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2028

Axios 2028

Some top Democrats are quietly debating a fraught question: whether the party's best bet for winning back the presidency in 2028 is to nominate a man — perhaps a straight, white, Christian man.

Their fear, divulged with dismay in group chats, at cocktail parties and increasingly in public, is that parts of the electorate are too biased to support a woman or other diverse candidate for president.

Former first lady Michelle Obama fueled such talk recently, saying the U.S. is "not ready for a woman." Democratic strategists have put it bluntly, with several saying a version of "It has to be a white guy."

The big picture: The Democratic Party takes pride in being a champion of women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and religious minorities. Electing Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, was the high point for the party's goal of boosting diversity in the executive branch.

But falling short twice to President Trump — both times with women on the ticket — has left some Democratic leaders, donors and strategists deeply pessimistic about what voters will accept now.

"There is a fear — and I actually don't think this is just a grass-tops fear, I think you'd hear it from voters, too — that a woman has now lost twice," a national Democratic strategist told Axios.

"So not discounting the hundreds of other times men have lost … but is it the right thing to nominate a woman?"

 Driving the news: Most of these conversations have unfolded behind closed doors, but a striking number of Democrats have begun voicing their concerns more openly, exposing a larger debate within the party over electability.

Michelle Obama pushed the discussion into public view in November, saying the U.S. has "got a lot of growing up to do, and there's still, sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman."

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn told NBC the former first lady was "absolutely correct," adding that women should keep running anyway.

On "The View" last year, former President Biden blamed sexism and racism for former Vice President Harris' loss to Donald Trump in 2024.

In her book, "107 Days," Harris talked about the hurdles she faced — and how they affected her running-mate selection.

She wrote that before tapping Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her top choice was then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who's gay. He "would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight, white man," Harris said.

"But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man," she said. "Part of me wanted to say, 'Screw it, let's just do it.' But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk."

But Harris told the New York Times in December that "I do believe the country is ready" for a female president.

State of play: Not many women are seen as weighing presidential campaigns in 2028, though Harris, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are widely believed to be doing so. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is another possible candidate, though some insiders think she's unlikely to run.

Many of the men seen as possible 2028 contenders aren't white Christians. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are Jewish. Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego is Latino. California Rep. Ro Khanna is a Hindu of Indian descent. And New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are Black.

Besides Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are white Christians, though Newsom has called himself an "Irish-Catholic rebel."

Reality check: Every election is different, and skeptics of the chatter say blaming some Americans' intolerance for Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016 and Harris' in 2024 could be a too-convenient way for the party to avoid dealing with its own divisions and shortcomings.

Several potential 2028 contenders have pushed back on the notion that the country isn't tolerant enough.

"They have no idea what they are talking about," Khanna told us of Democrats who think women and other diverse candidates can't win. "The data says otherwise."

Harris "got the same white votes as Barack Obama," Khanna said. "What she lost in white men, she made up in white women. But we didn't win as many Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Black men or young voters."

"I love Michelle Obama," Whitmer told NPR, but "I think America is ready for a woman president."

Buttigieg told Politico that "the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you're going to do for their lives, not on categories."

Shapiro, on the "Higher Learning" podcast, was asked to respond to someone who said he was a fan of Shapiro's, but "too bad a Jew can't be president."

Shapiro replied that he's won a key swing state and connected with voters of all stripes by being open about his faith.

"I think America's ready to elect a woman, a Black person, a gay person, a Jewish person or whatever," he said before brandishing his go-to motto.

"What America wants is someone who's going to get sh*t done for them."

Some Dems' 2028 strategy: a straight, white, Christian man

Some top Dems fret that parts of the electorate won't support a woman or non-white man for president.

Illustration of a blue donkey with the shadows of two people on either side of it

Elections 2024

Joe Biden

Kamala Harris

Race and Equity

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Finish Line

Axios Finish Line

Top AI and government officials tell Axios CEO Jim VandeHei that Anthropic, OpenAI and other tech giants will soon release new models that are scary good at hacking sophisticated systems at scale.

