One of the big reasons President Trump is limiting AP reporters' White House access is to protest what aides see as years of liberal word choices that the wire service's influential stylebook spread across mainstream media, top White House officials tell Axios' Marc Caputo.

• Why it matters: The trigger was the announcement by The Associated Press that it would continue using the 400-year-old "Gulf of Mexico" rather than switch to "Gulf of America," as declared by Trump in a Day 1 executive order. But it turns out that broader underlying grievances made AP a target.

📖 The big picture: By spotlighting AP, Trump is amplifying Republican and conservative criticisms that the AP Stylebook, a first reference for most U.S. news organizations, shapes political dialogue by favoring liberal words and phrases concerning gender, immigration, race and law enforcement.

• "This isn't just about the Gulf of America," White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich told Axios. "This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world."
• The dispute with AP is part of Trump's broader effort to discredit legacy media outlets and the public's trust in the press — already at a record low.

🌐 The other side: AP — which has long been considered the gold standard of neutrality — rejects any accusation of bias. Lauren Easton, vice president of corporate communications, told Axios that AP "is a global, fact-based, nonpartisan news organization with thousands of customers around the world who span the political spectrum."

• "If AP journalism wasn't factual and nonpartisan, this wouldn't be the case," she said.
• Easton said AP provides "guidance on issues brought to us by members and customers, and it is up to them what they choose to use. Again, this is guidance. It's not surprising that political parties, organizations or even individuals may disagree with some entries. The Stylebook doesn't align with any particular agenda."

✈️ State of play: After barring AP reporters from covering several events with Trump last week, the White House said Friday that because the wire service "continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America," AP slots in the Oval Office and on Air Force One "will now be opened up" to other reporters.

• An AP reporter and photographer were blocked Friday from boarding Air Force One for Trump's weekend trip to Florida.
• The White House said AP journalists "will retain their credentials to the White House complex."

🗺️ The backstory: AP said in its Jan. 23 "style guidance," released proactively to guide members and customers, that it will refer to the gulf "by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences."

• AP said in the same announcement that it'll follow Trump's executive order returning the name of Alaska's Mount McKinley, which had been changed to Denali in 2015. AP's logic: The peak is solely within the U.S., and "Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names."

Behind the scenes: Five days after AP issued its guidance concerning the gulf name change, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held her first briefing, and foreshadowed the fight the White House would pick with legacy media.

• "Karoline said she would not lie and that she would call out media organizations who do lie," a Trump adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And we knew the AP would keep calling the Gulf of America the Gulf of Mexico, and that's misinformation."

🖊️ To attract maximum attention to his change, Trump signed an order in front of reporters on Air Force One as he flew over the Gulf en route to the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, declaring the "first ever Gulf of America Day."

• Two days later, the White House blocked an AP reporter from an Oval Office event.

🔭 Zoom out: Trump allies — including Mike Cernovich, a leading MAGA influencer on X — began attracting the attention of the president's advisers by highlighting longstanding complaints with AP's stylebook guidance. Among the AP guidance that rankles conservatives:

• Warning against "all views" in transgender coverage: AP's "Transgender Coverage Topical Guide" says to avoid "false balance — giving a platform to unqualified claims or sources in the guise of balancing a story by including all views."
• Using the phrase "gender-affirming care": AP says the term, commonly used by advocates and physicians, refers to "a swath of mental and medical treatments (such as counseling, hormones or surgery) that help bring a person's gender expression (such as voice, appearance or anatomy) in line with their gender identity."
• Capitalizing Black but not white for race: AP's stylebook advises that "Black" should be used for racial descriptions while the lowercase "black" is considered just a color. AP says "white people's skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore those problems. But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs." AP notes that white people "generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color."
• Describing immigrants: The Stylebook frowns on the term "illegal immigrant" and says to "use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant."

The Axios position: We've taken a different approach than many media companies, based on serving primarily a U.S. audience. The government, plus Apple Maps and Google Maps, call it the Gulf of America. For clarity, we call it the "Gulf of America (renamed by the U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)."

• "At the same time," Axios said in a statement Friday, "the government should never dictate how any news organization makes editorial decisions. The AP and all news organizations should be free to report as they see fit."

