President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order suspending security clearances for employees of law firm Perkins Coie, which played a key role in commissioning the Steele dossier on Trump's alleged interactions with Russia.
The big picture: The law firm, one of the largest in the nation, represented Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 and hired the firm that compiled the dossier. While signing the order, Trump accused the company of "weaponization against a political opponent."
Days ahead of the semi-annual time change, President Trump said Thursday that it's "hard to get excited" about changing daylight saving time and called it a "50-50 issue."
Tesla is at risk of bleeding cash in the first quarter of 2025 amid growing signs that CEO Elon Musk's political endeavors are scaring off potential customers.
Why it matters: Tesla has seismic ambitions — including self-driving cars and humanoid robots — that may depend on its core business to generate funding.
CBS on Thursday filed two motions to dismiss an amended complaint to the lawsuit filed against it by President Trump before he took office last October.
Why it matters: CBS is under extraordinary pressure to resolve its legal battle with the president as it awaits regulatory approval for a merger between its parent company Paramount and Skydance Media.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts — marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government's policing of foreign nationals' conduct and speech.
Republicans across the country have launched initiatives mirroring the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency to root out so-called "waste" and "fraud" within state budgets.
Why it matters: While they cheer Elon Musk's chainsaw, some of those same officials worry how those deep cuts at the federal level will affect their states, which take in more federal money than they send to Washington.
Threat level: NOAA's aircraft have specialized equipment that the Air Force's Hurricane Hunters lack. Their flights during hurricane season are aimed at feeding data into computer models to improve forecast accuracy.
Senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to discuss efforts to reach a ceasefire in the war with Russia, two sources with knowledge of the meeting said.
Why it matters: It will be the first high-level meeting between the countries since the public spat between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week.
A bipartisan majority of House members voted Thursday to censure Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) after he was escorted out of President Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress for repeated heckling.
Why it matters: Nearly a dozen Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the measure, a clear showing of the party's internal anger over the disruptions that dominated the night.
Why it matters: Newsom has been a strong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights over the years, but he's vetoed several bills to bolster protections for transgender children and adults. Now he's breaking with many Democrats on the issue of trans people in sports.
Republicans overwhelmingly support President Trump'stariffs in spite of the higher costs they're likely to face as a result of them, according to a new Economist/YouGovpoll out this week.
Why it matters: After promising to lower prices if elected, Trump's tariffs targeting the U.S.'s biggest trade partners will cost the average American household at least $830 per year, economists have warned.
Hunter Biden requested Wednesday that a federal judge dismiss his lawsuit against a former Trump aide, saying financial troubles barred him from continuing to litigate the case.
Why it matters: The development could bring a swift end to yet another lawsuit related to the alleged theft of personal data from his laptop and brings to light new details about the financial strain on the former president's son.
TikTok has less than one month until its U.S. lifeline expires, but sources say there still haven't been negotiations between its Chinese owner and prospective buyers.
After a two-month honeymoon, where the value of just about anything Trump-adjacent rose as he prepared to take office, markets have now soured on many "Trump trades."
Why it matters: At some point, the declines will test whether there's still a "Trump put," as in his first presidency — where Trump tended to swiftly reverse policies the market didn't like — or if Trump 2.0 really doesn't care as much about markets.
If you have time to tune into only one person to understand — and track — the interconnected MAGA media ecosystem, follow Donald Trump Jr.
Why it matters: There's no way to track all of the sources. So follow the power and influence. Don Jr. isdeeply wired into every major player and most platforms, Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Tal Axelrod write in an Axios AM Executive Briefing special report.
Three top political reporters — Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf — will be out July 8 with "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America," based on 300+ interviews over 18 months.
"The whole world was against me, and I won," President Trump told the authors in an interview 10 days before his second inauguration.
Most young Americans have been keeping up with Elon Musk’s DOGE — and it’s not too popular.
The big picture: 87% of 18- to 34-year-olds say they’ve heard a lot or a little about DOGE. And 71% say they strongly or somewhat disapprove of the agency’s work so far, according to a new Axios-Generation Lab youth poll.
Buy your local economist a drink: The economic backdrop is more chaotic and uncertain than it's been in years — a result of fast-moving and sometimes vague Trump policy.
Why it matters: There is a growing list of factors that could put downward pressure on the economy — tariffs, spending cuts, a looming government shutdown and more.
Florida's next attorney general could be the ex-congressman who almost became President Trump's U.S. attorney general: Matt Gaetz.
Why it matters: Despite the intense controversy he generated before withdrawing his nomination to be in Trump's Cabinet, Gaetz still has strong name ID and is well-liked enough among Florida's GOP base to be a formidable candidate.
In a hypothetical primary matchup against Attorney General James Uthmeier, Gaetz was favored 39%-21%, according to a recent survey of likely Republican voters by Tony Fabrizio, one of the nation's top pollsters who works for Donald Trump and several GOP clients.
