In this city of little political agreement, there's consensus on one big thing: President Trump is picking more fights, with more action than mere words, with more lasting consequences than anyone expected, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: Turns out, Trump wasn't bluffing about imposing 25% tariffs, about pardoning Jan. 6 criminals, or punishing Europe, or rewarding Russia, or growing executive power, or gutting the FBI, or filling his Cabinet with loyalists, or penalizing the media, or taking a wrecking ball to government.

In fact, in most cases, he's taking a more extreme approach than promised or expected.

• And he's picking big, new public fights that very few, if any, saw coming: Seize the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf, buy Greenland, bully Canada, turn Gaza into a glitzy Riviera, abolish USAID and kneecap the White House Correspondents' Association.

"We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years," Trump boasted as he began last night's address to Congress. "And we are just getting started," he said, describing his opening weeks as "nothing but swift and unrelenting action."

• It was a speech on steroids — 9,900 words! At 100 minutes, Trump broke the record for a presidential address to Congress, besting President Bill Clinton's marathon 2000 State of the Union address by 11 minutes.
• Talking about tariffs, Trump said: "There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that."

🖼️ The big picture: So much has been set in motion so fast, on so many fronts, that it's hard for Trump's own White House to implement and explain much of it, officials tell us. Trump and his MAGA supporters love it.

• But many elected Republicans we talk to privately worry it could just be too much — too much to navigate, and too much risk to the two things people care most about: their personal finances and security.
• Trump remains relatively popular. His sway over Republican elected officials and MAGA media is stronger than ever. And few Republicans with clout protest anything he does in any serious, sustained public way. Indeed, most take to X or Fox News to applaud even moves they privately question or dislike. So his confidence isn't misplaced, aides tell us.

👀 Behind the scenes: So far, Trump's White House shrugs at concerns and complaints. If anything, aides' collective confidence is on steroids, too. They admit few mistakes, express zero regrets, and believe wholeheartedly they're right and critics are wrong. But Trump's advisers and friends outside of the White House feel less certain.

• "Of course I'm worried," one top Trump adviser, who spoke with the president recently at Mar-a-Lago, told Axios' Marc Caputo. "We're still in the honeymoon phase here. But the stock market and that data and the noise from Elon [Musk] aren't great."
• The adviser added: "He was so confident and at ease that I started to believe I shouldn't be bedwetting."

Column continues below.

Trump is killing it — if you tune into MAGA media, Jim and Mike write.

• Axios' Tal Axelrod, our MAGA media expert, said the major right-wing platforms and podcasts, including Steve Bannon's "War Room" and Jack Posobiec, lit up this week with victory cries on Ukraine and tariffs.

Nevertheless, risks for Trump are rising:

• The stock market fell sharply on Monday when Trump announced he'd press ahead with tariffs on Canada and Mexico, then had another big drop Tuesday after they kicked in at midnight.
• Stoking fears of inflation, Target warned shoppers Tuesday that prices would rise because of the tariffs Trump slapped on China.
• Last week, consumer confidence plummeted to an eight-month low amid concerns about Trump's trade and tariff policies.
• Three polls in the past three days have shown Americans questioning whether Trump's keeping his eye on the ball: 82% of U.S. adults said the economy should be a high priority but only 36% thought he was prioritizing that "a lot," CBS News polling found. Only 31% of U.S. adults in a Reuters/Ipsos poll approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living. 52% of U.S. adults in a CNN poll said Trump hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.

🌐 Around the world, old allies are flinching or fleeing:

• To understand the totality of the simultaneous fights of Trump's choosing, consider the nations we have more tension with now than 44 days ago: Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, Denmark (via Greenland), Germany, Britain, France and Panama.
• Trump can rightly argue that relationships are better with Israel, the Saudis and Russia. But it's old allies turning so quickly into skeptics or potential adversaries that's disrupting geopolitical calculations.

Isolate on Canada: Trump has upended relations in radical ways. America's northern neighbor is now dramatically more feisty, more anti-American and more pro-Liberal Party than it was when Trump took office. We're now locked in a trade war that could hurt some U.S. consumers and, by Canadians' own appraisal, devastate their economy.

• Trump wants big tariffs and, he keeps suggesting, to make Canada the 51st state. Canada's response: a big middle finger to the USA, promising retaliatory tariffs and strafing Trump's "very dumb" trade war.
• Trump sees Canada as an insignificant global player and weak neighbor, and incapable of winning a trade war with us, officials say. He's indifferent to prior tight relations, or cooperation, or concerns of fraying partnership, the officials tell us

You could insert Germany or Ukraine or France or Britain into the sentences above, and the same holds true.

• Trump truly believes most relationships or agreements are transactional. So he's fine being feared or loathed for trying to bully and bluster the best possible deal for America, according to these insiders.

Interestingly, the one area where Trump has been less vocal and draconian than anticipated is expelling illegal immigrants. He has tightened security and dramatically reduced illegal crossings — but his plans have run into the reality of existing laws, limited government resources and legal challenges, as Axios has reported.

