Five weeks before the midterms, Americans' pocketbook pain is getting worse: Paychecks haven't kept up with inflation for the better part of this year, and borrowing costs have surged, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes.

• Why it matters: President Trump's record is effectively on the ballot, and economic sentiment remains deeply depressed, including among Republican voters.

This is the backdrop as voters prepare to cast their midterm ballots:

1. In the past five months, pay for rank-and-file workers has trailed inflation.

• That's a recent reversal: Since the start of 2021, hourly pay for rank-and-file workers has climbed 29%, slightly outpacing the 27% gain in consumer prices.

2. Consumer prices are up over 5% since Trump took office, piling on Biden-era gains.

• It costs about $20 more to fill a 15-gallon tank of gas than it did a year ago. The national average for regular gas is $4.46 a gallon, up more than $1.30 from last September, according to AAA.

3. Mortgage rates are back above 7%, while rates on credit cards, auto and other loans remain elevated.

• Consumer sentiment is sitting at the second-lowest reading on record, according to the University of Michigan's tracker.
• Contrast that to Trump's first term: Before the pandemic, the same survey showed one of the strongest periods ever for America's consumer sentiment.
• Another gauge shows a similar decline: The Conference Board's confidence index averaged 126 from 2017-19, compared with just 89.4 for the latest reading in August.

📈 The other side: The lousy sentiment comes alongside strong economic growth that's apparent in the GDP figures — but hard for consumers to appreciate at the grocery store or the gas pump.

• A closely watched GDP tracker published by the Atlanta Fed shows the economy growing at a blistering 5% pace this quarter.
• Unemployment remains at a historically low 4.1%.

🐘 The GOP case: Kush Desai, White House senior deputy press secretary, tells us that "hard data of actual consumer spending and retail sales have been robust throughout President Trump's term so far."

• "American consumers are proving their resilience with their dollars every day thanks to the Trump administration's tax cuts, private-sector job creation, and investment boom."

Share this story.

AI companies are turning to AI to police AI, Axios' Nathan Bomey and Sam Sabin write.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sought to calm escalating fears across governments, markets and industries by announcing an open-source safety platform for monitoring and potentially quarantining AI agents.

🤔 Between the lines: The fundamental challenge humans face in policing powerful AI is that it requires them to imagine all the ways the models may behave in unexpected ways in order to meet their given objectives.

• One top AI executive compared the process to finding ways to keep a teenager from sneaking out at night. A parent might make rules such as don't leave through the front or back doors, don't open the garage or don't leave through any windows.
• But what if the teen could build a bulldozer and use it to break through a brick wall, allowing an escape?

🦾 The industry solution: Use AI to help create those guardrails, help investigate and stop rogue agents, help secure systems and build safer training environments.

• Microsoft, Cisco, Google and CrowdStrike have introduced cyber-focused AI models.
• Palo Alto Networks recently launched a service that uses frontier and open-weight models to find security flaws and recommend fixes.

Share this story.

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei recently visited with Uljan Sharka, founder and CEO of Milan-based Domyn, the company the EU has picked to build Europe's open-source frontier model. From Jim's Axios C-Suite newsletter:

OpenAI and Anthropic are purposely lying about safety concerns, Sharka told Jim.

• "This is a big lie that is driving an unreasonable conversation."
• Asked if he's comfortable seeing the word "lying" in print, he said: "It's the truth for me. ... I'm ready."

His case: The tech has plateaued. The doom talk is designed to prop up valuations ahead of IPOs — and manufacture a delay to buy time so they can build AI that actually matches their hype.

🧐 Who the hell is Uljan? He runs the hottest open-source company in Europe, recently valued at $2B. He's pitching a product that competes with the U.S. AI giants: sovereign, data-secure AI systems that individual companies fully own and control.

His case: He claims AI thinking-on-its-own capabilities are broadly overhyped, based on his years of work building these systems. He said they're nothing more than "digital books" of data that do what you tell them to.

