President Trump's improvisational and unpredictable leadership style has forced Cabinet officials, advisers and friends to develop a playbook to scuttle ideas they consider dumb, dangerous or undoable, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: White House aides, Trump's Cabinet and top CEOs often resort to indirect tricks and techniques to sway "the boss."

🚢 The current trade fight captures this reality: Lots of top administration officials have doubts about Trump's insistence on aggressive, across-the-board tariffs. Almost all CEOs privately say the overall idea, and the way it was implemented, are dumb, delusional and destructive.

• They believe America was legitimately on the edge of a Golden Age if Trump used his victory to lower taxes, cut regulations, and smartly reset global trade and investment to America's benefit.
• They saw explosive growth unfolding this year, absent an unexpected shock.

🥊 Trump is the shock they feared. His improvisational strategy and sky-high tariffs spooked almost every aspect of the global economy.

• It's now hard to reverse, especially in a timely enough manner to dull economic pain.

Inside the White House, officials employ a daily dance of trying to ease, gently nudge and flatter Trump into shifting his worldview.

• Make no mistake (and lots of people do): Trump believes as fervently in tariffs and his approach as he does in any topic he's ever pursued.
• His team has all bought in on the idea of using more tariffs. But the details of how to employ them, and when, vary widely.

💡 So the dance begins, with several specific moves:

1. The Block: Trump is notorious for reacting impulsively to the last thing he heard. So, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and those aligned with his view of winding down the trade war work hard to get alone time with Trump, away from pro-tariff warriors like Peter Navarro. Sometimes, they track physical locations of rivals to pounce on meetings with Trump.
2. The Scare: Trump is very hard to persuade after winning two elections and surviving being shot. His self-confidence and self-certainty are soaring. But he's not fully impervious to fear. That's why top officials wanted him to hear dire economic warnings from Walmart, Target and Home Depot last week — or Jamie Dimon's forecast of a potential meltdown three weeks ago. Trump's walk-back on firing Fed chair Jay Powell showed this.
3. The Glorification: This is increasingly common in trying to move Trump. Make a different idea — "We're trying to isolate China!" or "Negotiate genius deals!" — sound like it's both brilliant and Trump's. This requires using Trumpian language to make the ideas feel fresh, wise — and definitely not a capitulation.
4. The Nudge: This is next-level Trump persuasion. Trump hates being cornered — forced to compromise or surrender. So aides delicately, slowly use a combination of data points, friends, and CEOs Trump admires, to subtly and slowly move him.
5. The TV: This is an oldie but goodie for a reason — it works. Get respected CEOs on the right shows saying the right things, knowing Trump will either be watching or shown a clip.
6. The Level-Set: This is where Trump receives blunt advice, but he needs to be ready for it. Trump hit the 90-day tariff pause after the stock and bond markets revolted and after Vice President Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had multiple meetings with him. Trump also began talking about lowering the sky-high 145% tariffs on China when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told him that the U.S. will collect zero tariff revenue if there isn't trade with China at all.

🔎 Behind the scenes: Both inside and outside the White House, Trump advisers bristle at the notion that he doesn't receive blunt advice. They credit Wiles with creating an information environment where the president doesn't feel managed or limited. So she has packed Trump's schedule with meetings with CEOs, car companies and major retailers who can share their opinions.

• "She doesn't claim to have all the answers, but she orchestrates one of the most complex information flows with tremendous strategy and effectiveness," an adviser texts Axios' Marc Caputo.
• "Her goal is to ensure Trump is presented unvarnished truths so HE can make the decision. She doesn't manipulate the process to effectuate a decision. It's why he trusts her and provides her the leeway to execute."

But the adviser said some CEOs talk tough and then get wobbly when in the White House:

• "She recognizes that Trump alone, let alone Trump behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, is a tremendously intimidating presence and even the most accomplished CEOs wither in front of him."

Axios' Marc Caputo contributed reporting ... Share this column.

Tomorrow is Day 100: In just three months, President Trump has reshaped the federal government — redefining the scope of executive power, testing and defying the courts, and targeting his perceived enemies, Axios' Jacque Schrag and Natalie Daher report.

• Axios Visuals made sense of the chaos by putting our coverage and exclusive reporting since Inauguration Day into an expansive, explorable timeline.

Explore the first 100 days.

Trump administration officials began placing dozens of posters of arrested unauthorized immigrants along the White House driveway late last night, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• It's a provocative, sure-to-be-controversial move aimed at highlighting President Trump's immigration crackdown as his 100th day in office approaches.

The "roughly 100" posters were being placed strategically along "Pebble Beach," where TV news crews do live shots in front of the mansion.

• A White House official told Axios the intent is for the posters to be visible behind TV journalists reporting from those positions.

Posters positioned near the West Wing claim to show unauthorized immigrants arrested for "first-degree murder," "sexual abuse of a child," "kidnapping and rape," "murder," "rape of a child" and "distribution of fentanyl."

