The U.S. government is treating strikes on Iran like a video game, inviting the country to watch as memes and montages subsume the human cost of war, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

Why it matters: The Trump administration didn't invent the gamification of war, nor did it invent wartime propaganda — a tool of statecraft as old as armed conflict itself.

• But packaging live combat as social media content — scoring real kills in real time, and broadcasting it to an audience of millions — is a first in the history of American warfare.

🎮 Zoom in: Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, much of the White House's online messaging has been gleefully trollish — a stream of videos splicing real missile strikes with footage from Call of Duty, Wii Sports and Hollywood blockbusters.

• One video wove clips from "Top Gun," "Iron Man" and "Braveheart" between images of Iranian targets being destroyed, ending with the "Mortal Kombat" audio: "Flawless victory."
• Another opened with a Grand Theft Auto meme — "Ah sh*t, here we go again" — before cutting to live strike footage from Iran.

📱 When CNN aired a segment on the jarring content, White House communications director Steven Cheung thanked the network for covering "all of our banger videos."

• Cheung later posted a Grand Theft Auto cheat code for unlocking weapons, and greeted critics with a mocking reference to livestream culture: "W's in the chat, boys!"

White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told Axios: "The legacy media wants us to apologize for highlighting the United States Military's incredible success, but the White House will continue showcasing the many examples of Iran's ballistic missiles, production facilities, and dreams of owning a nuclear weapon being destroyed in real time."

• "No one is mocking our soldiers — we are highlighting the lethality and successes of our military."

💥 Zoom out: The videos have worked exactly as the White House intended — projecting strength, generating shock value and reinforcing President Trump's image as a leader who hits hard and answers to no one.

• But they've also drawn searing criticism: Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich condemned the gamification of war as "a profound moral failure" that "strips away the humanity of real people."

The big picture: The White House videos are the most visible expression of a broader phenomenon — a country that has built an entire ecosystem around the consumption of war as content.

• Take prediction markets: Modern conflicts have become live gambling exchanges, with more than $1 billion wagered on Iran strikes and regime change since the bombing began.

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Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey tells Colin Demarest on an upcoming episode of "The Axios Show" that the U.S. lacks the "political will" and popular consensus to put boots on the ground in Iran after decades of "adventures" in the Middle East.

• "Our adventures in the Middle East of the last couple decades have robbed America of its ability to sustain a boots-on-the-ground campaign," Luckey told us at the massive Anduril headquarters campus in Costa Mesa, Calif.
• "Maybe I'll be eating my words in a week, but I don't think that we have it in us."

Luckey's defense-tech company, valued at $60 billion, builds everything from drones to missiles to electronic warfare tools. Luckey declined to detail what Anduril has deployed in the region. He promised to discuss the matter when "things settle down."

• "I think that would be a fun time, to go through and say, 'Hey, here's what we did. Here's what worked. Here's what didn't.'"

🪖 Luckey — generally a critic of past U.S. wars in the Middle East but a supporter of President Trump's approach — said the commander-in-chief is waging a new kind of warfare "born of strategic realities."

• "I don't think that we're ready to go fight, let's say, World War II for the right reasons, much less reasons that not everyone agrees with," he said. "I think that we don't have another D-Day in us right now. And I think that's actually a bit of a problem."

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On a call with President Trump this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed moving Iran's enriched uranium to Russia as part of a deal to end the war. Trump turned him down, sources tell Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo.

• Why it matters: Securing Iran's 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — convertible to weapons grade within weeks, and enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs — is one of the key war objectives for the U.S. and Israel.

Between the lines: In theory, Putin's offer could help facilitate the removal of Iran's nuclear stockpile without U.S. or Israeli boots on the ground.

• Russia is already a nuclear power and previously stored Iran's low-enriched uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal, making it one of the few countries with the technical capacity to accept the material.

🔎 Behind the scenes: On Monday's call, Putin raised several ideas for ending the war. The uranium proposal was one of them.

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Colleges besieged by AI-generated writing brought back blue-book exams to deter cheating. But some educators say handwritten tests don't showcase students' best work and disadvantage swaths of learners, Axios' Josephine Walker reports.

• Why it matters: Educators say AI cheating is real. But reverting to pen-and-paper tests sidesteps the reality that many employers want graduates who are comfortable using AI tools.

🥊 Reality check: Blue books can help prevent copy-and-paste cheating. But Professor Dan Melzer, at U.C. Davis, told Axios that educators won't be able to completely "outsmart ChatGPT" because students will find workarounds.

• Correction: This version deletes an additional quote incorrectly attributed to Melzer.

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Meta's high-stakes new foundational AI model, code-named avocado, has been delayed at least a few weeks from its expected release this month.

• Why it matters: The model's release is hotly anticipated by rivals and investors after Mark Zuckerberg unleashed NBA-like compensation to lure AI engineering talent.

The model has had mixed results in internal testing, according to The New York Times, which first reported the delay. The model "outperformed Meta's previous AI model and did better than Google's Gemini 2.5 model from March [2025] ... But it has not performed as strongly as Gemini 3.0 from November," The Times said (gift link).

• Mark Zuckerberg said on a Meta earnings call in January to look for the new model over "coming months": "In '25 we rebuilt the foundations of our AI program. Over the coming months we're going to start shipping our new models and products. I expect our first models will be good — but, more importantly, will show the rapid trajectory that we're on. And then I expect us to steadily push the frontier over the course of the year as we continue to release new models."

In another sign of Meta's hurdles, the company is considering sweeping layoffs as AI investments mount. Reuters said the layoffs, with no size decided, could affect 20% or more of the company, which employed 80,000 people at the end of 2025.

• Meta's Andy Stone told Axios that's "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches."

The White House wants to build an underground center to provide security screening for visitors, the latest step in the Trump administration's plan to overhaul the grounds, AP's Darlene Superville reports.

• The 33,000-square-foot center would have seven lanes. Construction could begin as early as August: The White House said it wants the facility open by July 2028, six months before President Trump's term ends.
• The plans were included in an agenda released yesterday for next month's meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission.

Dig in: The screening facility would be built under Sherman Park, southeast of the White House and directly south of the Treasury building. White House visitors used to line up before entering a series of trailers and walking into the East Wing.

• After Trump tore down the East Wing last fall to build a ballroom, visitors are lining up near Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue.
• The monument to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in the center of Sherman Park wouldn't be removed, according to plans for the project, which is a collaboration of the Executive Office of the President, the Secret Service and the National Park Service.

Also on the April 2 agenda is a debate and a final vote on Trump's plans to build a 90,000-square-foot building, including a large ballroom, where the East Wing stood.

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