The one to watch: Anthropic is privately warning top government officials that its not-yet-released model — currently branded "Mythos" — makes large-scale cyberattacks much more likely in 2026.

The model allows agents to work on their own with wild sophistication and precision to penetrate corporate, government and municipal systems. It's a hacker's dream weapon.

Jim revealed in his new weekly newsletter for CEOs that one source briefed on the coming models says a large-scale attack could hit this year. Businesses are ripe targets. (C-suite only: Request beta of Jim's newsletter.)

Fortune got its hands on an unpublished Anthropic blog post describing Mythos. The post said the model is "currently far ahead of any other AI model in cyber capabilities."

It adds that Mythos "presages an upcoming wave of models that can exploit vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders."

The threat is no longer theoretical, and will be exacerbated by employees testing agents without realizing they're making it easier for cybercriminals to hack their company.

Flashback: Late last year, Anthropic disclosed the first documented case of a cyberattack largely executed by AI — a Chinese state-sponsored group that used AI agents to autonomously hack roughly 30 global targets, with the AI handling 80–90% of tactical operations independently.

This was before agents got exponentially better and those experimenting with them started to open risky new side doors.

Here's why this is different: The new models are even better at powering agents to think, act, reason and improvise on their own without rest or pause or limitation.

Think of a warehouse full of the most sophisticated criminals who never sleep, learn on the fly and persist until successful — except the warehouse is infinite.

Bad actors can now scale simply with more compute. They aren't limited by finite personnel. A single person can run campaigns that once required entire teams.

At the same time, systems are more vulnerable because so many employees are firing up Claude, Copilot or other agentic models — often at home — and creating agents of their own.

Oftentimes, they connect to their internal work systems unwittingly, opening a new door for cybercriminals to enter.

The industry has a name for this: "shadow AI." A Dark Reading poll found that 48% of cybersecurity professionals now rank agentic AI as the No. 1 attack vector for 2026 — above deepfakes, above everything else.

The bottom line: Everyone working at every company in America needs to know right now the dangers of using agents, especially unsupervised, anywhere near sensitive information. Leaders need to hammer this home.

My tech team says this is the biggest threat to Axios right now.

Your workplace can build a safe "playpen" for work-related AI experiments using agents. We're scrambling to finish ours.

Go deeper: How Anthropic's Pentagon deal could get revived.

📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Sign up now to join Jim's new Axios C-Suite weekly newsletter.

Behind the Curtain: AI's looming cyber nightmare

Anthropic fears its unreleased model might unleash a wave of cyberattacks.

Illustration of a targeting scope with a sparkle shape in it over a sparkle emoji in shadows.

Column / Behind the Curtain

Artificial Intelligence

Behind the Curtain

Big Tech

Cybersecurity

C-Suite

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

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Business

Macro

Axios Macro

Americans desperately want day-to-day life to be more affordable. Right now, they aren't getting it.

The big picture: The pinch of high prices for food, energy, housing and more has driven seismic shifts in public opinion over the last four years. Since the onset of the Iran war, the cost of living looks likely to get worse, not better, at least in the near term.

Energy prices are surging, interest rates are on the rise, and the stock market is looking wobbly — a triple whammy for U.S. households.

By the numbers: The national average for a gallon of gasoline is poised to surpass $4, up from about $3 a month ago — and is set to rise further the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.

Even before the latest energy shock, electricity prices were up 4.8% over the last year, and piped natural gas up 10.9%.

Higher energy prices will also likely show up in more expensive airfares and in shipping costs that could ripple through all sorts of goods.

Grocery prices are up 3.9% over the last year, and Iran's blockade is throttling the global supply of fertilizer, which could create new pressures on food prices come harvest season.

Of note: The impact of higher gasoline prices alone may roughly offset higher anticipated tax refunds due to last year's One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, per analysis from Stanford economists.

