President Trump has a much different vision of the future than the tech titans who raced to shape and support his economic agenda, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• 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 — powered 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 ... Share this column.

🔮 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.

Immigration agents are the "principal" deciders on whether a detainee is linked to a gang and should be deported immediately, border czar Tom Homan tells Axios' Brittany Gibson in an exclusive interview.

• If agents determine the answer is yes, Homan said, the Trump administration believes that detainee's rights to due process are limited.
• Not so fast, the Supreme Court said late Monday. The court signaled that detainees designated as "enemies" of the U.S. could be deported, but should have some way to challenge their removal.

🏛 Driving the news: Homan's comments to Axios came on a day when the Supreme Court began to sort out how far President Trump can go in his aggressive push to deport immigrants the administration sees as threats to the U.S.

• In a separate decision, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked a lower court's order that the U.S. return a Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the administration admits was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

🔎 Zoom in: Homan declined to comment on Garcia's case. He told Axios that Trump is simply "using the laws on the books" to quickly deport unauthorized and potentially dangerous immigrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.

• "People who are enemies of the United States don't have the same level [of] due process [as in] the normal process," Homan said.
• "People keep saying they have no criminal history," he added. "I've been doing law enforcement since 1984. Many gang members don't have criminal history. It's more than criminal history."

Between the lines: Homan said agents use several factors in determining membership in a designated terrorist gang such as MS-13 or the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua.

• Homan said factors include, but aren't limited to, tattoos or religious emblems: "It can be one factor or up to 20 factors. ... It's a case-by-case analysis."

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The stock market whipsawed more than 8% in half an hour yesterday morning on little more than a rumor about the president's state of mind.

• That kind of volatility is a defining symptom of radical uncertainty — a state of affairs where no one has any conviction about what anything might be worth, or even about what they don't know, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

The S&P 500 has dropped more than 15% since President Trump's inauguration, the worst showing for a president in their first term since George W. Bush was in office during the dot-com bust.

And the tariff effect has been global. (Interactive version of above chart).

In less than a week, many Americans will no longer be able to apply for Social Security benefits over the phone, setting the stage for disruptions and upheaval for millions of seniors, Axios' Emily Peck reports.

☎️ How it works: Right now, if applicants can't use the agency's website to apply for benefits or change their bank information, they can phone an 800 number or their local office.

• More than 4 in 10 retirees currently apply for benefits by phone.

Starting April 14, they'll have to trek to an office if they can't access the site.

• Interactive map: State-by-state-data.

President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff will lead the U.S. delegation for nuclear talks with Iran on Saturday in Oman, sources tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: President Trump surprised the world yesterday by announcing the high-level meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials. If diplomacy fails, the next stage is likely war.

🤫 Behind the scenes: So far, there have only been negotiations about the negotiations — which don't yet seem to be resolved.

• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whom Iranian press reports say will be Iran's chief negotiator, insisted the talks would be "indirect" — with Omani mediators passing messages between the sides.
• Trump insisted the talks would be "direct."

Keep reading.

The Trump administration is formally taking on fluoride in drinking water, with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. planning to tell the CDC to end its longtime recommendation for the practice, Axios Salt Lake City's Erin Alberty writes.

• 🦷 Why it matters: U.S. public health agencies have recommended fluoride be added to drinking water since 1962 to reduce the risk of chronic dental problems in children.

🚰 RFK Jr. and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin joined Utah lawmakers at an event yesterday to praise the state's first-in-the-nation ban on fluoride in public water systems.

• Zeldin said his agency is "ready to act" on this issue.

Kennedy told AP he planned to assemble a task force to examine the mineral in drinking water and tell the CDC to stop recommending it. He has claimed fluorination is "associated with" a number of medical conditions.

• 🥼Medical and dental groups have warned that banning fluoride would reverse one of the great public health breakthroughs in recent history.

👀 What to watch: Bills similar to Utah's have been introduced in Tennessee, North Dakota and Montana.

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Trump is planning a military parade through Washington, D.C., on June 14, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the Army's founding and his 79th birthday, Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil reports.

• Why it matters: Trump wants to remake the nation's capital — and a military parade is one thing he never got in his first term.

The Trump administration contacted D.C. officials on Friday about the early planning for a parade, reported first by Washington City Paper.

• Federal officials "reached out to our special events task force," Mayor Muriel Bowser told the press on Monday, but it's "at its early stages."

🚔 The route would stretch almost four miles — starting at the Pentagon, crossing the Potomac River and ending at the White House.

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Colossal Biosciences, a Texas company attempting to bring back extinct animals, announced yesterday the revival of the once long-gone dire wolf, Axios' Asher Price and Nicole Cobler write.

🦴 What they're saying: "Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies," Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said in a news release.

• The wolves, thought to have been extinct for over 12,500 years, were as much as 25% larger than gray wolves and had a slightly wider head, light thick fur and stronger jaw.

🐾 The wolves, including a pair of adolescent males born in October and named Romulus and Remus, are living on an ecological preserve at an undisclosed location.

Hear 'em howl ... Read TIME's cover story