Left-wing insurgent Zohran Mamdani's likely victory over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral primary has some Democrats in Congress quietly worrying about their own reelections.
Why it matters: The shock upset against a onetime establishment powerhouse comes as potentially dozens of House Democrats are expected to face anti-establishment primary challenges.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) keeps personally telling reporters she will run for re-election — only for her staff to walk it back.
Driving the news: Norton, who is facing calls to pass the torch at 88 years old, told an NBC News reporter on Wednesday that she had made up her mind: "Yeah, I'm gonna run for re-election."
President Trump called on Wednesday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial to be "cancelled immediately" or for giving him a pardon.
Why it matters: Trump's comments in a post on his Truth Social account were an unprecedented intervention by a U.S. president in a legal proceeding in another democratic ally.
President Trump is going to extraordinary lengths to defend his claim that U.S. airstrikes "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program, determined to cement the operation as a defining victory of his presidency.
Why it matters: Trump has staked his credibility — and major parts of his foreign policy legacy — on the success of Saturday's military intervention, which punctuated decades of U.S. debate over the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
A Tennessee judge on Wednesday ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador and returned to the U.S., be released from prison while awaiting trial.
Why it matters: However, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw acknowledged in his opinion that Abrego Garcia is still likely to be deported to El Salvador despite being released.
President Trump took aim at New York City's Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani Wednesday after his primary election win.
The big picture: Trump has a long history of using insults to belittle his political foes — and Mamdani and other congressional Democrats appeared to be his latest target.
President Trump on Thursday will hold an event at the White House to pressure GOP holdouts to get behind his "big, beautiful bill" ahead of his July 4 deadline.
Young progressive Zohran Mamdani's historic upset in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary was made possible by a confluence of factors that have left his fans in a fever-dream state Wednesday and his enemies ready to pounce.
Why it matters: No matter where you stand on the self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Mamdani's success offers a playbook to a disillusioned Democratic party whose establishment didn't back him.
Top congressional Democrats are furious over President Trump's decision to limit intelligence sharing with Capitol Hill after the alleged leaks of preliminary assessments about the U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
Why it matters: Democrats see the Trump decision as a significant escalation in what they say is the White House's attempt to stonewall Congress about the Iran conflict.
A trio of financial regulators on Wednesday proposed relaxing how much banks have to hold against their investments.
Why it matters: It is the most significant rule revamp yet for Wall Street in the Trump era, one that loosens requirements for America's largest financial institutions.
The Trump administration plans to limit sharing classified information with Congress after someone leaked an internal assessment suggesting that Saturday's bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities weren't as successful as President Trump claimed, four sources tell Axios.
The FBI also is investigating the leak, the sources said.
Why it matters: The leaking of the preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency's "Battle Damage Assessment" outraged Trump and top U.S. officials, who said it was incomplete and that its release was aimed at undercutting Trump's claims that Iran's nuclear sites had been "obliterated."
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday threw her weight behind a rapidly accelerating effort by Democratic lawmakers to limit Trump's power to unilaterally strike Iran.
Zohran Mamdani's stunning mayoral primary win in New York City on Tuesday night is a major step for the state assemblyman, but the race isn't over yet.
Why it matters: In the general election, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, will face off against Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent. There's also still a chance that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the Democratic nomination, runs as an independent as well.
Tax legislation moving through Congress, paired with other Trump administration policies, will create an economic growth surge that puts the national debt on a downward path, White House economists project in a report out Wednesday morning.
The big picture: The new projections are wildly at odds with estimates generated from mainstream models, including from the Congressional Budget Office and top universities, which see wider fiscal deficits and more modest growth impacts.
The new White House analysis models the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act — a combination of tax and spending cuts that has passed the House and is pending before the Senate — along with other aspects of the Trump agenda, including deregulation and tariffs.
The U.S. and Iran will meet next week to discuss a potential nuclear deal, President Trump claimed at a press conference at the end of the NATO summit on Wednesday.
Why it matters: Iran has not publicly confirmed any planned meeting with U.S. officials, which would come just a week after Trump ordered an unprecedented military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Trump on Wednesday applauded NATO allies' increased defense spending target, patting himself on the back for a "monumental win" for the U.S. — and lambasting Spain for negotiating an exemption.
The big picture: Trump has long demanded that NATO members to commit more to defense spending and for years criticized nations that did not reach the prior 2% benchmark.
Zohran Mamdani's mayoral primary win on Tuesday night sets him up to potentially become New York City's first Muslim mayor and one of its youngest.
Why it matters: The 33-year-old progressive candidate ran on a platform to make New York City more affordable, an extension of his priority as a member of the state legislature.
