Axios AM

August 15, 2023
Hello, Tuesday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,364 words ... 5 mins. Edited by Emma Loop.
⚖️ 1 big thing: The indictment Trump feared most

"Most indicted president." That was our Axios AM headline on Aug. 2 — 13 days ago.
- After last night's indictment in Fulton County, Ga., it's even more true — now 91 felonies instead of 78.
- Any one of them could send former President Trump to prison for years.
⚡ In charges announced at 10:54 p.m. ET, a grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 allies after a two-year probe of efforts to flip Georgia's 2020 election results.
- Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis used a mobster statute — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) — to charge Trump and his co-defendants with violating the oath of office, conspiracy to commit forgery, filing false documents and more.
Why it matters: It's RICO. It's unpardonable by any president, since it's a state charge. The specifics are damning and hard to spin.
- Many close to Trump have long thought that if one case could bring him down, it's this.
🖼️ The big picture: We're living history, as former President Trump becomes the only sitting or former president to face criminal charges ... to face criminal charges twice ... and three times ... and four.
"A criminal enterprise": The indictment says the defendants, including Donald John Trump, "conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere."
- The next paragraph calls it a "criminal organization."
The allies include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows ... former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark ... + lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.

Willis said at a late-night news conference that she plans to try Trump and the 18 other defendants together.
- Those charged have until noon Friday, Aug. 25, to surrender.
💨 The gist of the four criminal cases against Trump, via CNN:
- Manhattan prosecutors' hush-money case: 34 counts against Trump.
- DOJ special counsel's classified documents case: 40 counts against Trump.
- DOJ special counsel's election subversion case: 4 counts against Trump.
- Atlanta prosecutors' Georgia election meddling case: 13 counts against Trump.
🔎 Between the lines: Courts now will lead a fact-finding and reckoning for what's happened in the 2 years and 9 months — 1,015 days — since Election Day 2020.
- We'll be living in complexity: All this legal action — and perhaps even trials (civil and criminal, state and federal) — will be the essential, deafening context to what's looking like a 2024 rematch of that election.
Trump has five trials scheduled between now and May.
- As you can see in this clever Axios timeline, Trump's scheduled court dates (including civil fraud and defamation suits) are interspersed with the Iowa caucuses ... and Super Tuesday ... and, if Trump lasts as a candidate, the Republican National Convention.
🔮 What's next: Now "the country must brace itself for what will surely be described as the Trial of the Century," the N.Y. Times' Peter Baker writes.
- "Which will be followed by the next Trial of the Century. And then the next. And then the next."
Searchable version of the 98-page indictment.
2. 🥊 Case loaded with breathtaking ambition

The scope of the Georgia case contrasts sharply with federal indictments by special counsel Jack Smith, Axios' Erin Doherty writes.
- Smith's case narrowly charged former President Trump as a sole defendant, with six unidentified co-conspirators.
- Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis' case ties together 161 acts, with 19 defendants and 30 unindicted co-conspirators, across 7 states + D.C.
🐦 Trump's tweets were the play-by-play to the alleged conspiracy: 12 of the 161 acts were simply citing Trump statements made on Twitter.
Between the lines: The indictment alleges that members of the "criminal enterprise" unlawfully accessed voting equipment and voter data in Georgia — and then distributed that stolen data to members in other states.
- Act 19 from the indictment cites a meeting where Trump and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows requested a strategy for "delaying and disrupting" the Jan. 6 congressional certification of electoral ballots.

Trump's legal team said in a statement: "We look forward to a detailed review of this indictment, which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been."
- Rudy Giuliani said: "It's just the next chapter in a book of lies with the purpose of framing President Donald Trump and anyone willing to take on the ruling regime."
The bottom line: Trump is likely to spend a significant portion of 2024 sitting in courtrooms instead of hitting the campaign trail.
3. 🦾 $900,000 AI job
Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
Corporate America is in an A.I. recruiting frenzy, with some big companies willing to pay salaries approaching seven figures for top talent, the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription).
- Walmart, Accenture and firms in entertainment and manufacturing are "wooing data scientists, machine-learning specialists and other practitioners skilled at deploying the technology."
🕶️ A job posting that recently got a ton of attention: a Netflix "Product Manager - Machine Learning Platform" position, offering compensation up to $900,000 annually.
4. 📊 Card delinquencies back up


More Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments, Axios' Emily Peck writes.
- Why it matters: Even as inflation declines, Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to make their budgets work — or maintain their "levels of consumption," as Moody's Investors Service put it.
🧮 By the numbers: The rate of new credit card delinquencies has passed its pre-COVID level, clocking in at 7.2% in the second quarter, per a report out this month from the New York Fed.
- Auto loan delinquencies were at 7.3% in Q2 — also higher than pre-pandemic levels.
- Mortgage delinquencies remain very low.
😱 Stunning stat: Credit card balances rose by $45 billion in the second quarter, rising past $1 trillion for the first time in the N.Y. Fed survey's history.
👀 What to watch: Millions of Americans will soon have to start making student loan payments again — and undoubtedly some will rely on credit cards to maintain their lifestyles. That could potentially drive these delinquency rates higher.
5. 🗞️ Scoop: NYT union staffers brief WaPo union

Members of the New York Times' union on Monday evening briefed several dozen staffers from the Washington Post union about best practices they learned from the Times' union's walkout last December, Axios' Sara Fischer reports.
- Why it matters: The meeting suggests the Post's union, which has grown in recent months following layoffs, is seriously considering a walkout as it continues to negotiate with management over a contract. Negotiations have dragged on for more than a year.
Catch up quick: More than 1,100 members of the Times' union, which includes mostly editorial and some business staffers, walked out for one day last year, a move that gained nationwide attention.
- The union reached a contract deal with management in May, after 2+ years of tense negotiations.
During yesterday's meeting, Times union staffers explained to Post union staffers that their focus on three core objectives — wages, health care and retirement — helped the union gain broad-based support needed to make the walkout count.
- Share this story ... Sign up for Sara Fischer's weekly Axios Media Trends, out later today.
6. 🏈 Blind side of "The Blind Side"

Retired NFL star Michael Oher, who inspired the 2009 film "The Blind Side," filed a petition yesterday accusing Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy of tricking him into making them his conservators rather than adopting him, Axios' Jacob Knutson reports.
- Why it matters: The filing in a Tennessee court alleges that the Tuohys enriched themselves at Oher's expense and asks a probate court to terminate their conservatorship over him.
🔭 Zoom out: The allegations undermine the premise of the Oscar-winning movie — that the Tuohys, a rich white family, took Oher, who is Black, into their home as their adopted son.
- The petition claims they negotiated a deal that would pay them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from the movie, which has grossed more than $330 million.
Sean Tuohy told the Daily Memphian that the conservatorship was created to satisfy the NCAA: "We're devastated ... But we're going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16."
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