The Axios Show

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💰 "The Axios Show": Dimon's American Dream bet

Capitalism has left some people behind, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said on a new episode of "The Axios Show" out later this week — and he wants his bank to help create economic opportunities for as many of them as possible.

• Dimon tells Axios CEO Jim VandeHei: "I've been speaking about the frame of the American dream for years. And I think you have to acknowledge that there's a flaw," especially for lower-income Americans.

🏦 The bank is launching an ambitious multiyear program today called the American Dream Initiative. The plan is to invest money and resources into small businesses, affordable housing and job training across the country.

• The program aims to support small businesses by unlocking more access to capital, coaching, and tools for tasks like payroll and invoicing.

Why it matters: Dimon is betting that juicing economic opportunity at the local level is not just good for business, but for the U.S. as a whole.

• "America's military strength is also predicated on economic strength," he said. "And that economic strength is somewhat predicated on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and equal opportunity. So if you want to have an equal opportunity country, you need to do some of these things to give people more opportunity."

Watch the clip ... Read the announcement.

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🪖 Dimon on "The Axios Show": Iran was threat

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO, says on a new episode of "The Axios Show" that while the Iran war involves some "short-term risks" for the economy, the country's regime has been a bad actor since its inception.

• "Having those folks, their [grip] on the Strait of Hormuz and funding all these proxy wars — why the Western world put up with these proxy wars for 45 years is kind of beyond me," Dimon told Axios CEO Jim VandeHei.

Why it matters: Those are strikingly hawkish comments from the leader of America's largest bank, making him one of the corporate world's most prominent defenders of a war that currently appears politically unpopular and economically damaging.

Dimon said critics who argue there was "no imminent threat" from Iran are simply saying "the bad thing hasn't happened" yet.

• "They've killed a lot of Americans. They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis … they have terrorist cells here," Dimon told Axios at his bank's new global headquarters in Manhattan.
• "They were bad," Dimon said of the Iranian regime.

The flip side: "Does it create all this uncertainty? Absolutely," he continued. "Does it create more short-term risk for oil prices? Absolutely. I'm praying it ends well."

• Watch the clip.

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📺 Dimon on Trump, Iran and running for office

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon defended the Iran war, dismissed the idea of running for office and pointed at plans for his post-CEO future in a new episode of "The Axios Show."

🏦 The head of the country's biggest bank was reluctant to criticize President Trump across several issues.

• On the Iran war, Dimon dismissed the criticism that there was no imminent threat facing the U.S.
• He told Axios CEO Jim VandeHei: "They've been killing people around the world for 45-plus years. They've killed a lot of Americans. They've funded Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis ... they have terrorist cells here."

🙅 Asked for his single biggest disappointment about Trump, Dimon said: "I don't want to say here."

• He did indicate he's considered some Trump moves heavy-handed: "I just think sometimes he raises some wonderful issues — things that universities should have been doing a better job at. But I'm not in favor of taking away all their R&D."

Go deeper ...

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Jamie Dimon's warning

JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon tells Axios CEO Jim VandeHei the U.S. is facing the most concurrent risks in 80 years — and that's before AI starts displacing a large number of American workers.

• Dimon, in an interview for "The Axios Show," says American business leaders need to step up, and speak up, to help guide the country through these high-risk, tumultuous times.

"We in business made a mistake in not getting more involved earlier," Dimon told Jim at JPMorgan's new global headquarters in Manhattan. "I do not think the problems of society will be fixed by politicians alone."

• Dimon's annual shareholder letter, out next week, will dive deep into geopolitical threats. "There's more geopolitical risk than we've seen since World War II," he said.

🤖 A top threat: He told Axios that AI is likely to displace lots of workers in the medium term and increase the likelihood of a large-scale cyberattack. "AI makes cyber — and these [AI agents] make cyber — far worse," he said.

• Dimon was briefed on Anthropic's unreleased Mythos model, which the company fears may dramatically increase the ability of hackers or foreign adversaries to carry out potentially catastrophic attacks.

⚠️ Dimon's other risks, in no particular order: China, cyber, Iran war escalation, Russian aggression, rogue AI, private credit crisis, unsustainable U.S. debt, political dysfunction, economic uncertainty and nuclear weapons.

• When asked why so many CEOs seem "chickensh*t" when it comes to speaking honestly to employees and the public, Dimon downplayed fear of upsetting President Trump as the reason. But his own on-camera caution when critiquing the president captured the unease vividly.

Dimon remains optimistic about the country's ability to navigate myriad risks. But he didn't sugarcoat the ever-growing threats to business and safety:

• "We still have the most prosperous nation the world's ever seen [and] the best military. We're in a great position — and we have issues. … You can't fix problems when you don't acknowledge them."

🗳️ What's next: Dimon said an independent candidate might be needed to fix things. But, at 70, he's not running — for anything, under any party: "I do get asked, but I'm not sure I'm suited to it."

• "We're so tough on our politicians," he said. "We just annihilate them, and I just think it's wrong."