Senate Republicans are eyeing a $15 billion fund for rural hospitals to be added to the "big, beautiful bill," according to a draft plan obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Some Republicans have been raising the alarm about how changes to the Medicaid provider tax could hurt — and even close — rural hospitals. The new measure is intended to alleviate some of those concerns.
New York City business leaders woke up to the outcome they least expected Wednesday morning — young, popular socialist Zohran Mamdani cruising to apparent victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
Why it matters: There's a reason Kathryn Wylde, long the voice of the city's business community, said this week that leaders were "terrified" of Mamdani's rise.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded to state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday night.
Why it matters: Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, is on course for an earthquake victory after running an extraordinary grassroots campaign focused on affordability in America's largest city.
Israeli intelligence services believe U.S. and Israeli strikes caused "very significant" damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, with some officials perplexed by a leaked U.S. intelligence report that suggested otherwise.
Like the U.S., Israel has not produced a final assessment on how far back the bombing campaign has set Iran's nuclear program, three officials told Axios.
Why it matters: The emerging Israeli assessment presents a far more optimistic view of the operation than a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which assessed the strikes may have set Iran back only a few months.
When the Trump administration paused sweeping tariffs in early April, it promised 90 trade deals in 90 days that would fundamentally reshape the global economic order.
Why it matters: With two weeks to go, there's one deal, one shaky detente and maximum uncertainty about the rest.
Thousands of feet in the air, returning to D.C. from Georgia, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told Axios of his housecleaning ambitions — the "cobwebs and bullsh*t" that need sweeping.
"Complacency right now is going to be rewarded with failure and death in the short- to medium-term," he said.
The big picture: The Army Transformation Initiative's opening salvo landed May 1 with the backing of Driscoll and others, including Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The Trump administration has terminated millions worth of funding for Springer Nature, a German-owned scientific publishing giant that has long received payments for subscriptions from National Institutes of Health and other agencies, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: President Trump and MAGA have made a push to target academic institutions as well as research organizations perceived to be the source of so-called "woke" ideology, including DEI and gender-affirming care policies, by withholding federal funding and in some cases initiating legal action.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune expects some form of freeze on state AI regulations to remain in the "big, beautiful bill" — even as his Republicans keep debating the move.
Why it matters: States are leading the way in passing and implementing AI guardrails while Congress lags behind, and consumers say they want regulation.
It's been ten years since the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S. But Jim Obergefell, the case's lead plaintiff, says the fight is far from over — marriage equality remains under threat.
The big picture: Five months into Trump 2.0, LGBTQ+ communities are facing a surge in political and legal challenges.
Driving the news: The further the X-date is pushed out, the less pressure there is on Congress to act in July.
Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told Axios he plans to start voting on the Senate version on Friday, to meet their self-imposed July 4 deadline.
What they are saying: "Congress must address the debt limit ahead of the August recess," said Margaret Spellings, president and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The updated projection reflects new data from strong quarterly June tax receipts. A March estimate from BPC put the X-date as early as mid-July.
Zoom out: The BPC is one of several organizations that try to forecast when the treasury department will breach the current $36 trillion debt limit, which is currently at $36 trillion.
A forecast from the Congressional Budget Office earlier this month put the date range between mid-August and late September.
The bottom line: The most important timekeeper is the Treasury Department, which typically gets more specific with Congress as the X-date approaches.
In early May, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Johnson that Congress should raise the debt ceiling by mid-July, in case the government's extraordinary measures run out while Congress is on its August recess.
The Trump White House has decided that nine former senior Biden aides won't be protected by executive privilege during their interviews for a congressional probe into Joe Biden's mental fitness for office.
Why it matters: The White House's move means the former Biden aides will have to answer questions about their private conversations with Biden, unless they or Biden try to challenge the decision in court.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune admits Democrats "have done a good job out-demagoguing" President Trump's "big, beautiful bill," he told us in an exclusive interview today.
Why it matters: Republicans know they are down at halftime, with the polls looking ugly on the overall package. But parts of it are very popular, and Thune thinks they can run up the score after the final bill is passed.
"Congress doesn't do comprehensive well," Thune told us.
Democratic arguments about "slashing Medicaid" or "letting billionaires have tax cuts" are just "the early arguments that people are hearing," Thune said.
"I'm very concerned about [Trump] distorting, manipulating and even lying about intelligence," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told us today.
"We've been here before. We went to war in Iraq under false pretenses."
Why it matters: Reports in the New York Times and CNN suggesting that Trump and senior officials exaggerated the damage from the bunker-busting bombs spread across Congress this afternoon.
The White House both criticized the reporting of a classified assessment and denied the reports' accuracy.
Rep. Maxwell Frost. Photo: Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
House Democrats' younger wing notched a major victory today as Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) won a landslide victory to become ranking member of the Oversight Committee — but they're not stopping there.