• Their names and precise legal statuses aren't included.

Keep reading.

At 11 a.m., D.C. and the Washington Commanders will unveil a $3 billion deal to build a new football stadium at the RFK Stadium site, Axios' Cuneyt Dil scooped.

• Why it matters: The megaproject would jumpstart construction of a new waterfront residential and entertainment hub. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser reportedly wants to kick in around $800 million in taxpayer dollars.

⚡ Catch up quick: The franchise left RFK Stadium for the Maryland suburbs in 1996 after three Super Bowl wins. But it never caught the same magic at the current Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md.

• Now the team is coming off its best regular season in 33 years with star quarterback Jayden Daniels. Owner Josh Harris wants to open the new stadium by 2030.

What to watch: It's up to the D.C. Council to approve the deal. Many lawmakers oppose sinking public money into a stadium project.

• And the city's finances are in a funk due to federal job cuts and a Congressional-mandated budget cut.

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"The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys," President Trump told The Atlantic's Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer and Jeffrey Goldberg in the Oval Office. "And the second time, I run the country and the world."

• In an earlier phone conversation, the president said: "I'm having a lot of fun, considering what I do ... You know, what I do is such serious stuff."

In the magazine's June cover story, "Donald Trump Is Enjoying This," the president says about running for a third term, which the Constitution doesn't allow:

"That would be a big shattering, wouldn't it? ... Well, maybe I'm just trying to shatter. ... It's not something that I'm looking to do. And I think it would be a very hard thing to do."

🥊 On the billionaire class prostrating before him: "It's just a higher level of respect. I don't know ... Maybe they didn't know me at the beginning, and they know me now."

• On Jeff Bezos: "He's 100 percent. He's been great ... [Mark] Zuckerberg's been great."

On SecDef Pete Hegseth: "I think he's gonna get it together."

• On a hypothetical accidental deportation of a legal resident, or even an American citizen: "Let me tell you that nothing will ever be perfect in this world."

On his interviewers: "Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they'd write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot."

• Keep reading.

Aspiring members of a new MAGA moguls club, Executive Branch, are offering to pay double the listed membership fee of $500,000 to get off the waiting list, a source close to the club tells me.

• Finishing touches are being put on the clubhouse, which is to open in Georgetown next month with a bar, lounge, restaurant and boardroom, the source tells us.
• At an announcement party on White House Correspondents' Dinner weekend, guests were offered caviar as they walked into The Occidental restaurant, near the White House.

Why it matters: The club — with Donald Trump Jr. as a lead investor, and membership tightly screened for loyalty to President Trump — will be a sumptuous retreat for rubbing shoulders with cabinet members and West Wing officials, with no danger of running into reporters or Democrats.

💰 Besides Don Jr., the owners are financier Omeed Malik; Chris Buskirk, of 1789 Capital, who's close to Vice President Vance; and Alex Witkoff and Zach Witkoff, sons of real estate developer Steve Witkoff, the president's close friend and Middle East envoy.

• Founding members include David Sacks, White House A.I. and crypto czar, and co-star of the "All-In" podcast; his "All-In" colleague Chamath Palihapitiya; superlobbyist Jeff Miller; and the Winklevoss twins, who are co-founders of a crypto platform.
• The club — which, Politico reported, aims to be the highest-end private club Washington has ever had — is getting heavy interest from "the donor community and the international community," we're told.

👀 Saturday night's party, with separate VIP and VVIP sections, drew Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FCC chair Brendan Carr, FTC chair Andrew Ferguson, SEC chair Paul Atkins, deputy FBI director Dan Bongino and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

• Also: Laura Ingraham; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt; White House deputy chiefs of staff Taylor Budowich and James Blair; Treasury's Alexandra Preate, Cora Alvi and Paras Malik; Arthur Schwartz, trusted adviser to Vance and Don Jr.; and Garrett Ventry, founder of GRV Strategies.

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Axios Local today launches Axios Boulder — the 32nd city in our coast-to-coast network of reporters covering their cities for their cities.

• San Diego was No. 30 and Pittsburgh was No. 31.

🔮 What's next: Axios Local is coming to Kansas City, Mo., and Huntsville, Ala., soon.

• Get Axios Boulder ... Find your city.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its class of '25 inductees last night. Among the new entrants: Cyndi Lauper, the White Stripes, Outkast and Bad Company.

• Ryan Seacrest announced this year's class during ABC's "American Idol." They'll be inducted on Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Outkast, the only hip-hop act among these inductees, played a major role in making Atlanta the hip-hop capital of the South, Axios Atlanta's Troy Smith, Thomas Wheatley and Kristal Dixon report.

• "In 1995, they reminded the world that the 'South got something to say,'" Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens told Axios. "Lyrics and beats that resonated beyond zip codes and modern verses that inspired and spoke for communities often without a voice."

See the full list.