President-elect Trump's Cabinet picks show he's moving swiftly to implement the anti-trans, anti-DEI and anti-social justice agenda that underpinned his campaign, Axios' Zachary Basu and Erin Doherty write.

• Why it matters: In the eyes of many Republicans, Trump's decisive election victory vindicated their hostility toward nebulous "woke" ideologies. In practice, their plans could mean purging the federal government of policies Democrats supported to reverse what they saw as unfairness and inequalities.

Trump's opening wave of Cabinet nominees includes Pete Hegseth for SecDef, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Matt Gaetz for attorney general. All have blasted DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies as racially divisive.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — two of the most prominent critics of what they call "the woke mind virus" — have been tasked with "slashing and burning" federal spending from outside the government.

🖼️ The big picture: "Woke" was a term popularized after the 2020 murder of George Floyd to describe plans to attack systemic racism with policies that encouraged cultural awareness and understanding.

• But conservatives have recast the term as a liberal threat to gender norms and what they consider traditional values.
• In recent years, Republicans in Congress and in red states have waged a legislative "war on woke" by targeting trans rights, racial diversity policies in academia, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in business.
• Now, with control of the White House and both branches of Congress in 2025, Trump and the GOP have their sights trained on auditing and overhauling three agencies in particular: the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Department of Education.

What to watch: Democrats are still licking their wounds from an election in which many believe a backlash to DEI policies — especially on transgender people's rights, the focus of repeated GOP campaign ads — harmed them with swing voters.

• While the party debates how to move forward, activists are urging them to focus on resisting the Trump agenda.

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Vaccine company stocks fell sharply yesterday on the news that Trump would nominate RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS.

• Moderna, BioNTech and Novavax fell 5.6%, 7.1% and 7.2%, respectively, Axios Closer co-author Nathan Bomey reports.
• All three companies get significant revenue from COVID vaccines.

🌴 NEW PICKS ... President-elect Trump told reporters last night that today he will name North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, one of his runners-up for VP, to head the Interior Department.

• Doug Collins, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, was named secretary of Veterans Affairs.

⚖️ Rewarding his defenders: Trump last evening chose Todd Blanche, an attorney who led the legal team that defended him at his hush money criminal trial, as deputy A.G., the second-highest ranking Justice Department official.

• Emil Bove, an ex-federal prosecutor, will be the principal associate deputy attorney general, and acting deputy attorney general until Blanche is confirmed.
• John Sauer, who successfully argued his presidential immunity case before the Supreme Court, was named solicitor general — who represents the administration before the Supreme Court.

Quick bios on 21 Trump picks so far: 10 Cabinet nominees ... 8 White House staff members ... 2 ambassadors (UN, Israel) ... 1 envoy (Middle East).

Rahm Emanuel is considering a run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Axios' Alex Thompson scoops.

• Why it matters: Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and current ambassador to Japan, would be vying to take over a party that's in disarray after an election in which Republicans won control of the White House, the Senate and the House.

The current DNC chair, Jamie Harrison, was elected in 2021 and is unlikely to seek a second term, which would begin in March.

• David Axelrod, who steered Barack Obama's campaigns and is a friend of Emanuel, floated earlier this week that the combative and energetic Emanuel would be an ideal leader for a deflated party.
• "If they said, 'Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?' I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee," Axelrod said on his podcast, "Hacks on Tap."
• Axe added on X the next day: "There may be others but he is kind of [sui generis]: Dude knows how to fight and win!"

📱 Since then, some Democrats have been calling Emanuel to encourage him to run.

• In response, he has asked them about what the process is like and whether there's a list of the few hundred DNC members who will elect the next chair, two people familiar with the situation said.
• Emanuel declined to comment.

Several other prominent Democrats are eying the post. They include former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The race is likely to draw many other candidates.

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RFK Jr. (right) talks with attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz and his wife, Ginger Luckey Gaetz, at the America First Policy Institute Gala at Mar-a-Lago last night.

The Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: The strike, which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive, significantly damaged Iran's effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

A former Israeli official briefed on the strike said it destroyed sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it.

• Iran has denied it is pursuing nuclear weapons. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement last week that "Iran is not after nuclear weapons, period."
• The Iranian mission to the UN declined to comment.
• The incoming Trump administration will include several key national security and foreign policy officials who are hawkish on Iran, which could lead to increased U.S. pressure on the Islamic Republic.

One of the targets of the Israeli strike on Oct. 25 was the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex, about 20 miles southeast of Tehran.

• The facility was part of the Iranian Amad nuclear weapons program until Iran halted its military nuclear program in 2003. It was used for testing explosives needed to set off a nuclear device, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
• High-resolution satellite imagery acquired by the institute after the Israeli strike showed the Taleghan 2 building was completely destroyed.

🔎 Behind the scenes: Israeli and U.S. officials said the activity that took place recently at the Taleghan 2 facility was part of an effort inside the Iranian government to conduct research that could be used for developing nuclear weapons, but could also be presented as research for civilian purposes.

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The latest crop of Apple Intelligence features, included in the public beta of iOS 18.2, offer those new to AI image generation a safe — and, yes, a bit sterile — opportunity to try out the technology, Axios' Ina Fried writes in her first-person "Prompt" review series.

• Why it matters: Apple may be slower to market than its AI rivals, but its devices tend to be where new technologies move beyond the early adopter crowd into everyone else's lives.

The free update to the iPhone operating system, due for broad release next month, brings a second wave of Apple Intelligence tools, including ChatGPT integration.

• After downloading the public beta version of iOS 18.2 and getting off a waitlist, I spent the last couple of days creating various images using Genmoji and Image Playground.
• As with other elements of Apple Intelligence, the strength of these features is that they draw on personal data — in this case, letting me easily incorporate my actual friends and family into the creations.

Sending our cat into space or putting a party hat on my mother-in-law was as simple as opening Image Playground and dragging together a couple of icons. There's also a text option to describe what you'd like to see.

• However, Apple's results often suffer from some of the same flaws as other early AI image-creation tools: its output feels shallow and soulless.

🤖 It's hard to get very personal here.

• Genmoji did a good job of creating an owl playing basketball and a penguin playing soccer. But it struggled when I asked it to show me with a sad face.

Between the lines: Apple has cleverly managed to sidestep many of the pitfalls of image generation.

• Image Playground only supports cartoon and illustration styles that eliminate the risk of creating authentic-looking deepfakes, making it less vulnerable to being misused.
• Also, the images are largely limited to people's faces. The narrower frame means fewer chances to produce images that reflect bias or that can raise safety concerns.

The bottom line: For many, Apple Intelligence will be their first experience with AI-based image generation, and Apple's choice of the "playground" label is apt — this feels like a safe and safely bounded space to try out new things.

• Keep reading.

A story I wrote for Politico 16 years ago:

Spoiler: RFK Jr. had to wait 16 more years for a Cabinet nomination.

A small group of tourists in Rome will get a little something extra with their Airbnb rentals — a chance to participate in a mock gladiatorial fight inside the Colosseum.

• Eight Airbnb users will be selected for the experience. After the Colosseum closes for the day, they'll enter for faux combat through the same underground tunnels the gladiators used.

📖 It's part of a $1.5 million partnership: Airbnb is paying to renew an educational program about the world's most famous arena.