Driving the news: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development this week projected U.S. inflation will reach 4.2% this year. Before the war, the international research and policy group had projected 3% U.S. inflation.

That is lower than the inflation rate reached in 2022, the peak of the post-pandemic supply chain snarls and the Ukraine war's impact. But 4%+ inflation would come on top of five consecutive years of elevated inflation — consumer prices are up 25% since December 2020.

And the job market is much weaker now than it was in 2022, with less hiring and smaller pay increases to help offset higher costs.

It's not just professional forecasters, either. In the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey released Friday, respondents' expectations for inflation over the next year soared to 3.8% in March from 3.4% in February.

State of play: Prospects of higher inflation and higher government borrowing have fueled sell-offs in stocks and bonds that are simultaneously depleting household wealth and making it more costly to borrow money to buy a home.

The S&P 500 is down nearly 7% so far this year. Stock market wealth has helped support overall consumer spending, especially by the affluent.

The U.S. government's borrowing costs have risen about half a percentage point since the start of the war, and home mortgage rates have gone up even more.

A month ago, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipped to under 6% for the first time in three years. Now it's back up to 6.64%.  

What they're saying: "Consumers are tired of high prices," Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin said in a speech Friday. "They're deferring purchases, trading down and moving down to lower-priced retailers and private label."

It's hard to ignore data that "suggests our progress on inflation may be at risk of stalling," he said. "And that was before the oil price spike — the latest in a series of cost-increasing supply shocks after the pandemic, semiconductor chip shortages, the war in Ukraine, tariffs and immigration enforcement."

Consumers caught in triple stack of pain

Since the onset of the Iran war, the cost-of-living looks likely to get worse, not better, at least in the near term.

Illustration of a woman with a shopping basket being attacked by giant dollar signs

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

Donald Trump

Drug prices

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Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

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The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

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World

A cultural shift toward downsizing fueled by a GLP-1 drug boom and slimming celebrities is destabilizing for people trying to achieve acceptance, mental health experts and body positivity advocates tell Axios.

Why it matters: Still, the body positivity movement, advocates say, is an ongoing fight that won't shrink with the trends.

"Our brains must see evidence of body diversity," says Zoë Bisbing, a psychotherapist and the founder of Body-Positive Therapy NYC. If we don't, "our brains clock our bodies as wrong."

Flashback: Following the heroin-chic aesthetic of the '90s and early aughts, the 2010s brought curvy anthem "All About That Bass" and an attempt from some brands to elevate more realistic body standards.

But now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward media highlighting ultra-thinness, aided by access to GLP-1s and spotlighting celebrities who have slimmed down quickly.

What they're saying: "It absolutely feels like backtracking," says Katelyn Baker, a doctor of clinical psychology who shares body positivity content on TikTok as @thatfatdoctor.

"It hurts my heart because of all the work that I personally poured in, as well as all my friends and my colleagues and people who came before me," she said. "They're kind of disappearing."

Cassandra Cavallaro, a content creator who promotes movement for wellness rather than weight loss, says the rise of the now-banned "SkinnyTok" hashtag sent a "really concerning" message that "bodies are now becoming a trend again." 

She emphasizes, "Real people's bodies aren't a trend."

Even stars are noticing the return of harmful appearance norms among fellow celebrities: Actress Jameela Jamil said in a recent video, "this is not just a health kick that Hollywood has undergone." 

She continued, "We fought the system [with body positivity], and now we need to come back and do that again."

Between the lines: For those without the resources, Yeshiva University social work professor Dr. Nafees Alam says, the proliferation of drugs widens a two-tiered societal split between those who can afford medical intervention and those who have to "settle" for body positivity.

Systemic barriers to weight management are nothing new, he notes: "Health has been a privilege for those who are socioeconomically affluent for a very long time."

Worth noting: GLP-1s can bring relief to those who need them and offer widespread health benefits beyond Type 2 diabetes management, such as reduced risk of neurological issues and sleep apnea.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay, a body positivity proponent and contributing writer at The Cut, told NPR that "our obsession with celebrities taking them has created an environment where we are not actually evaluating these drugs for their real value."