• As a result of Trump's crackdown, the number of migrants illegally crossing the Southwest border plummeted in February to the lowest level in decades, according to internal data obtained by Axios. "The Invasion of our Country is OVER," Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

Share this column ... Marc Caputo contributed reporting.

President Trump's joint address to Congress devolved, within minutes, into the nastiest partisan food fight in the history of this annual tradition, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

1. Democrats become the story. Defying warnings from Democratic leadership, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) kicked off a night of theatrics by heckling Trump minutes into his speech — a breach of decorum that ended with Green's historic ejection from the chamber.

• Other House Democrats — armed with auction-style signs, custom T-shirts and whiteboards (but no eggs) — protested Trump by turning their backs, booing, shouting "lies," and walking out of the chamber.

2. Trump's permanent campaign. Trump's remarks were largely indistinguishable from his campaign stump speeches.

• Trump referenced President Biden over a dozen times — calling him "the worst president in U.S. history" and accusing him of leaving behind a decimated economy, "especially" when it comes to the price of eggs.

Trump routinely veered off script, mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as "Pocahontas" and accusing voting-rights activist Stacey Abrams of corruption.

3. An ode to tariffs. Less than 12 hours after unleashing a massive trade war against Mexico and Canada, Trump acknowledged the potential for tariff pain — brushing off the stock market's deep uncertainty as "a little bit of an adjustment period."

• "Bear with me," Trump urged Americans.

4. Made-for-TV magic. Trump created several viral moments by using his guests to reinforce his priorities on border security, trans athletes in women's sports, crime and the military.

• He granted honorary Secret Service membership to a 13-year-old cancer patient, DJ Daniel; broke the news that West Point accepted an aspiring cadet's application; and signed an executive order naming a wildlife refuge after a 12-year-old girl killed by an undocumented immigrant.

Transcript of speech ... Share this story.

Pakistan acted on CIA intelligence and detained a senior ISIS commander who the U.S. claims plotted the deadly Abbey Gate bombing during the evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021, U.S. officials tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

• President Trump revealed the arrest during last night's address.

Why it matters: Mohammad Sharifullah, one of the leaders of an ISIS branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is believed to have devised and coordinated the attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghan citizens, one official said.

A U.S. official with direct knowledge said Sharifullah, who is also known as "Jafar," is in the process of being extradited to the U.S. from Pakistan after being detained by the Pakistani Intelligence Service.

• He is expected to arrive in the U.S. today and an indictment against him is expected to be unsealed, the official said.

Keep reading.

President Trump's taunting and tariffs have turned Canadians against the U.S., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into a fire-breathing nationalist, and his Liberal Party — once on track for an electoral wipeout — back into a force to be reckoned with.

• Why it matters: Trudeau blasted Trump yesterday for taking aim at America's neighbor and ally while cozying up to Russia, Axios' Ivana Saric and Dave Lawler write.

Trudeau is vowing massive retaliatory tariffs in response to the levies imposed by the U.S., telling Americans to blame Trump for the coming economic pain.

• "What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that'll make it easier to annex us," Trudeau said. "We will never be the 51st state."

Watch: Trudeau's full speech ... Keep reading.

The president announces an audacious new tariff on social media. The media breathlessly quotes economists warning of peril ahead. And the economy chugs along anyway.

• Why it matters: That was the pattern in 2018 and 2019, but may offer false comfort for what is to come in 2025, Axios' Neil Irwin writes.

The Trump 2.0 trade war is already on a much larger scale, affecting many more products, than was ever seen in Trump 1.0.

🎨 The big picture: This time around, the president is choosing across-the-board tariffs over targeted ones, invoking a legal authority with fewer constraints, and not allowing time for companies to plead their case for exceptions.

• All of that increases the odds that the trade war will be more visible to Americans, disrupting supply chains and causing noticeable price hikes.

🔮 What's next: There were signs late last night that the administration may be seeking to de-escalate. But Trump has also threatened other large-scale tariffs, including on agriculture products and automobiles.

• Keep reading.

This year's Turing Award — often called the Nobel Prize of computer science — is going to Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, pioneers of a key approach that underlies much of today's artificial intelligence, Axios' Ina Fried writes.

• Why it matters: Reinforcement learning, as the technique is known, posits that computers can learn from their own experiences, using a system of rewards similar to how researchers have trained animals.

In a joint interview, Barto and Sutton told Axios the technology they pursued was out of vogue for much of their careers.

• "There were periods of time when I could not get funding because I was not doing the current fashionable topic, and I wasn't going to change to what was fashionable," Barto said.

Keep reading ... Get Axios AI+.

LeBron James became the first player in NBA history to score 50,000 combined points in the regular season and postseason last night.

• Why it matters: The 40-year-old is already the top scorer in NBA history during a career in which he has rewritten all previous definitions of basketball longevity.

Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is second with 44,149 combined points.

• Go deeper.