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🖊️ Dimon: Cities need to compete

Image: JPMorgan Chase

In his widely read annual shareholder letter, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon warns New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani that people "vote with their feet — you can already see a fairly large exodus of people and jobs out of some states with high taxes and high expenses." Dimon notes JPMorgan has shrunk its NYC headcount from 30,000 to 24,000 over the past decade while growing in Texas from 26,000 to 32,000. "This trend will likely continue," he writes. Dimon's 49-page letter says that if Europe commits to economic and military reforms, the U.S. should "negotiate one big, beautiful free trade agreement with all of Europe": "America needs Europe to succeed." 📈 Dimon, as ever, sounds optimistic: "Despite the unsettling landscape, the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, with consumers still earning and spending (though with some recent weakening) and businesses still healthy." Read the letter ... "The Axios Show": Watch Jim VandeHei interview Dimon.

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🎲 "The Axios Show": Kalshi says "good thing" for U.S. to step in

It's a good thing for insider traders and other bad actors on prediction markets to be caught and punished by regulators, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and co-founder Luana Lopes Lara tell Dan Primack in a new episode of "The Axios Show."

• Why it matters: Operators like Kalshi and Polymarket are under pressure to root out suspected incidents of insider trading, particularly on matters like politics, war, sports and entertainment, Axios' Nathan Bomey writes.

Between the lines: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates Kalshi in the U.S. Mansour said if there were a yes/no market on his own platform on whether the CFTC would pursue an insider trading case in the next 12 months, he expects the answer would be "yes."

• "Our job as an exchange and the job of regulators" is to "flag these bad actors and detect and deter," he said.
• As prediction markets grow, Mansour sees feds cracking down on offenders as natural — even welcome: "It's a good thing."

Watch the clip.

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🎤 Axios Live talks Tax Day

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, believes the disruption from the Iran war could end "relatively quickly" when and if a deal gets made, he told Neil Irwin at an Axios News Shapers event in Washington today.

• Hassett added: "In fact, the Iranians are at a point where they're significantly at risk if they don't make a deal, because all of their storage facilities are full and they'd have to shut down the wells."

✂️ Asked about cutting interest rates amid rising inflation tied to the Iran war and more, Hassett said: "I understand that the energy shock will certainly have some repercussion for global inflation."

• "But on the other hand, core inflation is the lowest it's been since before the Biden inflation began. And interest rates in the U.S. are higher than for comparable countries around the world."
• "So if I were a [Fed] governor, I'd still be willing to cut rates because I know that oil price shocks don't lead to inflation."

At the same event, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Hans Nichols that he's going to New Hampshire — in part to support candidates there, but also to bolster the local fight against data centers.

• Van Hollen also promoted his tax plan, which involves no federal income taxes for single filers making under $46,000 or married couples under $92,000.

Van Hollen told Hans: "That will provide relief to about 130 million Americans ... and it's paid for entirely by a surtax on millionaires."

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) told Mike Allen that the AI revolution presents "the most profound moment of change in our lifetimes" — adding that Americans are rightly concerned about how that will affect them.

• McCormick is an AI champion on Capitol Hill. But he acknowledged that it comes with risks to Americans, the environment and economy that must be mitigated.

⚡ McCormick, who last year held a summit on "Unleashing Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation" that drew participants from around the world, will host a sequel this summer focused on defense innovation.

• Last night in Georgetown, McCormick hosted an event that raised $1.4 million for four of his Pennsylvania House colleagues, Hans Nichols reported.

Go deeper.

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👩‍💼 What CEOs are telling us

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Axios' Jim VandeHei has been busy chatting with other CEOs for his new weekly newsletter, Axios C-Suite. It's a Saturday-morning briefing for a select group of fellow CEOs and C-suiters. Here's what CEOs have been telling Jim: 🫏 Dem to watch: AOC is the most interesting '28 candidate right now. She could run for Senate in New York against Chuck Schumer and win, perhaps easily. Or she could run for president as the Bernie Sanders far-left heir apparent. Much harder. ‼️ New vulnerability: U.S. officials fear China might cut us off from rare earth minerals again, just as our supply of rare-earth-dependent smart weapons dwindles. Our killer weapons systems deployed in Iran — Tomahawks, JDAMs, Predator drones, the F-35 — all depend on rare earths in some capacity. 🤷‍♂️ Trump shrug: Trump doesn't seem to care all that much whether Republicans lose the House and Senate this fall. We've heard this from countless people who've broached the topic with him — even before the all-consuming Iran war.

