races to be settled.

💰 The "no" side raised roughly 10 times as much as the "yes" side. Google co-founder Sergey Brin alone dumped more than $100 million into a political action committee working to defeat the measure.

• The measure would have imposed a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of Californians with a net worth over $1 billion.

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Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO, is donating $100 million to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department — the largest-ever donation to the city by an individual, Axios San Francisco's Nadia Lopez writes.

• Chesky's donation is more than a third of the department's proposed spending for next year.

Between the lines: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who appeared with Chesky for yesterday's announcement, has increasingly sought private funding for initiatives addressing homelessness, public safety and the city's economic recovery.

• Chesky, whose global company was founded in San Francisco nearly two decades ago, serves on a council of business leaders advising the mayor on economic issues.

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