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National

Rudy Giuliani has vanished from your television. The last time the president's once-ubiquitous attack dog did a major TV appearance was on Sunday, Jan. 20, when he went on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CNN's "State of the Union."

Between the lines: Sources familiar with Giuliani's thinking say he views a major part of his job as trying to undermine public confidence in the Mueller probe and harden the support of Republican voters for Trump to protect him against impeachment. So for Giuliani to stay off TV for an extended stretch is odd. 

White House officials had expected Giuliani's Jan. 20 Sunday show appearances to be an easy "victory lap" after Mueller's office took the rare step of publicly disputing a BuzzFeed story accusing Trump of committing a felony.

Instead, Giuliani tripped over himself, saying the Trump Tower Moscow talks may have lasted up until November 2016. The claim was both unhelpful and, in the White House's view, incorrect.

Giuliani walked back the comments in a statement the next day: "My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow 'project' were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the president."

Since that weekend, the president's most prominent lawyer has kept his head down. He has only made one on-camera appearance: a March 8 hit on the streaming channel of the Washington newspaper The Hill, where he said Paul Manafort's surprisingly short jail sentence was fair. 

Two sources with direct knowledge told me that both Trump and the White House lawyer handling the Russia investigation, Emmet Flood, have privately griped about some of Giuliani's TV appearances.

A third source said Trump thought it would be best if Giuliani stayed off TV for a while after his Jan. 20 hits. 

Giuliani's response: When I asked Giuliani about all of this, he texted that he has spent hours with Trump in the last month and hasn't heard any complaints about his TV appearances from the president. 

Giuliani then called me to elaborate. He said his decision to stay off TV since Jan. 20 had nothing to do with his performances on those shows.

"About a month to a month and a half ago we decided, because we thought the Mueller report was imminent in the next four or five days, that it would be better not to comment until the report was filed or made public," Giuliani said.

"Obviously those days have now expanded way beyond four or five days."

Giuliani said he decided to stay off TV so as "not to upset the apple cart, not to create unnecessary, additional, needless friction" with the Mueller team. I asked the president's lawyer if he thought this brief cease-fire would have a meaningful effect on the Mueller report, given that Giuliani has attacked Mueller and his team relentlessly for the previous year.

"Yes, because we've had, over a period of time, after we were very tough, we've had some what we regard as very fair decisions, and some that aren't as fair. So we see that there's the capacity to go either way."

Inside Rudy's vanishing act

Both Trump and White House lawyer Emmet Flood have privately griped about some of Giuliani's TV appearances.

Rudy Giuliani. Photo: Siavosh Hosseini/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Politics

Rudy Giuliani

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Since taking office and replacing his Rolls-Royce with an armored Cadillac called "the Beast," Trump seems to have spent more time thinking about cars than any other industrial sector, per aides past and present. He's also bred uncertainty, including over whether he’ll slap tariffs on imported cars.

Why it matters: Trump wants to restore American auto manufacturing to what he considers its mid-20th-century greatness, according to aides. But his ideas for saving the industry are creating angst for its top execs.

Over many months, Axios has interviewed industry executives about Trump's policies and other sources who've discussed the auto industry with the president.

As with most relationships, it's complicated:

Automakers hated being used as political punching bags during the 2016 campaign — Trump berated Ford on Twitter, for example, about building cars in Mexico and often got his facts wrong.

After the election, they were generally pleased by Trump's attention to their issues, but not always with his actions.

Corporate tax reform was a welcome boost, but then his steel and aluminum tariffs wiped out much of their tax savings and drove up car prices.

Economists predict a sales downturn this year.

Now Trump is threatening to slap 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and car parts — which no one in the industry has asked for. As we've previously reported, most of Trump's senior economic advisers — with the notable exception of Peter Navarro — think new car tariffs are a terrible idea.

But Trump tells everyone who'll listen that the threat of car tariffs is his best leverage in talks with foreign leaders.

Trump's bargaining chips have expensive implications for the auto industry — and for consumers. Ford CEO James Hackett said last September that Trump's steel tariffs would cost the automaker about $1 billion in profits.

New tariffs would hurt auto suppliers, car dealers and U.S. factories that depend on global supply chains.

Toyota, which promises to spend $13 billion to expand U.S. manufacturing by 2021, warns that Trump's tariffs would raise the price of a U.S.-built Camry by $1,600.

"There are 137,000 Americans who design, build, sell and maintain American-built Toyota vehicles. They deserve to know if they’re a security threat. And consumers need to know if their costs for American-made vehicles are going to go up."

James Lentz, CEO, Toyota Motor North America

Over the past two years, Trump has latched onto all kinds of ideas he thought would help the car industry. But the auto industry asked for almost none of them.

