President Biden will use tonight's State of the Union address to admit that prices are still too high in some areas — but argue things were worse under former President Trump, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in an interview with Axios' Zachary Basu and me.

Why it matters: Biden, in what could well be the most important speech of his presidency, aims to project fighting optimism to an audience with plenty of doubts about the nation's vigor — and that of the 81-year-old president.

• Biden needs a cure for what some advisers call "Trump amnesia" — the notion that the chaos and unpopularity of Trump's presidency has receded from some voters' memories nearly four years on.

🖼️ The big picture: Biden's high-stakes speech comes just a day after 2024's rematch election kicked off in earnest, with yesterday's withdrawal by former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

• Voters largely understand the contrasts between Trump and Biden on democracy and abortion. Views on the economy are less defined — which is animating Biden's approach to tonight's audience of millions.
• Biden's advisers hope that if he can just find the right words, skeptical voters eventually will embrace him and his policies.

Behind the scenes: Biden spent the weekend hunkered down with Zients and other aides at Camp David, in the Maryland woods. They pored over drafts, absorbed the president's feedback and consulted historian Jon Meacham for epochal context.

• Zients said Biden's speech will convey "energy, optimism and belief in the future of this country" — and predicted "some passion" when Biden demands Congress act on border security and aid for Ukraine.

👀 What to watch: Zients said Biden will remind people "where the economy was three years ago when the president walked into office, where we are now and where we're headed — what his vision is for the economy."

• Biden will say the administration needs to keep working to create what he calls "breathing room" in family budgets — "just a little bit of leftover money" at the end of the month, as Zients put it in our interview.

Zients told Axios that besides celebrating today's record-low unemployment and strong wage growth, Biden will reveal a variety of second-term proposals on pocketbook issues.

• Among the ideas he's eyeing: driving down the cost of prescription drugs, cracking down on "junk fees," expanding the housing supply and emphasizing tax fairness.

🥊 Reality check: Even some well-known Democrats find White House thinking naive.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tells The Washington Post: "The bubble is extraordinary: Democrats seem to think — many of them — that, only if we can explain all that we have accomplished, people will come on board. But that ignores the pain ordinary people are now experiencing."

👓 Between the lines: The central question for any presidential re-election campaign — the one Ronald Reagan famously posed to then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980 — is: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

• Biden wants to change many Americans' instinctive answer.

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Some Democrats on Capitol Hill dread a high-profile senior moment tonight. Others expressed confidence Biden can repeat last year's energetic SOTU performance, Axios' Andrew Solender and Alex Thompson write.

• "We are all nervous," said one House Democrat, citing concerns about Biden's "ability to speak without blowing things."

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Earth just had recorded history's hottest February — and hottest 12-month period, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes from data out today

• Why it matters: The new statistics confirm that 2024 so far is beating the record-warm 2023.

🧮 By the numbers: February was the ninth month in a row to rank as the globe's warmest on record.

• Keep reading ... Get Axios Generate.

Today's leading chatbots for the everyday user — OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini — are all best approached as tutors or assistants rather than information desks, Axios tech editor Megan Morrone writes.

• Why it matters: Getting started using any of these tools is easy. But knowing when and how to get the best results from them can still be tricky.

🖼️ The big picture: All three of these chatbots are designed to create, edit and summarize content.

• ChatGPT works well for most tasks.
• Gemini has access to more timely and updated information.
• Copilot is best for work tasks.

🧠 How it works: The request you make or question you ask Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT is called a prompt.

• Prompts should be specific — and can include requests for responses in a particular tone, a certain audience, or even a specific number of words.
• For example: "Explain the theory of relativity to me in 100 words. Act as a friendly scientist and answer as if I'm 10 years old."

🔬 Zoom in: Chatbots can help you create a basic recipe with the ingredients you have in your fridge, summarize long articles, turn text into presentations or create itineraries for vacations.

• They're also great for sparking creativity or combating writer's block.

Fun fact: Studies show you'll get better results if you're polite.

• Read the full explainer.

Latino activists and political leaders worry that increasingly harsh and racist rhetoric about migrants — particularly by Donald Trump and his supporters — is fueling a surge in the already record-breaking number of hate crimes against Latinos, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: An Axios review of data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that since 2016 hate crimes against Latinos have spiked during news events involving them and after comments made by Trump.

Anti-Latino hate crimes hit record highs in 2022 — the most recent year for which stats are available.

• Keep reading ... Get Axios Latino.

There's new debate about the crypto world's biggest secret, Axios' Brady Dale writes.

• Why it matters: A trial in the U.K. has kicked off discussion, speculation — and perhaps new evidence — about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin.

🔎 The theories:

1. Elon Musk. A former SpaceX intern has been banging this drum for years.

• Believability: Low.

2. John Nash. The troubled mathematician Russell Crowe portrayed in "A Beautiful Mind" was a gifted cryptographer.

• Believability: Even lower.

3. Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. A Japanese engineer living in America whom Newsweek identified as Bitcoin's inventor.

• Yes, but: He denied it, and so did Satoshi.

4. Craig Wright. An Australian computer scientist who's currently in court claiming to be Satoshi.

• Believability: Almost no one thinks it's him.

5. Hal Finney. A computer scientist who went down in history as the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction.

• Best argument: Finney was there from the beginning, with the skills to do it.
• He was diagnosed with ALS shortly after Bitcoin debuted, dying in 2014, four years after Satoshi said adieu.
• Believability: High.

6. Nick Szabo. Invented an early online payment scheme he called "bit gold."

• Best argument: Fortune's Jeff John Roberts writes it's an open secret among long-time bitcoiners that Szabo is the one.
• Yes, but: Szabo has denied it.
• Believability: Very high. But the evidence is circumstantial.

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Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tech reporters for The New York Times, will be out Sept. 17 with "Character Limit," about the massive political, social and financial fallout from Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.

• Why it matters: The $44 billion purchase by one of the world's richest men captivated media and tech as he shook the company with layoffs and stunning changes to the platform.

The book is billed as the "definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers."

• More on the book.

The same-day delivery wars are heating up with Walmart and Target adding speedy new services that rival Amazon Prime, Axios' Kelly Tyko writes.

• Why it matters: Intensifying consumer demand for instant gratification — having everything from milk to a barbecue grill delivered in hours — is putting pressure on retailers.

Walmart is launching an early morning delivery service today where orders placed at 6 a.m. are delivered in an hour, the company shared exclusively with Axios.

• The announcement comes days after Target introduced a subscription program with unlimited same-day deliveries.

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