This is Axios CEO Jim VandeHei's plan to help CEOs and other leaders navigate this moment. This call to action, which got a sneak peek over the weekend in his C-Suite newsletter, is a follow-up to our column yesterday, "The Rattled Generation."

• Watch Jim's video.

Americans have lost faith in almost every binding institution and leader — except the CEO.

• The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer is unambiguous. "My employer" is the most trusted institution on Earth at 78% — more trusted than government, media or organized religion.

Why it matters: This isn't a trophy. It's an obligation. Business leaders have an urgent call to fill the leadership void.

Jamie Dimon told me in March that CEOs have a duty to step up. He's right. As a CEO myself, I drafted some tips for others in the C-suite to do this — not to moralize, but because the business case for leadership has never been cleaner:

🎙️ 1. Level with your people. We're not politicians. We shouldn't pretend to be. But our microphones are bigger and more trusted than at any point in a generation.

• Tell the truth — about the economy, about the business, about jobs. Our people are hungry for wisdom and direction. Acknowledge honestly where we're falling short.
• If government, churches and the media were trusted, we could focus on just running our companies. They're not. So we can't.

🦾 2. Speak plainly about AI. AI will create extraordinary wealth and disrupt nearly every job in nearly every company, fast.

• Too many leaders are silent because they're confused themselves. Our employees deserve better. We need to master AI to explain it to others. And then talk about it transparently.
• One lesson I learned this past year: Most people get enthusiastic and engaged in AI when we discuss it candidly and give them the tools and training to experiment. Be honest about your commitment to retrain, redeploy and do right by the people whose work changes most.

🧭 3. Model strong moral leadership — and talk about it. This country functions when leaders demonstrate humility, competence and the will to do hard things.

• People often aren't hearing that at home, in school or on social media. We can fill the void — not with politics, but with character: Honesty. Hard work. Respect. Personal responsibility. Every durable institution in human history was built on that foundation. Talking about universal, good business values is good business.

🎯 4. Reward competence. Don't be performative about your people. Don't reflexively overcorrect. Just be real about demanding and rewarding competence and fairness for all — where the best people win, the pool is as wide as the country itself, and every employee knows the rules apply equally.

• That's how free-market capitalism works best. It's also how we get the most out of the most talented people.

🇺🇸 5. Celebrate America with clear eyes. Anyone with kids or who spends time on college campuses sees the erosion of faith in and love for the country. Schools dance around it. Social media mocks it. No one is filling the void.

• That patriotic decay is a threat to every business here because it atrophies the country's civic muscles. We shouldn't be blind cheerleaders, but reminding our teams how we got here — and what it has meant to humanity — is one of the best uses of our voice. I try to do this in every speech these days.

🏗️ 6. Think bigger. We compete hard — both against each other and against rivals who wish us ill — but the greatest American companies were always built with the country, never against it.

• Engage with government as a citizen, not a lobbyist. Build here where it makes sense. Invest in the "forgotten" talent pools, like veterans, apprentices or those in the ZIP codes or neighborhoods we usually fly over.
• Run your company for the long-term interest of America, not the next quarter. Good business and patriotism must coexist.

What CEOs can do right now:

• The litmus test: Send this to your inner circle with one question, "Are we leading, or are we just managing?"
• The unfiltered town hall: Schedule a session to talk about the state of the union — the company's and the country's broadly, not politically — without a script. Lean into the moment in a way that fits your style and aspirations.
• The "one" move: Identify one smart investment in people, like a local factory or an AI training program, and green-light it fast. Explain how it fits into your leadership philosophy and responsibility.
• Pass it on: You only make a difference at scale with scale. Every business leader, from a two-person plumbing shop to Nvidia, has the power to make others better and more engaged. Hell, teachers, community leaders and parents are trusted and can help, too.

The bottom line: None of this matters if it ends with words. Every business leader can take small actions that make a big difference to those hungry for leadership and guidance.

• 📱 Share this column … Watch Jim's video.

📬 Share your thoughts on this call to action: [email protected].

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

President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel's escalation in Lebanon during an expletive-laden call yesterday, Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo report.

• Summarizing Trump's remarks to Netanyahu, a U.S. official said: "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
• A second source briefed on the call said Trump was "pissed" and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: "What the fuck are you doing?"

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Anthropic looks like the strongest of the three AI giants aiming to go public this year with $1 trillion-plus valuations, at least for now, Axios' Lucinda Shen and Madison Mills write:

• Anthropic — which filed to go public yesterday — is on track for nearly $50 billion in annual revenue and its first ever profitable quarter.
• Anthropic keeps beating its own growth metrics, while competitor OpenAI is reportedly missing internal revenue targets.

