Axios AM

May 19, 2025
Good Monday morning. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,829 words ... 7 mins. Thanks to Noah Bressner for orchestrating. Edited by Shane Savitsky and Bryan McBournie.
🎤 If you're in D.C.: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will join me Wednesday evening for an onstage conversation at an Axios event on AI, trade and the new economic playbook. Request an invite.
🏛️ Situational awareness: Republican lawmakers advanced President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" out of the House Budget Committee at 10:40 p.m., after Speaker Mike Johnson convinced a group of hardliners to drop their opposition. Go deeper.
1 big thing: Trump's tariff reality
The Trump administration conceded this weekend what economists, CEOs and consumers long knew: Americans pay for tariffs, Axios managing editor for business Ben Berkowitz writes.
Why it matters: Nearly a decade of Trump trade arguments held that foreign countries, not Americans, paid the ultimate cost of a trade war.
- But the president and his economic team now acknowledge that tariffs are raising prices for everyone, from industrial ports to retail storefronts.
🖼️ The big picture: Trump's sweeping global tariffs, effectively the highest in nearly a century, are expected to cost the average household more than $2,300 a year, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
- Even companies that once promised to hold the line on those costs, including Walmart, now say they have no choice but to pass them along.
- Inflation may be benign for now. But experts are increasingly convinced that higher prices are only a matter of time.
🛒 After Walmart said this week it would raise prices, a furious Trump insisted on Truth Social on Saturday that the company "eat the tariffs" — a concession that someone this side of the border had to pay something, somehow.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then went on Sunday shows yesterday and said that while Walmart would eat some of the tariffs, consumers would have to pay, too.
The intrigue: It was only May 11 that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisted people had to drop the "silly arguments" that consumers would pay the costs of trade levies.
- Four days later, the country's largest retailer said that's exactly what they'd have to do.
🛣️ Between the lines: Bessent said yesterday that while consumer prices may rise due to tariffs, people will see even bigger benefits from the falling price of gasoline.
- He argued it was effectively a tax cut for consumers, and would help keep inflation in line.
🥊 Reality check: With the average American vehicle using a little under 500 gallons of gas a year, and gas prices per gallon being a little over 40¢ cheaper today than a year ago, the average driver is looking at an annual savings of around $200 per car.
- That's a fraction of what budget experts estimate tariffs will cost households.
2. 🇮🇱 Scoop: Why Vance skipped Israel visit

Vice President Vance considered traveling to Israel tomorrow but decided against it due to the expansion of Israel's military operation in Gaza, a senior U.S. official told Axios' Barak Ravid.
- Why it matters: The U.S. official said Vance made the decision because he didn't want his trip to suggest the Trump administration endorsed the Israeli decision to launch a massive operation at a time when the U.S. is pushing for a ceasefire and hostage deal.
Between the lines: This isn't about publicly pressuring Israel. Vance officially cited "logistical" reasons for passing on the visit.
- But his decision sheds light on how the U.S. feels about the current Israeli policy in Gaza.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to sign any agreement that would end the war, and has shown little flexibility in negotiations.
👀 Behind the scenes: On Saturday, the Trump administration informed the Israeli government that Vance was considering stopping in Israel after attending the pope's inauguration, Israeli officials say.
- Additional discussions took place yesterday between U.S. and Israeli officials to prepare for Vance's visit. Reports soon popped up in the Israeli press that Vance might arrive tomorrow.
- Several hours later, a White House official denied the reports in a statement and said that "logistical constraints have precluded an extension of his travel beyond Rome."
The intrigue: A U.S. official with knowledge of what actually happened during those several hours told Axios logistics weren't the issue.
- While Vance was deliberating, concerns were raised that a trip to Israel at this time would be perceived by Israel and countries in the region as validation for Israel's expanded operation.
At that point, Vance decided not to go. Keep reading.

Above: Vice President Vance — a convert to Catholicism — shook hands and later met with Pope Leo XIV after attending the pope's inaugural Mass at the Vatican yesterday.
- The vice president also had a private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Rome — their first encounter since the Oval Office blowup in February.
3. Biden diagnosed with prostate cancer

Former President Biden was diagnosed late last week with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, his personal office said in a statement:
Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone. While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.
Between the lines: Gleason scores — ranging from two to 10 — are a grading system used for prostate cancer, Axios' Avery Lotz and Rebecca Falconer write.
- The 82-year-old's office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive.

The diagnosis prompted an outpouring of support from across the political spectrum.
- Former President Obama wrote: "I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace."
- Former Vice President Kamala Harris said: "Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership."