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Most memorable paragraph I read this weekend, from a Wall Street Journal deep dive about how Sam Altman and Elon Musk went from friends to bitter enemies:

In early 2015, Musk and Altman began having regular dinners each Wednesday in the Bay Area. Their conversations tended toward the apocalyptic: how the world might end, how they might prepare for it, to where they might have to flee. A likely cause, they agreed, would be artificial intelligence that grows smarter than humans and impossible to control.

Gift link.

A meeting between senior U.S. and Russian officials will take place tomorrow in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible agreement on ending the war in Ukraine and prepare for a Trump-Putin summit, two sources told Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: The meeting will be another significant step in improving U.S.-Russia relations after last week's phone call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The call created anxiety and frustration in the Ukrainian government, which is concerned about a U.S.-Russia deal behind Kyiv's back. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios on Saturday in Munich that Ukraine hasn't received an invitation to the meeting

• ⚡ Breaking: Zelensky said today that Ukraine won't take part in U.S.-Russia talks on the war — and won't accept the outcome without participation.

The U.S. delegation will include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov are to fly to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, later today.

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President Trump's limousine — "The Beast" — led Daytona 500 drivers on two laps around the storied Florida racetrack about 200 miles north of Mar-a-Lago.

• Why it matters: Trump has made major sporting events a key part of the heavily produced spectacle surrounding his presidency.

Trump became the first sitting president to attend the race in 2020 — and made history last weekend when he was the first to go to a Super Bowl.

🏎️ From the motorcade, Trump told drivers: "This is your favorite president. I'm a big fan. I am a really big fan of you people. How you do this, I don't know — but I just want you to be safe. You're talented people and you're great people and great Americans."

Air Force One did a flyby about 30 minutes before Trump's motorcade drove onto the track.

• 30-second video ... More pics ... The winner: William Byron — again!

An IRS employee connected with Elon Musk's DOGE team is set to seek access to an IRS system that includes sensitive taxpayer data, The Washington Post reported and Axios' Rebecca Falconer confirmed.

• An administration official said the staffer is acting legally on the "DOGE mission" and "with the appropriate security clearances."

White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement: "Waste, fraud and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long ... It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it."

• "DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard-earned tax dollars on."

Some IRS software dates back to the 1960s.

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The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to let it fire the head of an independent watchdog agency that investigates federal workers' whistleblower reports, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• Why it matters: It's the first appeal to reach the high court from President Trump's push to overhaul the federal bureaucracy.

The case concerns the removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel. The Senate confirmed Dellinger in his role for a five-year term last March after he was nominated by then-President Biden.

• Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said in the filing that a federal judge's order temporarily blocking Dellinger's dismissal marks an "unprecedented assault on the separation of powers."

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Retired Navy Adm. William McRaven — the special forces guru who directed the Osama bin Laden raid — will be out April 22 with "Conquering Crisis: Ten Lessons to Learn Before You Need Them."

• Why it matters: The former Navy SEAL's book, "Make Your Bed," sold over 2 million copies when it was released in 2017.

"From managing failed hostage rescues to responding to campus unrest, McRaven has learned how to navigate crises — those moments that push the limits of your experience and challenge your confidence, when leadership skills alone may not be enough," the book announcement says.

• The book breaks crises down into five phases: assess, report, contain, shape and manage.

McRaven is represented by Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly.

• More on the book.

SNL's three-hour 50th-anniversary special opened with a duet by Paul Simon, 83 (on guitar), and Sabrina Carpenter, 25, performing a tender rendition of Simon & Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound" — which Simon sang on "Saturday Night Live" back in 1976.

• Then they kicked off the show: "Live From New York, it's Saturday night!"

Paul McCartney gave an epic closing to the celebration, which overflowed with famous former cast members, superstar hosts and legendary guests.

• Read on.

Steve Martin joked in his monologue that it was only a few days ago that SNL creator Lorne Michaels "told me I was doing the monologue, and I was actually vacationing on a friend's boat down in the 'Gulf of Steve Martin.'"

• YouTube: Steve Martin's monologue ... More photos.