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Prompt like a pro

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

You've tried ChatGPT or Claude. The results seem fine, if a little underwhelming. You wonder if people like me who extol AI's capabilities are the ones hallucinating, Axios' Jim VandeHei writes. You're not alone. You're simply prompt-shy. 📏 Why it matters: The gap between those getting 10x value from AI and those getting Google-level search results isn't brain power or tech skills. It's asking the right question in the right way with the right context. The good news: Anyone can prompt AI with greater sophistication and confidence to get greater results, starting the second you finish this column. It's worth it to pay $20 a month to access the newest models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. This is a tech that improves week-to-week and month-to-month. If you use the free tier, you miss out. Let's use the writing of a column like this as an example: 📚 Context is king. AI isn't a mind reader — it's a context machine. The more you give it (your job, your industry, the stakes, the audience, the history), the sharper its output. The prompt: "I am the CEO of Axios writing to an audience of smart professionals with mixed AI feelings and experience. I want to write a Finish Line column in Smart Brevity style that provides specific, actionable ways to instantly improve someone's AI prompting skills. 500 words tops." ❓ Question yourself. One of the biggest mistakes users make is trying to think of everything themselves. AI is actually better at figuring out what it needs from you than you are. So ask it. The prompt: "Knowing the context and intent, pose five questions that will help sharpen the final column." 👨‍🏫 Show, don't tell. Specific examples beat broad instructions every time. The more you feed into AI, the better the answers it spits out. The prompt: "Here are five previous Finish Line columns. Commit to memory the style, voice and length for all future Finish Line prompts or columns." 🧐 Push harder. Don't accept the first answer. The first draft is the warm-up. "Make it sharper." "Cut it in half." "What's my weakest point?" This is where the magic happens. The prompt: "Good start, but too corporate. Rewrite it more conversationally and with more punch. Shorten the paragraphs by 50% and remove buzzwords." 🧠 Remember it. This is how you develop a superpower: Turn your one-time wins into a permanent template of you. AI knows what it did right — better than you do because it can see its own patterns. So ask it to tell you, then start building a library of your personal Super Prompts. (There are more advanced ways to do this, but that's for later.) The prompt: "This is exactly the output I want going forward. Reverse engineer it. Write me a reusable prompt — including the role, tone, structure, length, vocabulary and formatting rules — that would reliably produce work like this. Make it specific enough that I can paste it at the top of any future request and get the same quality." Pro tip: If typing slows you down, talk it out. Use voice input to explain your thinking — you'll naturally give AI more context, faster. The bottom line: Do these five things, and you'll instantly be in the top 10% of AI users overnight. Shoot me any specific success stories (or flaws!). 📬 Send Jim your prompting success stories (or failures): finishline@axios.com ...

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🎤 Axios summit: Dr. Oz vs. insurance headaches

Axios' Caitlin Owens interviews Dr. Mehmet Oz at our Future of Health Summit in D.C. yesterday. Photo: Lord Made for Axios Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told Axios' Caitlin Owens at our Future of Health Summit yesterday that the Trump administration is recruiting more than two dozen health systems to streamline approvals for medical procedures. Why it matters: So-called "prior authorizations" — insurance approvals doctors must obtain before treating patients — are one of the most hated features of the U.S. health system for patients and physicians alike. Watch the full interview.

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🎥 WATCH: AI made my son a founder

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei sat down with his son, James VandeHei Jr., to go deeper on the Politik app — the side hustle we introduced you to a couple of weeks ago.

• 🏛️ James, 21, a rising senior at High Point University, teamed up with friends to build the nonpartisan app, which helps Americans better understand Congress. It now includes a news feed.

James talks with his dad about why he built Politik, and how he used AI to do it.

• Watch their chat ... Download Politik ... Read James' story.

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Jim VandeHei's media diet

Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios

I'm ruthless about my information consumption time — filtering in smart content, filtering out dumb or mediocre stuff. I also have the perspective of having hired or worked alongside many of today's most talented journalists as the CEO of Axios and Politico, and as a White House/political reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal before that. 📱So if you want to read beyond Axios, which I truly believe is the smartest collection of subject matter experts ever assembled, here's a partial list of people I find vital to pay attention to: The New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on President Trump. Most political reporters write the same stuff with the same sources. They don't. The Journal's Greg Ip on economic trends. (You can click "follow" next to his byline to get email alerts when he writes.) Ian Bremmer's Monday The EG Update newsletter on geopolitics. Derek Thompson, both his Substack and "Plain English" podcast, for a read on big social and AI trends. The "All-In" podcast on AI, the tech biz and investment — but not its political analysis. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway's "Pivot" podcast for a tech-skeptical take. The Times' Ezra Klein and his eponymous podcast for left-of-center analysis. The Times' Ross Douthat and his "Interesting Times" podcast for center-right analysis. The Journal's Lingling Wei on U.S.-China relations. (Her weekly WSJ China newsletter is more analytical than her stories.) Peter Diamandis' "Moonshots" podcast for an AI utopian take. Mel Robbins' podcast for motivation and everyday personal development. Steven Bartlett's "The Diary of a CEO" podcast, though it's guest-dependent. Bloomberg's "Odd Lots" podcast from Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal for micro-business oddities. Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan, especially the top half of the free Punchbowl News AM newsletter, for congressional leadership. Jessica Lessin's The Information and its AM newsletter for tech biz news.