Author Mike Grunwald took this photo of then-Vice President Biden with a Metro Transit driver in St. Paul in 2016.
- Grunwald says the way Biden "tries so hard to connect with everyone he meets has always touched me. I hope he gets well soon. He's been through a lot."
4. 🔬 Biden's Cancer Moonshot legacy

Cancer Moonshot, an initiative designed to improve treatments and combat rates of the disease, was one of former President Biden's most personal ambitions during his time in office, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.
State of play: The Obama White House announced Cancer Moonshot in 2016 "to eliminate cancer as we know it" and kickstarted the national program with $1 billion in research funding.
- It became known as the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative, in honor of Biden's son who died in 2015 from brain cancer.
Biden relaunched the program in 2022 with the goals of reducing the age-adjusted death rate from cancer by 50% over 25 years and "making a decade's worth of progress in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in five years," per a National Cancer Institute (NCI) post.
- Tens of millions in funding has gone toward cancer programs since then, including $150 million last year to develop technologies that the Biden White House said would help with tumor-removal surgeries.
- Cancer Moonshot has "supported 250 research projects and more than 70 programs and consortia," according to a NCI post that was last updated in April.
"After Beau died, I literally visited every major cancer research facility in the world — seven of them around the world. I wanted to see what was possible, and I did," then-President Biden said last September, according to recorded remarks of his speech before world leaders and scientists to announce the Quad Cancer Moonshot in his home state of Delaware.
🌕 Among the accomplishments the NCI lists the Cancer Moonshot achieving are expanding prevention drives, developing "new enabling cancer technologies to characterize tumors and test therapies" and intensifying research into the leading causes of childhood cancers.
5. 💔 Kentucky's tornado heartbreak

Residents in Kentucky and Missouri sifted through damage in tornado-stricken neighborhoods, still on edge for more severe weather after storms that killed more than two dozen people swept through parts of the Midwest and South.
- Meteorologists predicted a fresh "multi-day" mix of dangerous weather conditions across the nation's midsection with heavy rains, thunderstorms and potential tornadoes.

6. 🎯 RFK Jr.'s next target
After targeting dyes and other chemicals allowed for use in food, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is zeroing in on the active ingredient in Roundup in his bid to root out what he calls environmental toxins that contribute to chronic disease, Axios' Tina Reed writes.
- Why it matters: Herbicide glyphosate is expected to feature prominently in a report due out this week from President Trump's Make America Healthy Again Commission, which was charged with identifying top contributors to America's chronic health problems.
🔭 Zoom in: In a speech last week, White House senior health adviser Calley Means previewed the report's findings, pointing to chemical pesticides as contributors to Americans' poor health.
- "Obviously it's because of environmental toxins. We produce and ingest 25% of the world's pesticides," Means said.
Between the lines: Some warn that clamping down on pesticides could cause major disruption of the food supply, with repercussions for agricultural interests and consumers.
7. 🏈 Stat du jour: 10 NFL channels
During the 2025 NFL season, football fans will be able to find games on 10 different channels and streaming services:
- CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, NFL Network, ESPN, Netflix, YouTube, Prime and Peacock. (The Athletic)
📺 State of play: YouTube will exclusively stream one early-season game — Chargers vs. Chiefs, Sept. 5 — that's being played in São Paulo, Brazil, for free.
- Netflix is the home of a Christmas double-header — and it's reportedly interested in more broadcasts it could "eventize."
- Peacock will stream a Dec. 27 game billed as a "Peacock Holiday Exclusive."
Go deeper: NFL's record seven international games feature back-to-back games for Minnesota Vikings in Dublin and London.
8. 🔎 1 for the road: Google's life lessons

More than ever before, adults are looking online for help with the day-to-day life skills that once might have been taught in home economics classes or handed down from elders, Axios' Chelsea Brasted writes.
- Why it matters: When we need help, we're not asking mom or dad. We're increasingly asking Google.
🛠️ The latest: Searches for things like "how to clean bathroom vent," "how to use a mop" or "how to do oil change" have reached an all-time high on Google this year, according to the search engine's data.
Zoom out: It's not just Google teaching us how to care for our cars and homes.
- By 2018, more than half of U.S. YouTube users were already saying they used the platform for "figuring out how to do things they haven't done before," according to Pew Research data.
- Cleaning trends remain one of the most popular content categories on TikTok.
📬 Thanks for reading! Please invite your friends to join AM.
Sign up for Axios AM




