President Trump is governing like a man who will never face voters again, mortgaging his party's future on promises he won't be around to keep, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Trump's approval has plunged to a second-term low. His signature bets — tariffs, the war in Iran, redistricting — are curdling into long-term liabilities the GOP could carry long past November.

Stunning stat: Fox News' latest poll shows Democrats leading Republicans by 4 percentage points on the economy — the first time the GOP has trailed on its strongest issue since 2010.

📍 Zoom in: Virginia is ground zero for two Trump gambles gone wrong.

• Redistricting: Tuesday's referendum cleared the way for a new map that could flip Virginia's congressional delegation from a 6-5 Democratic advantage to 10-1 — wiping out Trump's five-seat gain from the Texas gerrymander he engineered last summer, which ignited a nationwide redistricting arms race.
• DOGE: A year after Elon Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government, roughly 300,000 fired workers remain the cost-cutting initiative's most visible legacy. Many of them are concentrated in Virginia, where Democrats won a trifecta in November that enabled Tuesday's redistricting vote.

💣 Zoom out: The war in Iran has done deep, potentially long-lasting damage to the Republican Party.

• Tucker Carlson — who issued an extraordinary apology this week for his yearslong Trump advocacy — is no threat to vote blue, nor are former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones or other newfound MAGA dissidents.
• But the anti-war realignment they represent — the young voters, the Joe Rogan listeners, the "no forever wars" coalition that delivered Trump his 2024 win — is in tatters.
• As gas prices surge to more than $4 a gallon, Trump said Thursday that Americans should expect to pay more "for a little while" in exchange for a nuclear-free Iran. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found 78% of voters say gas prices are a "very big concern" for them; 77% blame Trump.

Between the lines: Trump's economic standing was already collapsing before the Iran war, with voters souring on his tariff agenda amid a broader affordability crisis.

• White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai told us: "President Trump's initiative to right-size the federal government has saved taxpayers billions and successfully reduced federal employment to its lowest level since the 1960s, while the President's tariffs policies have dramatically reduced America's goods trade deficit, spurred trillions in new manufacturing investments, and secured over 20 trade deals with some of our largest trading partners."
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Axios' Courtenay Brown guides us through what would be an unprecedented event: the U.S. government paying back $165 billion to importers:

The Trump administration moved faster than anyone expected to build a system to repay businesses billions of dollars in tariffs.

• Now, the president is warning companies not to use it.

Why it matters: Businesses face an especially tricky quandary: On the one hand, consumers and some lawmakers are calling on them to pass down refunds to their customers.

• On the other, there's now political pressure not to seek refunds at all.

🔨 "It's brilliant if they don't do that," President Trump told CNBC this week, referring to importers who do not seek a refund.

• Responding to a question about large companies second-guessing whether to go through the refund process, Trump added: "If they don't do that, they got to know me very well. ... If they don't do that, I'll remember them."

🔭 What to watch: The White House hasn't said whether it will appeal the ruling, from the nation's top trade court, that the government issue refunds. It has until early June to do so.

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America is becoming more multiracial, but its data systems are still thinking in black and white, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: Outdated measurement systems are shaping how elections are analyzed, health risks are tracked and civil rights laws are enforced.

🧮 By the numbers: The multiracial ("Two or More Races") population grew from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020, per the U.S. Census.

• It's expected to keep growing faster than most groups, and exactly how fast largely depends on how America measures race.

Friction point: The same population can produce different answers depending on how race is measured. Even basic analysis is difficult because the "multiracial population" isn't one group.

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Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is spearheading Israel's multimillion-dollar campaign to reshape how AI platforms portray the country, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• Why it matters: AI platforms are increasingly central to shaping perceptions. Countries, corporations and other powerful interests are spending big to influence them.

Parscale, a Republican digital guru who led Trump's 2020 campaign, was hired in September to devise a campaign to push back on anti-Israel online information that fueled negative sentiment about the country.

⚙️ How it works: Market Brew, an online search and AI modeling company that Parscale's firm invests in, got to work on injecting Israel-friendly content into the online bloodstream.

• The goal: To present the information in such a way that it'll be ingested by AI platforms.

Reality check: When Axios conducted a search on ChatGPT about Israel and Hamas using language from one of the sites created by Parscale's team, none were cited in the answer.

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A surge for Intel following a blowout profit report led the stock market to more records yesterday: The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and topped its prior all-time high, set on Wednesday. The Nasdaq also set a record, thanks to the jump for tech.

• Strong profit reports like Intel's have helped Wall Street rally to records, and the S&P 500 has leaped nearly 13% in a little under a month, AP reports.

💻 Intel led the way yesterday, roaring past its 2000 peak during the dot-com boom to an all-time high. The Silicon Valley pioneer soared 23.6% for its best day since 1987 after reporting much stronger Q1 results than analysts expected.

• CEO Lip-Bu Tan said AI's next wave is increasing demand for Intel's chips and products.

Phone-free bars, restaurants and entertainment experiences are on the rise while cellphone pouches are becoming an essential item at schools, weddings, proms and retreats, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• The surprise powerhouse behind the digital detox movement: grassroots efforts among Gen Zers to switch off their phones.

By the numbers: 47% of those under 30 said they are striving to reduce screen time, compared with 32% of older Americans, a YouGov survey found.

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Chad Mizelle, a former Trump DOJ official, is leading the MAGA charge to make Arlington, Va., part of Washington D.C. again, Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil writes.

• Why it matters: After Virginia Democrats redrew the state's congressional map to a 10-1 advantage, Republicans are imagining how they could weaken Dems by removing the blue suburb.

✒️ Mizelle thinks the president should sign an executive order declaring Virginia's 1847 retrocession unconstitutional, forcing the Supreme Court to decide for the first time whether Arlington and Alexandria are rightfully the District's.

• Would Trump do it? The White House didn't comment.
• Taking it further, U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) this week introduced the Make DC Square Again Act.

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MS NOW is making a splash at the first White House Correspondents' Dinner since the channel's rebranding: "Democracy After Hours: The Underground After Party" will be held at Dupont Underground, a 15,000-square-foot venue that was once a trolley car tunnel.

• NBC and MSNBC started "The After Party" decades ago. NBC News and Telemundo continue "The After Party" at the French ambassador's residence tonight.
• Both parties will run into the wee hours.

📺 Coverage of the dinner, including President Trump's speech, will air live on C-SPAN ... YouTube livestream.

• Featured presentations from mentalist Oz Pearlman, as well as Trump's speech, are expected to begin around 9:30 p.m. ET.

🎩 Look for ... First Amendment pocket squares from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

🥂 Weekend guide from Axios' Sara Fischer and Cuneyt Dil.