Buy your local economist a drink: The economic backdrop is more chaotic and uncertain than it's been in years — a result of fast-moving and sometimes vague Trump policy, Axios Macro co-author Courtenay Brown writes.

• Why it matters: A growing list of factors driven by President Trump — think tariffs, spending cuts and a looming government shutdown — is threatening to put downward pressure on the economy.

🔭 The big picture: America's economy has defied naysayers, but there's no guarantee that continues.

• Forecasters are writing GDP and inflation estimates in pencil, warning that their models can't possibly account for all the ways the jumble of policies could net out.
• "It's really drinking from a fire hose at this point," Brian Gardner, chief Washington strategist at Stifel, tells Axios. "Trying to understand where things are going is unusually difficult, historically difficult."

Five factors are raising question marks about what's ahead for the economy:

💰 1. Trump's epic trade war. The longer the North American and U.S.-China trade war lasts, the more damage it could inflict on the economy.

• Trump said automakers would get a month-long reprieve from 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico.
• More tariffs are on the horizon in the weeks ahead, including reciprocal tariffs on April 2 that Trump has called "the big one."

🪓 2. DOGE spending cuts. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired or taken a buyout, with more layoffs to come, though some efforts have been halted by federal judges.

• Government employees make up a small share of the overall workforce, but the effects of nixed contracts could ripple out to the private sector.

🛑 3. Shutdown threat. Congress has until March 14 to pass a bill to fund the government or risk a shutdown.

• Republicans want to pass a budget that chops spending to pave the way to enact Trump's fiscal agenda — a difficult task without cutbacks to politically sensitive (and expensive) entitlement programs.

✂️ 4. Tax cuts: Some CEOs say the extension of Trump 1.0 tax cuts could offset potential economic weakness from the trade war.

• Concerns about blowing out the deficit might hamper that effort.
• The price tag is ballooning. In a congressional address, Trump called for no tax on tips, overtime or Social Security benefits. He pitched tax-deductible interest payments on loans for U.S.-made cars.

🌐 5. Immigration: The construction industry has warned about the potential double-whammy from deportations that could dent labor supply.

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If you have time to tune into only one person to understand — and track — the interconnected MAGA media ecosystem, follow Don Jr.

• Why it matters: There's no way to track all of the sources. So follow the power and influence. Don Jr. is deeply wired into every major player and most platforms, Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Tal Axelrod write in an Axios AM Executive Briefing special report.

Don Jr., 47, is his father's conduit, whisperer and translator of MAGA. President Trump, for all his MAGA clout, has a more traditional media diet, heavy legacy media. Don Jr. eats it all.

• And Don gets credit for amplifying smaller voices of the MAGA faithful — with his father sure to see it. POTUS gets tweets printed out for him all the time. So he knows what base influencers — and his relatives — are saying.

Another reason to watch the son closely: He'll be a kingmaker if this presidency is considered a success. Vice President Vance, also a MAGA media leading man, is very close to Don Jr. Keep an eye on how much the Trump empire monetizes this presidency — some insiders think the profits could keep MAGA afloat forever.

• Three MAGA figures are particularly close to the extended Trump clan: Tucker Carlson, Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Breitbart's Matt Boyle.

🎙️ Behind the scenes: Don Jr.'s podcast, "Triggered," singlehandedly drives droves of eyeballs to his favored candidates across the country. We're told he enjoys interviewing them on his show, or simply retweeting them.

• You can ask freshman Republican senators Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Jim Banks of Indiana or Tim Sheehy of Montana about the power of Don Jr.'s channels.

💡 Later today: Paid Executive Briefing subscribers get a Zoom briefing by Jim, Mike and a special MAGA expert guest. Plus you'll get this week's 3,500-word special report on MAGA media, and our future MAGA specials. Subscribe here.

President Trump told Hamas he will greenlight additional Israeli military strikes on Gaza unless the group releases its remaining hostages, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

• Why it matters: Trump's ultimatum comes amid secret direct negotiations between his administration and Hamas officials, revealed yesterday in a Barak blockbuster.