The drugs also carry side effects, including nausea, headaches and fatigue. In rare cases, there is an increased risk of GI disorders such as pancreatitis.

Health experts have argued the language we use to describe these drugs should frame them as a tool to treat a chronic disease rather than a vanity product. It's part of a broader growing awareness that the language clinicians use language to describe their patients can impact health.

Cavallaro says she doesn't see GLP-1 drugs as "inherently bad."

But the visibility of the weight-loss craze, she says, "brings up all this comparison and second-guessing of our bodies, especially for people who were starting to maybe feel OK ... Now they're questioning, should I be doing more? Should I be smaller?"

The bottom line: The body positivity movement, rooted in the 1960's push for fat rights, is more than just a hashtag or a trend — it's a battle for social justice that blazes on, Bisbing explains.

• "It's not you must love your body as you are," says Bisbing. "It's saying, 'Whoever you are, you have a right to love your body.'"

Go deeper: Why GLP-1s could become the "everything drug"

Why GLP-1s could become the "everything drug"

"Bodies aren't a trend": Body positivity fight endures in the GLP-1 era

"Real people's bodies aren't a trend," one advocate tells Axios.

an collage of colorful rectangles featuring photos of weight loss drugs, measuring tapes and medical charts 

Media

Social Media

OpenAI spent the last year trying to be everything — a video platform, a shopping portal, even a purveyor of AI erotica.

Now it's racing to become a thing that makes money.

Why it matters: OpenAI is retreating from risky consumer features like adult content while prioritizing business tools and revenue growth — just as competition from Anthropic intensifies.

Business customers present the clearest revenue models. Those users want to generate text and build an army of agents to 10x the productivity of everyone left on their staff, not engage in erotic chatbot play. 

Catch up quick: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the proposed erotica feature last October amid reports of declining time spent on ChatGPT.

But it ran into technical problems in testing, including trouble removing references to bestiality and incest, according to the Financial Times.

State of play: This is the third consumer retreat in days. OpenAI also:

Killed Sora, the AI video app that went viral after its September launch. 

Scaled back Instant Checkout — its in-chat shopping feature — and is moving away from handling purchases.

Another blow, though not necessarily OpenAI's choice: Bloomberg reported Thursday that Apple now plans to let rival chatbots — including Claude and Gemini — integrate with Siri on iPhones.

OpenAI started as a research lab, so it's no surprise it had lots of other irons in the fire, like a web browser, music generation, a wearable AI pin, a smart speaker and smart glasses.

OpenAI says the company is doubling down on what's working, avoiding distractions and seizing the moment. 

Yes, but: OpenAI isn't giving up on the consumer and the consumer hasn't given up on ChatGPT, despite the hype around Claude.

ChatGPT still has 900 million weekly active users and 50 million consumer subscribers. 

Between the lines: All signs point to OpenAI clearing the decks for an IPO and trying to turn those millions of active users into paying customers.

"ChatGPT is where people start with AI," OpenAI said in a blog post last month, announcing $110 billion in new investment to "bring frontier AI to more people, more businesses, and more communities worldwide."

On Tuesday — the same day it killed Sora — OpenAI published its updated Model Spec, the 100-page document that governs how ChatGPT behaves, a similar document to the one that Anthropic has been regularly updating for Claude.  

The company framed its mission around "democratized access" to AI in health, science, education and work, a vision statement conspicuously scrubbed of anything resembling consumer entertainment.

What they're saying: Nixing spicy ChatGPT seems to please everyone (except those hoping to use it).

"Public pressure regarding AI's impact on child safety and mental health [has] been increasing continuously since OpenAI initially announced their plans to allow adult content," Jessica Ji, senior research analyst at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told Axios.

"I would look at it first as simply a pure business decision, much like their decision to shut down the Sora video generation project," Gus Hurwitz, senior fellow and academic director of the Center for Technology Innovation & Competition at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, told Axios. 

