If AI were a candidate for political office, it would be losing in a landslide, Axios' Madison Mills reports.

• Why it matters: AI backlash is growing, as people worry it will steal their jobs, jack up electricity rates and further enrich the wealthy, all while hurting the environment. That's becoming a liability for the industry.

👎 State of play: A commencement address went viral this week after Florida real estate executive Gloria Caulfield said "artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution," sparking a chorus of boos.

• The jeers could have been avoided if the speaker had checked the latest polls: Only 18% of Americans ages 14–29 feel hopeful about AI, according to a recent Gallup survey.
• The disdain spans generations and political parties. An Economist/YouGov poll released this week showed over 70% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly. That's 68% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats.
• Other YouGov polling shows negative views of AI rising from 34% three years ago to just over 50% now.

🤷‍♂️ Between the lines: AI executives aren't doing much to quell the backlash, which is already showing signs of slowing the industry.

• In conversations with Axios, AI executives at multiple frontier AI labs dismissed the negative opinions. They see AI as just as inevitable as the rise of the internet.

🤖 Threat level: The backlash could curb AI labs' access to their most valuable resource: computing power.

• A record number of data center projects were canceled in the first quarter of 2026 amid resistance from communities, per Heatmap Pro data.

"Public pushback is emerging as a binding constraint, particularly around data center buildout," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note about market risks associated with the midterm elections.

• These setbacks are "sapping confidence" among investors, according to a note investment bank Jefferies sent to clients.

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Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels and possibly Key West, Fla., 90 miles north of Havana, according to classified intelligence shared with Axios' Marc Caputo.

• Why it matters: The intelligence could become a pretext for U.S. military action. "When we think about those types of technologies being that close, and a range of bad actors from terror groups to drug cartels to Iranians to the Russians, it's concerning," a senior U.S. official said.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba on Thursday and warned officials that Cuba "can no longer serve as a platform for adversaries to advance hostile agendas in our hemisphere," a CIA official told Axios.

• On Wednesday, the Justice Department plans to unseal an indictment of Cuba's de facto leader, Raúl Castro, for allegedly ordering the 1996 downing of two planes flown by a Miami-based aid group.
• More sanctions against the island nation could be announced this week.

Zoom in: Cuba has been acquiring attack drones of "varying capabilities" from Russia and Iran since 2023 and has stashed them in strategic spots across the island, U.S. officials say.

• Within the past month, Cuban officials have sought more drones and military equipment from Russia, the senior U.S. official said.

Reality check: U.S. officials don't believe Cuba is an imminent threat or actively planning to attack American interests.

• "No one's worried about fighter jets from Cuba. It's not even clear they have one that can fly," the senior U.S. official said. "But it's worth noting how close they are — 90 miles … It's not a reality we are comfortable with."

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After being targeted by President Trump, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, failed to finish in the top two spots in yesterday's Louisiana GOP Senate primary.

• The race now goes to a June 27 runoff between Rep. Julia Letlow, Ph.D., a former higher-education executive, and state Treasurer John Fleming, M.D.

Why it matters: It's a win for Trump, who backed Letlow and urged voters to oust Cassidy, describing him as "very disloyal."

⚜️ Letlow got 45%, Fleming got 28% and Cassidy got 25%.

• Cassidy told supporters: "Our country is not about one individual … It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about the Constitution."

Letlow said at her victory party: "I want to say thank you to a very special man who you all know — the best president this country has ever had, President Donald Trump."

• Letlow — born and raised in Monroe, La. — is the first Republican woman elected to Congress from the Pelican State.

🗳️ The big picture: Trump is now two-for-two on his political revenge tour, Axios' Alex Isenstadt points out.

• Earlier this month, Trump helped steamroll a bloc of Indiana Republican legislators who resisted his effort to redraw the state's congressional map.
• Next up: Kentucky, where Trump aims to unseat arch-nemesis Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday.

