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Republicans didn't decide to become President Trump's party. They surrendered to him, one stage at a time, over a decade, in plain sight, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Democrats swear that socialism's growing grip on their party is different and can be contained. The early signals suggest otherwise.

Why it matters: Party transformations follow a predictable six-stage evolution — recoil, squint, rationalize, submit, amplify and purge. Each stage has a language you can hear long before you see it in the votes. Republicans just finished the full cycle. Democrats might be starting it.

Watch how the language shifts, stage by stage, for signs of whether recent socialist wins are an anomaly, or the start of something bigger and broader.

• Stage 1: Recoil. Denounce, by name. Lindsey Graham called Trump a "kook" who was unfit for office. Ted Cruz called him a "pathological liar." That was 2016. Both later defended him against the exact words they coined.
• Stage 2: Squint. Support without looking. "I haven't seen the tweet" became the go-to response of House and Senate Republicans in Trump's first term when they were asked about the latest storm. Some did the binary dodge: "The other side is worse."
• Stage 3: Rationalize. This is the "yes, but" stage: "I don't love the style, but the judges ... the tax cuts ... the border ... He's a fighter." This is where accommodation becomes the norm, and the need to win trumps style or tactics.
• Stage 4: Submit. Dissent becomes career-ending. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said on the floor that Trump "bears responsibility" for Jan. 6. Two weeks later, McCarthy flew to Mar-a-Lago to make peace. In less than three years, he'd been ousted as speaker. Silence becomes political survival.
• Stage 5: Amplify. Fully adopt the vocabulary, the style, the maximal claims. Try to out-Trump Trump. After privately calling Trump "America's Hitler" in 2016, JD Vance is now vice president. And routinely seeks to show his Trumpiness. That's almost every Republican now.
• Stage 6: Purge. Actively work to oust anyone who disagrees. You either fully accept and amplify, or get exiled. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — gone. This year alone, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was beaten in a Trump-backed primary, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) chose retirement over humiliation, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) drew a primary challenger (and lost to him) after voting with Trump 99% of the time.

🔭 Zoom out and in: With socialism, the Democratic base moved first, as the base always does. Gallup found last year that Democrats viewed socialism more positively than capitalism by 24 points — the widest gap on record, and sharpest among younger voters.

• All three candidates New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed won their June 23 House primaries, defeating two incumbents: Brad Lander over Rep. Dan Goldman, Claire Valdez over Brooklyn's borough president, and Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat — the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair, backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• Sit with that: A Jeffries-endorsed incumbent lost to a democratic socialist. That's Stage 4 machinery switching on, with the primary electorate punishing the establishment side of the fight.
• It's not just New York. In Colorado, 29-year-old democratic socialist Melat Kiros toppled 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette, who leans progressive.

Now listen to the language: "It's not socialism, it's affordability" is the left's "It's not the tweets, it's the judges." Textbook early sign of Stage 3.

• Bill Daley — former Commerce Secretary and White House chief of staff — told us Democrats can't rationalize a candidate saying: "Oh, I didn't mean it when I said or agreed with a crazy idea a while ago." Instead, Daley said, they need to aggressively denounce "out-of-mainstream ideas and plans," and go after actual socialists by "shoving that platform up their noses."
• In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal warning Dems of the "Tea-Party Trap" that befell the GOP, Daley wrote: "Democrats are fooling themselves if they think a similar hijacking can't happen to their party."

The counterpoint: Socialism is widely seen by most elected Democrats as political poison. So this moment could prove fleeting. Four reasons for this:

1. Socialism has no enforcer yet. Trump ended careers personally. An idea can't, unless someone becomes the idea. Mamdani endorsing, campaigning and toppling incumbents is what an enforcer looks like in beta. But it's hard to see Bernie Sanders or AOC taking this national.
2. The far left has no Fox News synchronizing base and elites. In fact, it's safe to assume The New York Times, The Atlantic and MS NOW will resist socialism, at least initially. But watch for the formation of a media ecosystem to counter them. Politics is downstream from information flow and currents.
3. Transmission is slower. Democratic voters, broadly speaking, are institutionalists. Republican voters wanted demolition. Submission to an insurgency may have a lower ceiling on the left.
4. Socialists need to clear general-election hurdles, as Trump did. If socialist nominees cost Democrats swing seats in November, expect the Iraq-style reversal and recoil to come roaring back.

👀 What to watch:

1. The language: Do swing-district Democrats start saying "democratic socialist" without flinching or keep laundering it as "affordability"? Laundering means Stage 3.
2. The endorsement lag: How long do Jeffries and Chuck Schumer stall on Mamdani-wing nominees this fall? Jeffries' slow-walk on Mamdani himself last year was textbook squint.
3. The Liz Cheney test: Does a Democrat lose a primary specifically for attacking the socialist wing? That's the Stage 4 gateway.
4. Copycat: Do 2028 hopefuls adopt the rent freezes and public groceries they mocked in 2019? Stage 5: Language + policies.
5. Retirements: Do moderate Democrats retire rather than adapt?

That's Stage 6 starting.