Trump issued the ultimatum after a meeting with six hostages who were released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

• Hamas is still holding 59 hostages. Israeli intelligence believes 22 are still alive, and the status of two others is unknown.
• Among the remaining hostages are five Americans, including 21-year-old Edan Alexander who is believed to be alive.

🗯️ What he's saying: "To the People of Gaza," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!"

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New Trump administration moves to shrink the federal footprint are creating whiplash in an already confused and scrambling Washington, Axios D.C.'s Mimi Montgomery writes.

🏢 The General Services Administration (GSA) on Tuesday announced that hundreds of federal buildings were for sale, with about a third concentrated in the D.C. area.

• The list featured the DOJ and Agriculture Department headquarters.

Then the GSA seemed to shift course: Later that day, all of the D.C. properties, and many in Virginia and Maryland, had been removed from its list.

• By yesterday, the entire list had been removed.

Keep reading ... Get Axios D.C.

Florida's next attorney general could be the ex-congressman who almost became President Trump's U.S. attorney general: Matt Gaetz, Axios' Marc Caputo scoops.

• Why it matters: Despite the intense controversy he generated before withdrawing his nomination, Gaetz still has strong name ID and is well-liked enough among Florida's GOP base to be a formidable candidate.

In a hypothetical primary matchup against Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, Gaetz was favored 39%-21%, according to a recent survey of likely Republican voters by Tony Fabrizio, one of the nation's top GOP pollsters.

🔬 Zoom in: There's already a war of words brewing between Gaetz and Uthmeier supporters over right-wing influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who recently were allowed to return to the U.S. after facing sex trafficking charges in Romania.

• Uthmeier has announced an investigation into the Tates. Gaetz — who as a member of Congress faced allegations of paying a minor for sex — has criticized Uthmeier's motives.

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Most young Americans have been keeping up with Elon Musk's DOGE — and it's not too popular, Axios' Erica Pandey writes from a new Generation Lab poll.

The big picture: 87% of 18- to 34-year-olds say they've heard a lot or a little about DOGE.

• 71% say they strongly or somewhat disapprove of the agency's work so far, the poll says.

Keep reading.

There will — and must — always be "humans in the loop," tech leaders reassure the world when they publicly address fears that AI will eliminate jobs, make mistakes or destroy society.

• Why it matters: Who these humans are, what the loop is and where exactly the people fit into it remain very much up for grabs. How the industry answers those questions will shape what work looks like in the future, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

Here are three ways of thinking about what "humans in the loop" (HITL) can mean.

1. AI assists humans. Chatbots need us to prompt them or give them instructions in order to work.
2. AI hands over the wheel at key moments. As agents grow more common and more capable, systems are likely to build in checkpoints for human involvement.
3. Humans review AI's final work. Most chatbot users have learned that genAI needs a fact-checker.

Keep reading.

Three top political reporters — Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf — will be out July 8 with "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America," based on 300+ interviews over 18 months.

• "The whole world was against me, and I won," President Trump told the authors in an interview 10 days before his second inauguration.

Why it matters: The book promises revelations about "how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats."

The backstory: The three were colleagues at The Washington Post during the 2024 cycle. Amid Post travails, the trio scattered after the election:

• Dawsey is now a political investigations and enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Pager is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. And Arnsdorf is a senior White House reporter for The Post.

💭 Pager tells me: "We set out to write this book more than a year before Joe Biden met Donald Trump on the debate stage in Atlanta, because we felt uniquely situated to tell the behind-the-scenes of this historic rematch."

• Dawsey says the authors "obtained recordings and notes of many meetings and traveled across the country."
• Arnsdorf adds that after covering the campaigns in real time, the reporters retraced "every step once we knew the outcome, to pinpoint what really mattered. Even if you read all the daily news coverage published in 2024, you'll find something new on every page."

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