Louisiana results ... Get the latest.

Teens today are drinking less than their parents did — but for some, it's because they don't have anyone to drink with, Axios' Avery Lotz writes.

• 😷 "The way that we socialize post-COVID is just really different," says Rachel Janfaza, a Gen Z researcher and author of "The Up and Up" newsletter.

📱 Coupled with social media, "those two forces … have created a perfect storm for a change in how we hang out," Janfaza says.

• Gen Z is a generation of late bloomers, she adds: "It's not just that they're drinking less. They're having less sex. They're getting their licenses later."

📊 By the numbers: 41% of high school seniors said they'd had a drink in the past year in 2025, according to a long-running University of Michigan study, vs. 75% in 1997. The drops are more dramatic for younger teens.

It's not just a health kick or a preference for weed, according to the study's principal investigator, Richard Miech.

• 🚫 "There's a growing percentage that aren't using anything," he says. "It's not like all the kids are being steered to some other substance."

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Some close advisers to President Trump fear the China summit heightened danger that Xi Jinping will take control of Taiwan in the next five years, potentially choking off the chips used to power AI to U.S. companies, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei scooped in his new weekly newsletter, Axios C-Suite.

• Why it matters: Trump loved the pageantry and the special access Xi shrewdly rolled out during the Beijing visit. But the words didn't match the bonhomie.

One Trump adviser told us Xi is "trying to move China to a new position where he's saying: 'We're not a rising power. We're your equal. And Taiwan is mine.'"

• "This trip signaled a much higher likelihood that Taiwan will be on the table in the next five years," the adviser added. "There's no way we can be ready economically — the chip supply chain won't be anywhere close to self-sufficiency. For CEOs, and really the economy as a whole, there's no more pressing issue than the supply chain for chips."

The big picture: Several CEOs praised Trump for pushing very hard on Iran and Venezuela and opening markets. Some came away hopeful their companies will get licenses to operate in China, and credit POTUS.

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

America's biggest utility company, Florida-based NextEra, is near a deal to combine with Richmond-based Dominion Energy in what the Financial Times says would be "one of the largest deals of all time."

• The announcement could come as soon as tomorrow, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Why it matters: The merger would create a $400 billion behemoth at a time of roaring demand for electricity to power AI data centers.

NextEra has announced ambitious plans to generate power for data centers, including through partnerships with Google.

• Dominion is one of two electricity providers in Loudoun County, home of Data Center Alley.

Keep reading: WSJ gift link ... FT gift link.

Republicans have delivered major wins for the crypto industry in Washington — and they're increasingly frustrated that its biggest political spender isn't stepping up for them in the midterms, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: Crypto now commands the biggest political war chest of any industry in America — and how it deploys that cash could help decide the November elections.

👀 Friction point: The pro-crypto Fairshake super PAC has a massive $165 million. But the group — which receives the bulk of its funding from Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange — has yet to announce which races it will target.

• That has infuriated Republicans who have promoted pro-crypto legislation, including the CLARITY Act, which would define how digital assets are regulated.
• Republicans on Thursday advanced the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, with all 13 GOP members voting in favor. Democrats, who're more skeptical of the industry, opposed it 9-2.

🐘 Behind the scenes: Some Republicans think the industry may be hedging its bets in case Democrats take power. Others speculate it doesn't want to alienate Democrats who will be key to passing pro-crypto legislation.

• Keep reading.

SELMA, Ala. — Hundreds crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday — some for the second time in their lives, 61 years after Bloody Sunday — for a voting-rights mobilization organizers described as continuation, not commemoration, Axios' Delano Massey reports.

• "We have come not only to remember the march, but to become the march," the Rev. Traci Blackmon told the crowd.

Above: Participants gather after crossing the bridge, including 82-year-old Annie Pearl Avery (seated, center), who marched on Bloody Sunday in 1965. Standing nearby are organizers Melanie L. Campbell and LaTosha Brown.