One backdoor move that died: making foreign car companies adhere to higher fuel economy standards than American companies.

Unwinding Obama-era fuel economy standards is popular with conservatives, but the auto industry is wary.

Automakers welcomed the regulatory review, saying Obama’s higher standards would be tough to meet and didn’t match consumer demands.

Publicly, they say they're open to gradual increases. But privately, some welcome Trump's rollback, according to several sources.

Now Trump is battling California over the issue, as the state fights to set its own stricter standards.

Automakers’ top priority is ensuring the U.S. has only one nationwide standard.

The bottom line: "There's political uncertainty everywhere you look, which is worse than any technological uncertainty because it has a chilling effect on investments," John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Association of Global Automakers, told Axios.

Behind the scenes: Trump unsettles the auto sector

Trump's ideas for revitalizing American auto manufacturing have bred uncertainty among industry executives.

A car's heads-up display with a blinking warning light in the shape of Trump's tie

Automakers

Business

In President Trump's view, self-driving cars are a menace to society. A skeptic of cutting-edge technology — as his tweets about Boeing's "complex" planes emphasized — Trump has privately said he thinks the autonomous vehicle (AV) revolution is "crazy" and that he'd never let a computer drive him around.

Why it matters: Most Americans share Trump's view: 71% of U.S. drivers would be afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle, per AAA. Yet his own administration is encouraging AV development by removing barriers and issuing voluntary guidance instead of regulations. And we see no evidence Trump has imposed his personal views on the policy process.

For Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the challenge amid heightened fears about automation is to manage safety concerns while promoting U.S. innovation.

Behind the scenes: In conversations on Air Force One and in the White House, Trump has acted out scenes of self-driving cars veering out of control and crashing into walls. He's said he doesn't think autonomous vehicles make sense, according to four sources who've heard him discuss the subject.

"You know when he's telling a story, and he does the hand motions," said a source who has heard Trump talk about hypothetical accidents involving self-driving cars. "He says, 'Can you imagine, you're sitting in the back seat and all of a sudden this car is zig-zagging around the corner and you can't stop the f---ing thing?’"

"He's definitely an automated car skeptic," the source said. Another source said Trump told him self-driving cars "will never work."

In one of the early 2017 meetings with CEOs in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Elon Musk and Trump shared a lighthearted exchange about Tesla's "Autopilot" technology. Trump told Musk he preferred traditional cars, according to a source who was in the room.

And in the summer of 2017, at his Bedminster golf club, Trump was chatting with club members when one raised the subject of AV technology. The club member was "excited" about a new Tesla he bought, recalled a source who was part of the conversation. "And [Trump] was like, 'Yeah that's cool but I would never get in a self-driving car. ... I don't trust some computer to drive me around.'"

While Trump is in no hurry to see automated vehicles, Chao is actively promoting the technology.

Last Tuesday at the SXSW conference, Chao announced a new regulatory body to speed up the adoption of cutting-edge transportation technologies like hyperloop tunnels and self-driving cars.

Then on Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would seek the public's opinion on an unprecedented idea: Should decades-old motor vehicle statutes be changed to allow cars with no steering wheels, pedals or gear shifts?

The bottom line: Currently, there are no federal regulations on self-driving cars — just a hodgepodge of state rules.

Efforts to pass AV legislation stalled in the last Congress over concerns about privacy and safety. The issue will likely resurface this year, reports Axios' Joann Muller, who writes Axios' Autonomous Vehicles newsletter.

AV companies say the tech is moving too fast to regulate anyway. By sharing test data, they say they could help define standards and practices themselves.

For now, companies are encouraged to file voluntary safety self-assessments each year; so far, a dozen have done so.

Between the lines: A source who has discussed autonomous vehicles with Trump says he thinks it wouldn't take much for the president to rapidly reverse his administration's hands-off approach to hands-free vehicles. Trump already calls self-driving cars out-of-control death traps, so any news fueling that fear could jolt him into action.

Scoop: Trump hates "crazy" driverless cars

Yet his own administration is encouraging their development.

Illustration of car with devil horns and tail

Self-driving cars

Transportation

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Capital

Axios Capital

In a big week for hypocrisy, the leader of the pack was surely Bill McGlashan, the CEO of the world's largest impact investing fund.

McGlashan, who was once described by the New York Times as resembling "a Buddhist monk," led a multibillion-dollar investing vehicle designed (among other things) to "expand access to educational attainment." Simultaneously, he was allegedly spending $250,000 of his own money to bribe his son's way into a selective university.

