Axios

President Trump praised the "courageous people of Ukraine" and their "unbreakable spirit" in a letter that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared on X Sunday, as the country marked Independence Day.

The big picture: Trump, who's been pushing for a summit between Zelensky and Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, emphasized in the letter his support for "a negotiated settlement" that leads to "lasting peace." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC in an interview broadcast Sunday "there is no meeting planned" with Zelensky.

Go deeper: Russia "made significant concessions" to Trump on Ukraine talks, Vance says

President Trump has "a lot of cards left to play to apply pressure" to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The big picture: Vance said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that he didn't think Moscow was stringing Trump along after Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a separate interview on the same show that no leaders' meeting had been planned between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, which the U.S. president has been pressing for.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is doing more than just mocking President Trump's signature social media style: It seems he's now borrowing the president's brand — and hawking familiar headwear.

Why it matters: Trump and his affiliated entities have monetized his agenda for years, pushing sneakers, perfume, Bibles and, of course, the red Make America Great Again trucker hats.

President Trump threatened Sunday to "send in the 'troops'" to Maryland after Gov. Wes Moore (D) invited the president to walk the streets of Baltimore with him — a request Trump sharply rebuked in an escalating tit-for-tat with the Democratic governor.

The big picture: Amid his federal takeover of D.C., Trump has floated expanding his crackdown on what he sees as rampant crime to several Democratic-run cities, including Baltimore.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a Sunday interview that President Trump's threats to crack down on crime in Chicago without a request from the state is an "effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction."

The big picture: Sending the National Guard into another Democratic-led city would be another escalation in the president's pledge to "make our country safe" and his willingness to stretch the bounds of presidential authority.

Vice President JD Vance framed President Trump's push for red states to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterms as an attempt "to make the situation a little bit more fair" in an interview airing Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press."

The big picture: The line-redrawing blitz is forging ahead in Texas and California as other states consider drafting new lines — and as Democrats vow to fight fire with fire.

Through immigration crackdowns and cultural purges, President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.

Why it matters: The MAGA movement's obsession with American identity and Western civilization is shaping federal policy far more than in Trump's first term — fueling a reckoning over who belongs and what history should be remembered.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is already working to rally his MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement as a critical constituency for keeping GOP control of Congress in next year's midterms.

Why it matters: The RFK Jr. coalition draws several slices of voters who otherwise might shun MAGA, including some traditionally Democratic- and independent-leaning suburbanites, women and younger voters.

More than half of Americans supported allowing no-excuse mail-in voting in a Pew Research Center poll despite President Trump's promise to end the practice he denounced as "fraudulent."

The big picture: Trump has been pushing an end to mail-in voting for years, especially while calling into question results of the 2020 election, in which election officials found no evidence of widespread voting fraud.

Young adults are pushing back the big milestones Americans have historically associated with growing up — moving out of your parents' house, getting a job, getting married and having kids.

The big picture: In 1975, about half of America's 25– to 34–year–olds had done those things. Fifty years later, less than a quarter have, according to a census working paper out this month.

Joe Gebbia — a co-founder of Airbnb who was named by President Trump this week to be the first U.S. chief design officer — tells Axios he wants to update federal websites to an "Apple Store-like experience."

• "That means it's beautifully designed," Gebbia told us, "has great user experience, and it runs on modern software" — three strikes when it comes to dealing with today's government.

Why it matters: Airbnb — which over 17 years has become a ubiquitous verb for what used to be a classified-ad section at the back of the newspaper — applied those same three principles to renting a vacation home. "There's no reason why the government can't have that, too," Gebbia said.

• And Trump is making it a legacy project.

The number of people in immigration detention has soared by more than 50% since President Trump took office — and that doesn't include thousands more detainees who aren't in the administration's official count, an Axios review finds.

Why it matters: A record 60,000 immigrants are now officially in long-term detention, according to the latest government data, a historic jump from the 39,000 or so who were behind bars at the end of the Biden administration.

After years of feeling flush, states are now facing budget shortfalls — and that's before the cuts in the "one big, beautiful bill" kick in.

Why it matters: The blowback will be on everyday Americans. To make up for lost revenue, states can either raise taxes or cut services — on things like public education, healthcare and food assistance.

Months after FBI Director Kash Patel told lawmakers there would be "no politicization" and "no retributive actions" at the bureau, the FBI and other government agencies have launched investigations into multiple people the president has previously named as enemies.

The big picture: The Trump administration has expanded the scope of law enforcement since the president retook power earlier this year, and MAGA supporters, such as Patel, have approached their jobs in alignment with Trump's goals on rooting out government officials working within what he calls the "deep state."

The Interior Department on Friday halted construction on Ørsted's Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island's coast.

Why it matters: It's another sign of the Trump administration's hostility to offshore wind and comes after it issued — then lifted — a stop-work order on a major wind project under construction off New York's coast.