Axios AM

May 21, 2023
🥞 Good morning! Erica Pandey — @erica_pandey — is your Sunday steward.
- Smart Brevity™ count: 1,058 words ... 4 mins. Edited by Kate Nocera.
1 big thing: Trump's 2025 vision, revealed
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photos: Mandel Ngan (AFP)/Getty Images
Former President Trump has revealed second-term plans that would give him, as president, more control of virtually every facet of American life, Axios' Sophia Cai writes.
⚡ Why it matters: Trump, who has a wide lead in early polls for the ‘24 GOP nomination, complains about Washington's "swamp.” But his statements, speeches and videos lay out a ‘25 vision for a dramatic expansion of federal power.
- Federal workforce: He wants to give the president the authority to hire and fire federal workers at will.
- Education: Trump wants to fire "radical left" officials who accredit universities, reward schools that abolish tenure for teachers, eliminate many college administrators and remove diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
- Law enforcement/intelligence: Trump — who's facing a range of criminal charges — said after he was indicted in New York that he wanted to "defund" the Justice Department and the FBI.
- Crime: Trump wants to use the U.S. military to go after drug cartels and street crime.
- Guns: Trump wants national concealed carry reciprocity, which would allow people with a concealed carry permit in their home state to have that privilege in any other state.
🥊 Reality check: Many of Trump's ideas are outlined in broad strokes, without details of how they'd be implemented or funded.
2. 📺 Writers strike could reshape fall
A demonstrator chooses from a pile of signs during a Writers Guild rally in front of The Walt Disney Company studio last week. Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP
It's crunch time to prepare new TV episodes for the fall — but the writers strike, ongoing for the last three weeks, is pushing networks to make contingency plans.
- CBS and NBC released fall schedules as usual, knowing that shifting gears is a possibility, AP reports.
- Fox didn't bother announcing a schedule.
- ABC released a fall schedule that relies almost exclusively on unscripted programming.
🖼️ The big picture: If the strike lasts into the summer, look for networks to lean into reality TV.
- CBS, for example, could offer expanded versions of shows like “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race” and “Big Brother,” prime-time versions of game shows like “The Price is Right” or “Let's Make a Deal,” and reruns of scripted shows from previous years.
3. 🏛️ Biden teases 14th Amendment authority
Biden at a G7 event on global infrastructure and investment. Photo: Susan Walsh/Getty Images
President Biden chided House Republicans today for their debt ceiling proposal and called on them to "move from their extreme positions," Axios' Erin Doherty reports.
- "Much of what they've already proposed is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable," Biden said from Hiroshima, Japan, on the last day of the G7 summit.
🔭 What to watch: The president, who has previously said that he'd consider invoking the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling without an act of Congress, said today that he thinks he has the "authority" to do so.
- "The question is could it be done and invoked in time that it would not be appealed as a consequence past the date in question," Biden said.
- Republicans have said they oppose the idea, and any attempt to circumvent the debt ceiling would likely face a lengthy court battle.
4. 🇺🇦 Pic du jour

President Biden announced a new $375 million military aid package to Ukraine during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, today.
- The package includes training, ammunition, artillery and armored vehicles.

"Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine's back and I promise we're not going anywhere," Biden told Zelenskyy.
5. 💰 Bad banker behavior
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Bankers are better behaved when they work from home and engage in an astonishing amount of financial misconduct when they work from the office, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.
- That's the message from a new paper examining misconduct reports at a top-5 UK bank.
📈 By the numbers: The researchers looked at misconduct reports filed on 162 traders working during lockdown, between March 2020 and March 2021.
- The traders who worked from home had an annualized 7.3% chance of triggering a misconduct alert.
- For the traders who worked from the office, that probability soared to an eye-popping 37.6%.
The bottom line: The researchers put forward a few reasons why working from home might reduce misconduct, including less access to inside information and market rumors.
- The main one is that unethical conduct seems to be contagious. Take a trader away from unethical traders, and they're less likely to behave unethically on their own.
6. ✈️ First class gets bigger
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Major U.S. airlines are expanding premium seating by up to 75%, The New York Times reports.
🖼️ The big picture: As the pandemic eased and leisure travelers returned to the skies after months or years of not spending cash on travel, they were more willing to shell out for comfier seats, more legroom and better meals.
- Case in point: United has slashed economy class seats on some of its international flights to up the number of business class seats from 30 to 46.
- By 2026, United plans to have 75% more premium seats on its flights than it did in 2019. American Airlines will have 45% more.
🥊 Reality check: These long haul changes are poised to make travel even less affordable.
- "In early May, a sample round-trip from New York to Los Angeles on the three major airlines for the first week of June started at about $300 for economy, $900 for premium economy and $1,200 for business," The Times notes.
7. 📟 Pager die-hards

Pagers are nearly defunct, but they have die-hard fans who refuse to let them go, The Wall Street Journal reports.
📉 Stunning stat: "The nation’s leading paging company, Spok, says it has at least 800,000 pagers in use across the country."
- "The company had 6.6 million pagers in use in 2004."
The die-hards include doctors, bird-watchers and people who find the low-tech communication refreshing compared with phones that are decked out with apps and constantly pinging with notifications.
- “They’re like the cockroaches of the healthcare system ... They won't go away,” Meredith Barrett, a doctor and professor at the University of Michigan told The Journal.
8. 🍩 1 fun thing: Treat yourself

Target will start selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts as part of a larger strategy by the doughnut company to get into more big retail and restaurant chains, Axios Twin Cities' Nick Halter writes.
- The pilot will begin in Dallas-area Target stores, with plans to expand.
The idea is to ship fresh doughnuts daily to Target, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
- Walmart and McDonald's are also experimenting with selling the popular doughnuts.
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