President Trump is molding D.C. into his own personal Epcot — a political theme park where troops keep the peace, the White House glitters like Mar-a-Lago and museums answer to MAGA.

• Why it matters: No president has asserted such direct and sweeping control over the nation's capital. With America's 250th anniversary coming next year, Trump has claimed dominion over D.C.'s crime, culture, cleanliness — even its rats, Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil reports.

⚡ State of play: Trump's pressure campaign against D.C. leadership culminated this month in the declaration of a crime emergency and the deployment of over 2,000 National Guard troops, some of whom were seen carrying firearms this weekend.

• Up next: Trump plans to ask Congress for $2 billion to "beautify" D.C. — eyeing a massive facelift for the city's parks, fountains, streetlights, roads and more.
• Even the White House itself is being remade: Trump's gold-drenched renovations and plans for a $200 million ballroom mark the biggest changes to 1600 Penn in generations.

"I know more about grass than any human being anywhere in the world," Trump told reporters Thursday. "We're going to be re-grassing all your parks, all brand-new sprinkler systems."

• "It'll look like Augusta. It'll look like, more importantly, Trump National Golf Club," he added.

The big picture: A creature of New York's business and political world, Trump knows how power works in a big city. Over seven months, he has stacked boards and installed loyalists across the capital's cultural crown jewels:

1. 🎵 Kennedy Center: Trump allies now run the nation's performing arts hub, with the president himself — who has floated renaming it the Trump Kennedy Center — serving as chair.
2. 🏛️ Smithsonian: The White House is seeking to purge "woke" exhibits from D.C.'s iconic museums, ordering a review of all content to ensure its "alignment with American ideals."
3. 🏈 National Capital Planning Commission: White House aides lead this powerful D.C. agency, which has targeted Fed chair Jay Powell over the central bank's costly renovations. The panel can make or break major projects — including the proposed $3.7 billion Washington Commanders stadium, which Trump has threatened to derail over the team's name change.

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• New photos: Scenes from D.C. as National Guard patrols start carrying weapons.

Their words create trillion-dollar swings in markets. Their actions can determine the fates of nations.

• But among the central bankers who gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyo., last week, there was a palpable sense that their moment at the helm of the world economy may have passed, Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin reports.

The big picture: Bedrock concepts that economists hold dear — of central bank independence, reliable data collection, and technocratic decision-making — are under threat in ways that have left the global central banking community discombobulated.

👀 Zoom in: In formal proceedings at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium this weekend, there were only the subtlest of references to the Trump administration's actions that throw Fed independence and government economic data into doubt.

• But in whispered private conversations against the stunning backdrop of the Grand Tetons, there was melancholy — a fear that the war for empiricism and independence may already be lost.

🌐 Between the lines: President Trump's attacks on the Fed have stirred a sense that U.S. economic policymaking is becoming more overtly partisan and less technically rigorous than has been seen in modern times.

• The emerging market central bankers who attend the symposium, hoping to make their countries' economic governance more like the U.S., instead see the U.S. becoming more like them.

Read on.

President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Monday that aims to eliminate "cashless bail" for arrested suspects in Washington, D.C., Axios' Alex Isenstadt and Cuneyt Dil report.

• Why it matters: It's the latest step in the Trump-driven federal takeover of the capital city's law enforcement, which has put thousands of federal agents and National Guard troops on the city's streets.

💰 Under cashless bail, a suspect doesn't need to pay money to be released from custody before trial.

• Trump previewed his support for ending cashless bail in D.C. earlier this month. When he announced his decision to federalize the D.C. police force, he called the policy a "disaster."
• Analysts say such claims aren't supported by crime statistics, which show an exceedingly small percentage of defendants are arrested for violent crimes while awaiting trial.

State of play: A White House official said the executive order could threaten to withhold federal funding or government-backed project approvals from the D.C. if it doesn't end its cashless-bail policy.

• Trump wants Congress to ban cashless bail nationwide. Critics say Congress has no authority to decide how states handle bail. But lawmakers could tie it to federal funding.

Read on.

Rahm Emanuel to Dana Bash on CNN's "State of the Union," about the upcoming second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, hostage-taking by Hamas, and next month's Rosh Hashanah, beginning the Jewish High Holy Days:

"I think the Israeli government ... has to make a decision [on negotiations]: Will these young [people] who were taken hostage spend the Jewish holiday, the second year in a row, in a tunnel or in a temple? Will they be with their captors or be with their community?"