Zoom in: There's already a war of words brewing between Gaetz and Uthmeier supporters over right-wing influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, the Florida men who recently were allowed to return to the U.S. after facing sex-trafficking chargesin Romania.
Uthmeier on Tuesday announced an investigation into the Tates. Gaetz — who as a member of Congress faced allegations of paying a minor for sex — has criticized Uthmeier's motives.
Reality check: A race against Uthmeier would be no slam dunk for Gaetz. Fabrizio's poll found 40% of GOP voters were undecided.
"2026 is going to be a dynamic year in Florida politics, for sure," Gaetz told Axios. "I'm humbled that so many Florida Republicans support me. Sometimes the AG itch doesn't go away with one scratch."
Gaetz has considered running for state attorney general in the past and hasn't ruled it out in 2026. He's also told others he might run for governor.
A spokesperson for Uthmeier couldn't be reached.
Zoom out: In red-state Florida, the victor of in a GOP primary in a statewide race is typically the odds-on favorite to win in the general election. Registered Republicans in Florida now outnumber Democrats by 1 million.
The intrigue: Florida's 2026 ballot could be full of must-watch races.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R) is running for governor and Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis is considering a bid. Her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, is in his second four-year term and can't run again under state law.
Donalds has been endorsed by Trump, but the governor and first lady met with Trump last weekend at the president's International golf club in West Palm Beach to try to curry his favor.
Uthmeier has never run for statewide office. He was chief of staff for DeSantis, who appointed Uthmeier attorney general two weeks ago to fill the seat vacated by Ashley Moody. DeSantis had appointed Moody to fill Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate seat, which he gave up to become Trump's secretary of state.
Flashback: Gaetz quit Congress and then his bid for the top Justice Department post amid a crush of terrible headlines related to a years-long sex-trafficking investigation that resulted in no charges.
Gaetz maintained his innocence and characterized a related House Ethics Committee investigation as a witch hunt driven by allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whose ouster Gaetz engineered.
Whether Gaetz runs or not, the investigation into the Tate brothers after they arrived last week in Florida has elevated Uthmeier's profile. The Tates deny wrongdoing and criticized Uthmeier and DeSantis, who denounced them.
"Ron DeSantis is attacking me because he was worried I would support Byron Donalds over his wife," Andrew Tate posted Tuesday night on X. "They attacked me to prevent me from destroying his wife's political ambitions."
Gaetz chimed in on Wednesday.
"DeSantis/hisAG are using you to virtue signal against the unrighteous," Gaetz wrote on X.
"It's all just posturing," Gaetz said. "Hell, Florida even let O.J. Simpson move here, so if you haven't committed any crimes you have little to fear from the Sunshine State."
Fabrizio's poll of 600 likely Republican voters in Florida was conducted via landline and cellphone live callers on Feb. 26-27. It has a +/- error of 4 percentage points.
Congressional Democrats' internal divisions over how to combat President Trump surfaced with a fury Wednesday after the president was repeatedly heckled and disrupted during his speech to Congress.
Why it matters: The party is in a rut, stumbling on finding the most effective counterattack to Trump's full-bore assault on the federal bureaucracy. That struggle played out on primetime television Tuesday night.
Republican legislators called for a Department of Justice investigation into Democratic mayors they accused Wednesday at a House committee hearing of leading sanctuary cities.
The big picture: A "sanctuary city" label could have major consequences, with Republicans threatening to pull federal funding and, in Denver Mayor Mike Johnston's case, pursue criminal charges.
Early polling in the New York City mayor's race suggests former N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds a significant advantage over incumbent Eric Adams.
The big picture: Months out from elections, Cuomo leads the field as New Yorkers sour onAdams, who is facing federal bribery and fraud charges — but there is no commanding consensus on a front-runner, per a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
Speaker Mike Johnson is planning an "expeditious vote of censure" for Rep. Al Green tomorrow morning and is calling on Democrats to join Republicans in punishing the Texas Democrat for heckling President Trump on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Republicans want to draw maximum attention to the Democratic protests during Trump's Joint Address to Congress.
A detention center will resume operations as a controversial immigrant family housing facility under a new agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, private prison company CoreCivic has announced.
Why it matters: The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, was a target of civic rights advocates during the first Trump administration amid family separations and mistreatment allegations, but ICE needs more detention space for President Trump's mass deportation plans.
An appeals court on Wednesday allowed President Trump's removal of the head of an independent watchdog agency that investigates federal workers' whistleblower reports while a legal challenge to the firing plays out.
The big picture: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals paused a lower court ruling that Hampton Dellinger should continue in his role leading the Office of Special Counsel after agreeing with him that his firing was "unlawful."
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