McGlashan was fired on Thursday, an action he claimed to be "perplexed" by. (It seems that McGlashan just can't avoid lying: There's no way he didn't know why his bosses wanted to fire him rather than allowing him to resign.)

Where it stands: "A man who embodied the faith that the meek of the earth could be saved by private-equity barons," tweeted Anand Giridharadas, "has been indicted for rigging the opportunity structure against the disadvantaged."

Why it matters: McGlashan exemplifies the way in which financiers claim the moral high ground while refusing to compromise their own privilege. McGlashan's downfall marks an opportunity to critically re-examine the entire world of impact investment.

"Green bonds" drive a lot of impact investing, even though they're mostly indistinguishable from their non-green siblings.

A recent World Bank bond was ostensibly designed "to raise awareness for the importance of investing in women and girls." There's no obvious way in which it does that, and it's a minuscule $4 million in size — a drop in the bucket, compared to the Bank's annual $50 billion in bond issuance.

The World Bank's ebola bond was, it said, “a momentous step” that would "serve the world’s poorest people.” The idea: Were ebola to flare up again in west Africa, investors' money would be used to address it. Investors so far haven't lost a penny, despite the outbreak of the 2nd-largest outbreak of Ebola on record.

US municipal green bond issuance fell to $4.9 billion in 2018, per S&P Global Ratings, down more than 50% from $10 billion in 2017. Development banks also saw their green bond issuance fall. But for-profit banks, largely in China, took up a lot of the slack. They issued $48 billion of green bonds in 2018, up from $23 billion the previous year.

The real impact: A lot of people who think that they're making socially responsible investments are really just buying Chinese bank debt.

Equity impact investment can also be highly dubious. See for instance DBL Partners (it stands for "double bottom line"), which has put money into companies ranging from online luxury-consignment store The RealReal to bankrupt Wi-Fi juicing company Juicero.

The bottom line: Impact investing, by its nature, involves making the rich richer when increasing inequality is one of the world's great dangers. Bill McGlashan was at the forefront of attempts to quantify the social impact of investments, but I have yet to see an internal impact accounting that includes the consequences of funneling dynastic wealth to him and his family.

Bill McGlashan's firing exposes hypocrisy in impact investing

The CEO of the world's largest impact investing fund allegedly spent $250,000 to bribe his son's way into a selective university.

A magnifying glass examining an angel emoji and revealing a poop emoji

TPG Capital

President Trump came to Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro's defense on Sunday in response to the network taking her off the air without explanation, one week after she implied Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) use of a hijab was antithetical to the U.S. Constitution.

"Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous - they all want what you’ve got - NUMBER ONE. Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. They can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves!"

Context: The string of tweets comes one day after authorities said "an immigrant-hating white supremacist" killed at least 50 people at a pair of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Trump issued a single tweet on the day of the attack extending his sympathies to the people of New Zealand, but he did not condemn the shooter's racial motives or acknowledge the targeting of Muslims.

When asked on Friday if he believes white nationalism is a "rising threat," Trump said he believes "it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems." Far-right extremists have killed more people in the U.S. since 9/11 than any other organized terrorist group.

The big picture: A series of damning incidents over the past several weeks has seen Pirro, fellow host Tucker Carlson and Fox News as an entity come under fire for charges of racism and coziness with the Trump administration.

Trump defends Fox News' Jeanine Pirro after Islamophobic comments

Pirro was taken off the air one week after making Islamophobic comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Islamophobia

Axios AM

Recent polling in a slew of states that carried President Trump to his thin win in 2016 show him starting 2020 in a deep hole. 

What's new: Based on demographic changes, Republicans for the first time have authentic worries about Arizona, Georgia, Texas and other states they once took for granted. 

Why it matters: Trump's margin for error this time is much smaller, because he's being squeezed from the north and the south.

From the north: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are harder this time because Hillary Clinton, a turnoff for many working-class voters, won't be on the ballot.

From the south: Demographics are making North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Arizona more competitive, and realistically in play. 

That's part of the reason for the fascination with more centrist Democrats like Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke and Joe Biden: The states that Trump won, but could easily lose, are swingy — not super-liberal. 

Trump's 2020 map from hell

Arizona, Georgia and Texas may be in play thanks to shifting demographics.

Axios

Sunday's top stories

Inside Rudy's vanishing act

Behind the scenes: Trump unsettles the auto sector

Scoop: Trump hates "crazy" driverless cars

Bill McGlashan's firing exposes hypocrisy in impact investing

Trump defends Fox News' Jeanine Pirro after Islamophobic comments

Trump's 2020 map from hell

New Zealand mourns: Bodies of victims start being released

#UToo: University shortcuts for the rich

Mosque attacks suspect gives "white power" sign in Christchurch court

AI unready