The Trump administration's crackdown on gender-affirming care is expanding rapidly as officials investigate hospitals, cut off benefits for federal workers and their dependents, and pick new fights with states.

• Why it matters: The latest moves could put hospitals and other providers in the middle of a showdown between federal power and patient privacy protections — or even force health providers to break their own state laws, Axios' Maya Goldman reports.

🔭 Driving the news: Federal court filings made public last week revealed the Justice Department has subpoenaed hospitals for extensive data surrounding transition-related care for individuals under 19 provided since the beginning of 2020.

• The demands included the Social Security numbers of patients who were prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

Also last week, the Office of Personnel Management stripped coverage of gender-affirming care from federal workers beginning next year. That exempts mental health treatment and certain ongoing hormonal treatment.

• Last Monday, the FBI announced that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey would come on as co-deputy director. Bailey launched several initiatives, with varying success, in Missouri to limit gender-affirming care for kids and adults.

The other side: "Putting an end to child mutilation, protecting girls' sports, and reasserting the reality of biology have been Day One priorities for the Trump administration," White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai told us.

• Keep reading.

While the Trump administration has failed so far to end the war in Gaza, it has found slow but steady success in two other war-ravaged Middle Eastern countries.

• Why it matters: The administration's diplomatic efforts in Syria and Lebanon have generated scant attention in Washington and in the news cycle. But they hold the potential for truly historic developments, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

🖼️ The big picture: They're part of a string of low-profile diplomatic breakthroughs, including the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal signed in Washington three weeks ago, even as Trump struggles to get a deal in Ukraine and Gaza.

• A U.S. official noted a pattern: The progress was made without much personal intervention by Trump, but by envoys invoking his name and convincing countries they'll improve their standing by making a deal.

Trump's team decided to give strong backing to two new leaders — Syria's militant-turned-president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Lebanon's president and former army chief, Joseph Aoun.

🇸🇾 Trump made a surprise announcement in May that he'd lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, then appointed U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack — Trump's close friend for 40 years — as envoy to Syria.

• Barrack was given the thorny tasks of rebuilding U.S.-Syria relations, stabilizing the situation in the country, and working on a potential peace deal between Syria and Israel. This summer, he convened the first high-level diplomatic meeting between the countries since Bill Clinton oversaw peace talks in 2000.

🇱🇧 Barrack was also handed the Lebanon file two months ago. Three weeks ago, the Lebanese government launched a process to address the key U.S. demand: disarming Hezbollah.

• Keep reading.

Tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal tells Axios' Dan Primack that he's joining the crowded race for California governor, as a Democrat "who believes in capitalism."

• Why it matters: Silicon Valley has entered the chat.

State of play: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is term-limited. At least a dozen candidates have announced for next June's open primary.

• Agarwal, 40, who lives in the Bay Area, has lined up fundraising events held by such local luminaries as Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang.
• Agarwal also has local bona fides, having founded and sold two startups that had raised over $100 million from VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz.

🔭 The big picture: Listen to Agarwal talk, and you might think he co-authored "Abundance."

• He bemoans rules, regulations and fees that have cost California everything from film productions to autonomous vehicle testing.

The bottom line: Agarwal has a steep uphill climb, with virtually no statewide name recognition. He even acknowledges that other tech execs might make more sense to carry the capitalist flag, but that they're billionaires with "much more to lose."

• Expect him to target young voters, Indian American voters, and tech workers.

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When "The Wizard of Oz at Sphere" movie opens off the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday, audiences will experience an immersive version of the 1939 classic, showcasing Hollywood's latest use of AI tools, Reuters reports:

• The film has been enhanced to fill the Sphere's 160,000-square-foot wall of LED panels, spanning three football fields. The film encircles the audience and reaches 22 stories high, as 750-horsepower fans kick up wind and debris to simulate the twister.

"To take advantage of Sphere Immersive Sound's 167,000 programmable speakers, and ability to direct sound anywhere in the venue, the original film's score was re-recorded to take on new clarity," the Sphere says.

• "Multi-sensory 4D elements will be combined and leveraged for maximum impact to make audiences feel like they are in the experience alongside the characters, including high-velocity wind arrays, atmospheric fog, towering fire bursts, and infrasound haptic seats."

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