• Anthropic and OpenAI insist their fears are real and driven by private testing and models that Uljan has never seen.

Share this story.

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

Iowa is on the verge of a farm crisis that threatens to wreck the agricultural heart of the state and hurt the fortunes of Republicans at the top of the midterm ticket, GOP strategists acknowledge to Marc Caputo and Axios Des Moines' Linh Ta.

• Why it matters: Democrats could win in several once-reliably Republican states in November. But President Trump's policies have caused such severe financial problems for farmers — especially those who grow corn — that Iowa appears particularly vulnerable.

A top GOP campaign consultant working in Iowa and other states tells us: "In Iowa, we should brace for losing everything, definitely the governor's race and maybe the Senate race and who knows what else."

• As his political operation watches Iowa with alarm, Trump yesterday held a White House press conference to announce plans for a massive steel plant in the state that would be one of the nation's largest.

🚜 Zoom in: Iowa farming has been difficult for years because of rising costs, consolidation trends and foreign competition. But farmers say two recent stressors are directly tied to Trump:

1. Tariffs increased costs of fertilizer, pesticides and farm equipment, and caused market instability. The related trade wars especially hurt U.S. relations with Canada, which buys about 30% of Iowa's exports.
2. The war in Iran increased the cost of diesel by nearly 80% in Iowa, forcing farmers to bleed money, consider taking loans just to survive and limit machine use to critical levels.

👀 What to watch: Trump won Iowa by more than 13 points in 2024. But in the current Senate race, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is essentially tied in polling averages with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek.

• In the race for governor, state Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, leads Republican nominee Zach Lahn by larger margins.

Share this story.

First-term Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) — who was a tough-on-crime state attorney general, and now is vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee — has grown close to Vice President Vance and is seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate, Jim VandeHei reports in Axios C-Suite.

• We hear the VP views Schmitt, 51, as trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is obviously the Trump favorite for Vance's #2, but he doesn't seem eager for that role.

Share this intel.

Meta announced Muse for Small Businesses this morning, expanding its consumer AI agent to a new market, Axios' Ina Fried writes.

• Why it matters: Facebook's parent is moving into an area long dominated by companies such as Microsoft, bringing its viral consumer AI agent and broader AI infrastructure to businesses of all sizes.

Zoom in: Meta is pitching Muse as a digital operations layer for small businesses that often lack the time or money to hire specialists for every function.

• For example, a business owner can ask Muse to analyze sales, campaigns and social activity and develop a growth plan.
• It can also help manage cash flow and inventory, draft customer communications and create ads and other content, including by analyzing what has worked previously.
• Share this story ... Read the announcement.

🦆 Power moves: Tucker Bounds, a Meta veteran (and proud Oregonian) who first went to work in Menlo Park in 2011, was elevated to Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs.

• David Ginsberg, who held that role, is shifting to a new AI-focused innovation role as VP, Product, Insights Innovation. More from Sara Fischer.

Last night's Senate passage of the Protect College Sports Act, by an overwhelming 77-22, is the government's biggest move yet to set national rules for a college sports system transformed by athlete pay, lawsuits and competing state rules, Axios' Kate Hunter writes.

• The legislation gives the NCAA new authority over payments to college athletes for their name, image and likeness (NIL) and how often they can transfer, and limited antitrust protections to enforce those rules.
• President Trump praised the bill in a late-night post.

🏛️ What to watch: The bill faces an uncertain path in the House. If it stalls, the future of college sports will remain in the hands of courts, states, schools and athletic governing bodies.

The MLB postseason begins today with the best-of-3 wild card round — four series, 12 teams still alive and little margin for a slow start. Today's schedule:

• 2 p.m. ET: Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves (NBC)
• 5 p.m.: Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros (Peacock/NBCSN)
• 8 p.m.: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees (NBC)
• 10 p.m.: Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres (Peacock/NBCSN)

Full postseason schedule.