MAGA media heavyweights are intervening in elections around the world, increasingly obsessed with exporting President Trump's brand of right-wing populism beyond America's borders.

• Why it matters: What began as a nationalist reaction to America's perceived decline has evolved into a global ideological crusade, Axios' Tal Axelrod reports.

⚡ Now at the apex of its domestic power, MAGA is rallying behind candidates who share its views on immigration, globalism and the fight for "Western Civilization."

• "We believe the fight for freedom and conservative values doesn't stop at America's borders," Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) chair Matt Schlapp told Axios.

MAGA-aligned candidates have been competitive in a spate of recent elections, emboldening pro-Trump influencers to engage more actively in foreign politics.

🇵🇱 Poland: Conservative presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki is headed to a runoff against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski today, in a race MAGA media is treating as a bellwether for Europe's political right.

• CPAC just held its first-ever event in Poland, where Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took the extraordinary step of endorsing Nawrocki and denouncing Trzaskowski as "an absolute train wreck."

🇷🇴 Romania: MAGA leaders — including Vice President Vance — excoriated Romanian authorities for annulling the results of December's election and banning the leading far-right candidate over allegations of Russian interference.

• In last week's re-run, MAGA podcasters like Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon rallied behind pro-Trump candidate George Simion, who even described himself as running "on the MAGA ticket."

🇬🇧 UK: The insurgent Reform Party, led by arch-Brexiteer and Bannon friend Nigel Farage, is leading in British polls less than a year after the center-left Labour Party won a landslide election.

🇩🇪 Germany: Vance, Elon Musk and scores of pro-Trump influencers have championed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which had its best-ever showing in elections earlier this year.

🇮🇪 Ireland: Former UFC champion Conor McGregor has teased a longshot bid for the Irish presidency on an anti-immigration platform.

• McGregor was hosted by Trump at the White House on St. Patrick's Day, and appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast in April.

🇰🇷 South Korea: Bannon recorded a segment of his show Tuesday boosting the conservative candidate in South Korea's June 3 snap presidential election.

• Some MAGA figures have spread the theory that former conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol — impeached and removed after declaring martial law — was ousted in a China-backed coup.

🌐 MAGA's foreign focus isn't entirely new: Trump supporters have long idolized populist strongmen like Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

• But the movement is no longer just cheering on incumbents: It's actively trying to shape new political outcomes.

"The good news is that after 10 long years, the institutional MAGA movement realizes the power in having friends overseas," said Raheem Kassam, former Farage adviser and current editor of The National Pulse.

• Read on.

Ready or not, AI is starting to replace people, Axios managing editor for tech Scott Rosenberg writes from the Bay Area.

• Businesses aren't waiting to first find out whether AI is up to the job.

Why it matters: CEOs are gambling that Silicon Valley will improve AI fast enough that they can rush cutbacks today without getting caught shorthanded tomorrow.

🧠 Reality check: While AI tools can often enhance office workers' productivity, in most cases they aren't yet adept, independent or reliable enough to take their places.

• But AI leaders say that's imminent — any year now! — and CEOs are listening.

Driving the news: AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen for a "Behind the Curtain" column last week.

• Amodei argues the industry needs to stop "sugarcoating" this white-collar bloodbath — a mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.
• Many economists anticipate a less extreme impact. They point to previous waves of digital change, like the advent of the PC and the internet, which arrived with predictions of job-market devastation that didn't pan out.

💼 By the numbers: Unemployment among recent college grads is growing faster than among other groups and presents one early warning sign of AI's toll on the white-collar job market, according to a new study by Oxford Economics.

• Keep reading.

America is so far defying the gloomiest economic forecasts, but tariff threats keep scrambling the good news, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

• Why it matters: Inflation is at a four-year low, consumer sentiment might be on the mend and the stock market has recovered from its post- "Liberation Day" lows — but it's all being overshadowed by intensifying China trade tensions.

👀 State of play: President Trump signaled Friday that the U.S.-China trade truce, a deal that effectively reopened trade between the world's two largest economies earlier in May, might be in danger.

• Economists don't expect price pressures to seep into the data until the summer months. Retailers are rolling through inventory stockpiled before the worst of the tariffs took effect.

But consumers are tying their economic fortunes to trade — and nothing else.

• "Despite the many headlines about the tax and spending bill that is moving through Congress, the bill does not appear to be salient to consumers at this time," the University of Michigan said in a release.

🔭 What to watch: So far, Trump's trade drama has played out against a largely favorable economic backdrop. But there are early signs the backdrop might be shifting.

• Consumers pulled back on spending last month, choosing to sock away their income, rather than buy things.

Separate data this past week showed the most recurring unemployment filings since November 2021, an indication that jobs are getting harder to find.

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Democrats with presidential ambitions are following the lead of President Trump, who frequently went on podcasts appealing to younger men during his 2024 campaign.

• Why it matters: Liberal strategists acknowledge Trump showed that Democratic candidates need to master the podcast space, which is typically looser and more freewheeling than a press conference or a traditional media interview, AP's Meg Kinnard and Adriana Gomez Licon report.

🎧 Zoom in: In February, California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched "This is Gavin Newsom." He's had a wide array of guests, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

• Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear launched "The Andy Beshear Podcast" earlier this year.
• Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did three hours on Andrew Schulz's "Flagrant" podcast, months after the comedian sat down with Trump.
• Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently appeared on "Pod Save America."

Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford, reports on his Substack that in May, federal district courts have ruled against the Trump administration in 26 of 27 cases — "a stunning 96% loss rate."

• Here's the twist, cited by N.Y. Times opinion columnist David French:

Over the course of the administration, Republican-appointed federal district judges have ruled against Trump 72% of the time (26/36) — close to the 80% rate of losses (74/92) before Democratic-appointed judges.

Explore the data ... Read the column (gift link).

The National Hurricane Center will release forecasts and tracks for some storms further in advance than last year, the National Weather Service says.

• Why it matters: It's one of a group of new policies and tools in place to prep for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which starts today, Axios New Orleans' Carlie Kollath Wells reports.

⏰ The big picture: Meteorologists have been releasing tracks 48 hours before storms are expected to reach land, even if they haven't formed yet.

• Beginning this year, the National Hurricane Center will be able to extend that to 72 hours for potential storms, said Ken Graham, the director of the National Weather Service.

Between the lines: This is becoming more important as the trend continues for rapidly intensifying storms.

• "To get an extra 24 hours on your timeline? Think what you can do in 24 hours," Graham told Axios in an exclusive interview. "An extra 24 hours is an eternity."

🗺️ Also coming: NOAA is in the process of mapping the entire country so it'll be able to help residents visualize what a rain and flood forecast will look like in their area.

• Nashville was a pilot market last year, Graham said, and it led to a hospital being evacuated before it flooded during Hurricane Helene.

Keep reading.

Nowhere in the world are young men as lonely in comparison to other people in their country as in the U.S., Axios' Carly Mallenbaum writes from a new Gallup poll.

• One in four U.S. men ages 15 to 34 said they felt lonely a lot of the previous day. That's a higher proportion than young American women (18%).

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People around the world celebrated the start of Pride Month this weekend.

• The big picture: The monthlong global celebration began with Gay Pride Week in late June 1970, a year after the violent police raid at New York's Stonewall Inn, a gay bar. The first pride week featured marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and it has since grown to other cities, AP reports.

One milestone that's likely to be celebrated: This month marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.

• It was a watershed event in establishing rights for LGBTQ+ people across the country.