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Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Trump in the Oval Office today for the eighth time since Trump returned to office. Bibi arrives weaker and less influential than the previous seven times, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

• Why it matters: On Feb. 28, when Trump and Netanyahu went to war together, it looked like there was no daylight between them. Exactly five months later, their interests have diverged. Bad blood and frustration have deepened as they've grown suspicious of each other's intentions.

🔎 Behind the scenes: In the first few months of the war, Trump and Netanyahu spoke almost every day to coordinate and exchange views. In recent weeks, their phone calls have become increasingly infrequent.

• Netanyahu started leaning more on Secretary of State Marco Rubio for updates on Trump's thinking, sources say.
• Netanyahu even struggled to get on Trump's schedule for today's sit-down. Bibi wanted to come to the White House last week but couldn't get an appointment.

👓 Between the lines: Netanyahu is deeply unpopular in Washington these days — among Democrats, Trump's close circle and the MAGA base.

• In public, Trump says his relationship with Netanyahu is still very good. In private, though, Trump has expressed frustration with the Israeli leader.
• Many senior officials in Trump's inner circle have come to view Netanyahu with disdain, arguing he was consistently wrong about the war.
• Numerous U.S. officials, including Vance, have accused Netanyahu of making rosy predictions that didn't pan out.

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AI revenue is accelerating so fast that it's starting to dwarf some of the world's most recognizable brands, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes.

• Why it matters: AI infrastructure spending forecasts that run into the trillions of dollars start to make at least a little more sense when investors see how they're paying off.

🧮 By the numbers: OpenAI and Anthropic, combined, are on track for an annual revenue rate of about $120 billion, "Key Context" Substack author Tae Kim noted yesterday.

• Both would make the Fortune 500's top 100 companies by revenue, according to data from AI investment research platform Funda. Keep reading.

📈 Charted above: Apple reclaims the title of the world's most valuable public company, Axios' Matt Phillips writes.

• It's a sign that investors are keeping some distance from companies making giant bets on AI infrastructure — even longtime favorites like Nvidia.
• Apple got flak last year for its seeming lack of an ambitious AI strategy.

President Trump visited GM's sprawling Milford Proving Ground in Michigan yesterday to promote his tariffs and their impact on auto manufacturing.

• The visit included a tour and a trio of drag races with muscle cars and luxury vehicles, including the Corvette Z06, Cadillac Escalade V and EV Hummer.

Above: Trump signs a Corvette during a tour of the facility in suburban Detroit.

• Go deeper.

President Trump's economic assault on Iran has drawn a fraction of the attention devoted to his bombing campaign, even as senior U.S. officials believe it may ultimately do more damage to the regime in Tehran, Axios' Marc Caputo writes.

• Why it matters: U.S. intelligence and open-source media reports point to a deepening economic crisis inside Iran, including gasoline shortages in one of the world's most oil-rich countries.

A senior administration official told us: "The Iranians want to stop being bombed and they want money. But that's almost in reverse order. They really want the money first."

• "Intelligence is picking up that the Iranians are complaining they can't pay their fighters," that official said. "Why? Because of the financial pressures. Because of Treasury."
• A second U.S. official acknowledged that sanctions and the U.S. naval blockade will take longer to force Tehran to the table than a full-scale bombing campaign, which Trump has so far declined to authorize.

Keep reading.

President Trump's controversial "self-deportation" program, which pays unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S., is on pace to account for more than 200,000 departures, according to internal data shared with Axios' Brittany Gibson.

• Why it matters: Launched last year alongside a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, the initiative is virtually the only carrot in an aggressive immigration crackdown that has been long on sticks.

Through July 16, the nearly $600 million program — dubbed Project Homecoming by the Department of Homeland Security — has helped about 132,000 people exit the U.S.

• Roughly 70,000 more have signed up and are on track to leave, according to the data.

🖼️ The big picture: The self-deportation program is a key part of the administration's push to remove 1 million unauthorized immigrants from the U.S. each year.

• The idea was to offer unauthorized immigrants free travel and $1,000 to leave voluntarily rather than risk arrest and detention. The stipend has increased to $2,600.

Keep reading.

Out this morning: Amazon toppled Walmart to take the No. 1 spot in the Fortune Global 500 ranking of the biggest companies in the world by revenue.

• Walmart held the top spot for 12 straight years.

The top 10:

1. Amazon (U.S.)
2. Walmart (U.S.)
3. State Grid (China)
4. UnitedHealth Group (U.S.)
5. Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)
6. Apple (U.S.)
7. McKesson (U.S.)
8. Alphabet (U.S.)
9. CVS Health (U.S.)
10. China National Petroleum (China)

🇺🇸 Between the lines: The U.S. has the most companies on the list — 141 — since 2008. China is in second with 122 companies, its lowest since 2018.

• Explore the list.

Monthly ridership on the Long Island Rail Road surpassed pre-pandemic levels — the first time any of New York's transit or rail lines has exceeded pre-COVID numbers for an entire month, Bloomberg reports.

• About 7.9 million riders used the LIRR in June, up from 7.7 million the same month in 2019.
• The surge coincided with two big events: the Knicks' championship parade through lower Manhattan and the U.S. Open in the Hamptons, where the LIRR added a temporary station.

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