"This is not the time when a company wants to spook potential investors with legal, regulatory, or political uncertainty," Hurwitz said.

What OpenAI's erotica retreat really means

OpenAI shelved or modified plans for erotica, video, and Instant Checkout.

Illustration of a trash can icon with a pixelated "XXX" inside. 

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

Privacy & tech regulation

Tech Regulation

The House on Friday night passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security until May 22. 

Why it matters: House GOP leaders' decision not to act on a Senate-passed plan has stoked tensions between House and Senate Republicans and raised questions about the path forward for ending the DHS shutdown, now well into its second month. 

The Senate's plan would fund DHS through Sept. 30, but without money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) instead advanced an eight-week stopgap that fully funds DHS, including ICE and CBP. 

The vote was 213-203, with three House Democrats joining all Republicans in support.

Democratic Reps. Don Davis (N.C.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez ( Wash.) and Henry Cuellar (Texas) voted yes. 

Catch up quick: The Senate voted in the early hours of Friday morning to pass a bill that would reopen all of the Department of Homeland Security, excluding funding for ICE and CBP.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) had signaled that Republicans plan to address those agencies later through reconciliation, with only GOP votes.

Johnson called the Senate-passed bill a "joke," noting the lack of border security funding.

Senate Democrats have already made clear they will oppose the House's short-term DHS funding bill.

What's next: The Senate, which just left for a two-week recess, will have to determine whether its members will return to Washington and take up the House-passed bill. 

House passes short-term DHS funding bill

Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate-passed bill a "joke," noting the lack of border security funding.

Man in a blue suit speaks at a podium with a microphone and papers, flanked by a woman in a green patterned dress; reporters observe in the background.

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with the media alongside Chairwoman Lisa McClain and Whip Tom Emmer at the U.S. Capitol  on March 27. Photo: Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Immigration

Policymaking

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio when the U.S. would get tough on Russia during a G7 ministers meeting on Friday, sparking a sharp retort, according to three sources who attended the meeting. 

Why it matters: The tense exchange, which took place in front of allied foreign ministers, was symptomatic of the mutual distrust between the U.S. and many of its European allies over the war in Ukraine. 

Behind the scenes: During a discussion of Ukraine, Kallas — a Russia hawk and former prime minister of Estonia — criticized the U.S. for not increasing pressure on Moscow, according to the sources.

She noted that Rubio had said at the same forum a year earlier that if Russia hampered U.S. efforts to end the war, the U.S. would run out of patience and take more steps against the Kremlin.

"A year has passed and Russia hasn't moved," Kallas told Rubio, according to the sources. "When is your patience going to run out?"

The other side: Rubio was visibly annoyed, according to the sources. 

"We are doing the best we can to end the war. If you think you can do it better, go ahead. We will step aside," he fired back, raising his voice.

Rubio said the U.S. was trying to talk to both sides, but was only helping one side, Ukraine, with weapons, intelligence and other support.

After that heated exchange, several European ministers in the room interjected to say they still wanted the U.S. to pursue Russia-Ukraine diplomacy, one source said.

Two sources said that at the end of the meeting, Rubio and Kallas had a short pull-aside to try and cool down things.

What they're saying: "It was a frank exchange of views. This is what diplomacy is for," a State Department official told Axios.

A spokesperson for Kallas declined to comment.

In a gaggle with reporters after the G7 meeting, Rubio denied there had been any tensions or criticism.

"These meetings are oftentimes about thanking America for the role we played... and appreciation for the mediating role we've tried to play in this war between Russia and Ukraine," Rubio said. No one there screams or raises their voices or says anything negative."

Zoom out: European leaders have been nervous about the U.S.-led peace talks between Ukraine and Russia for months.

Scoop: Rubio and EU official had heated exchange on Russia at G7 meeting

"If you think you can do it better, go ahead. We will step aside," Rubio fired back.

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