Both are growing faster than SpaceX, whose AI business is now driven by compute sales to Anthropic.

• Anthropic is the fastest-growing company in modern American history.

🥊 Reality check: The AI race has seen leadership change every few months.

• Companies — Anthropic's biggest customers — are waking up to how much they're spending on Claude. If they dial down AI spending, that could weaken the AI lab's revenue just as it prepares to go public.
• Go deeper: Anthropic faces AI spending backlash … Get Axios Pro Deals.

💰 Speaking of AI riches: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) argues in a New York Times op-ed that the public should own half of America's biggest AI companies.

• Sanders says he'll introduce the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, to impose a one-time 50% tax on OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI — paid with their stock.

"Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity," Sanders writes.

• Keep reading (gift link).

The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party is on the ballot today, with at least a half-dozen primaries across the country testing which wing of the party has the most juice heading into the 2026 midterms, Axios' Holly Otterbein writes.

• Three races to watch:

1. Iowa's Senate primary: Democrats see a rare pickup opportunity in deep-red Iowa. Moderate state lawmaker and Paralympic gold medalist Josh Turek is favored over progressive Zach Wahls. A Turek victory would be a win for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a frequent target of Wahls.
2. California's open primary for governor: In this state's "jungle primary," the top two candidates, regardless of party, will advance to November. The leading Democrats are billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. A Trump-endorsed Republican, Steve Hilton, is also in the mix.
3. California's 11th Congressional District: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan to fill her seat. Other leading contenders include leftist Saikat Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to AOC, and state Sen. Scott Wiener, who's seen as more moderate.

Keep reading.

🔎 Primary previews: California … Iowa … Montana … N.J. … N.M. … South Dakota.

Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of "60 Minutes," faces a crisis of confidence as senior CBS News staffers openly rebuke his appointment amid broader backlash to changes at the show and network, Axios media expert Sara Fischer writes.

• Why it matters: "60 Minutes" has spent more than 50 consecutive seasons as the top-rated news program in the country. Insiders credit its insular culture within CBS News with preserving its editorial sanctity.

Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley told Bilton yesterday that he had "slender" qualifications for his role, and that the program was being "murdered" by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, the N.Y. Times reports.

• The exchange occurred during Bilton's first meeting with members of the "60 Minutes" team in New York City.

The intrigue: A source familiar with the network's inner workings said Bilton reached out to Pelley directly before the meeting, but his outreach went unanswered.

• Keep reading … Get Axios Media Trends.

Knowledge workers now make up roughly one-fifth of Codex users and are growing more than three times as fast as developers, according to a new OpenAI report shared first with Axios' Megan Morrone.

• Codex, OpenAI's platform for coding and workplace tasks, now has more than 4 million weekly active users — up more than five times since OpenAI launched a desktop app version in February.

The fastest-growing tasks among knowledge workers are data analysis (+110% week over week), research (+37%) and knowledge artifacts — reports, memos, docs, contracts, multimedia assets, PDFs and spreadsheets (+36%).

• Keep reading.

Morph, an AI company coming out of stealth today, says it's tackling one of the next frontiers in technology: not just bringing it to the physical world, but in a way that flexibly adapts — inspired by the octopus.

• Why it matters: Today's LLMs, as fast as they're advancing, still haven't fully bridged the gap to the way we move and build.

How it works: Morph, based in London, describes itself as a "physically intelligent soft robotics platform." It says it's launching the "world's first shape-shifting soft robotics cells platform to bring physical AI into real-world applications."

• The company's investors include Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale's 8VC and Equinox Group executive chairman Harvey Spevak, among others.

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Former President Obama is out this morning with an essay on Abraham Lincoln for "In Pursuit" — a history project from the nonprofit civic group More Perfect, marking America's 250th birthday — arguing that the country's hardest problems can only be solved as a union.

• Obama writes that near the end of the Civil War, Lincoln called on Americans to "move forward without malice, realizing that a lasting union required not only victory, but restraint; not only strength, but a sense of shared obligation to one another."

🔬 Zoom in: Obama, whose presidential library opens this month, traces that conviction across four other presidents:

1. George Washington "led farmers, craftsmen, and shopkeepers to rise up against an empire."
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt built "an arsenal of democracy" and "the largest middle class in history with the GI Bill."
3. Dwight Eisenhower created an interstate system that "knit together cities and towns."
4. John F. Kennedy "sent us to the Moon."

Read the full essay.