'Stupid white hippies need a nap!': Stephen Miller mocks DC protesters
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Mint
5 minutes ago
- Mint
Trump turns up the heat. Fed Chair Jerome Powell tries to keep his cool.
Minutes before his congressional testimony this summer, Jerome Powell sat alone, staring straight ahead in the wood-paneled chamber, appearing deep in thought. The Federal Reserve chair later told an associate he felt locked in, prepared for questions about the central bank's chief roles—keeping inflation low and Americans employed. Powell looked steeled for criticism, and he didn't have to wait long. A Republican ally of President Trump, Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, launched into a theatrical beatdown an hour into the hearing. He accused Powell of partisanship for comments linking Trump's tariffs with the potential for higher prices and a slowing economy. 'I don't comment on tariffs at all, actually," Powell said. 'I comment only on inflation." Ignoring him, Moreno said inflation was going down, echoing a Trump talking point. The president has demanded an immediate rate cut and disparaged Powell's integrity and intelligence for failing to comply, calling him a knucklehead and a moron. Trump himself nominated Powell for the job in 2017. 'We got elected by millions of voters," Moreno said as his time expired. 'You got elected by one person, and he doesn't want you to be in that job." Powell raised an eyebrow, clicked off his microphone and turned to face the next senator's questions. It was just another day for the Fed chair, who wakes up every morning under siege by critics, led by Trump, who say inflation has been tamed and the economy is ready for a rate cut. Powell and many others have a wait-and-see view. Fed Chair Jerome Powell waiting to testify at a Senate committee hearing on June. 25. Powell's remarks Friday at the annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., will be closely watched by investors and Washington policymakers. Everyone with skin in the game, which is just about everyone who carries a wallet, has reason to listen for clues about when rates might fall. To Powell, the Fed's survival as a central bank that operates outside of partisan control, which he considers a pillar of national prosperity, will depend on how it navigates the current economic moment. Those who have worked closely with him say he is focused almost exclusively on making the right decisions, relying on lessons gained from steering the Fed in the pandemic and then being slow to tackle the worst inflation spike in decades. 'I think it is no more subtle than he wakes up every day and probably goes to bed every night thinking, 'What can I do to preserve the institution?'" said Richard Clarida, who served as the Fed's No. 2 during the first half of Powell's tenure. The political pressure reached a surreal peak during Trump's surprise visit last month to the renovation project at Fed headquarters. White House advisers had spent weeks heaping blame on Powell for cost overruns. Trump and Powell, each wearing white hard hats and suits, toured the dusty construction site. In front of TV news cameras, Trump motioned Powell to stand closer to him and then declared that costs to renovate two historical buildings had climbed to $3.1 billion from $2.5 billion. Powell shook his head, and Trump handed him a printout prepared by White House staff. Powell easily found what he needed to dispute the president's claim. 'You just added in a third building," he said, one that had been completed years earlier. Trump later smoothed things over and declared that the meeting with Powell went well. 'There was no tension," the president said. On Wednesday, Trump called for the immediate resignation of Fed governor Lisa Cook, who has consistently voted with Powell, over allegations of mortgage fraud before her Fed appointment. The president told aides he is considering firing Cook, according to people familiar with the matter, which would leave a vacancy for him to fill. 'I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position," Cook said. 'I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts." President Trump handing Fed Chair Jerome Powell a tally sheet last month showing costs for renovations at the Federal Reserve in outside the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington last month. The Jesuit-educated Powell leads an institution that is an easy target for politicians because, like the Vatican, the Fed has authority but no army. Powell has told associates that despite looking older, he doesn't feel worn down by the pressure. He has maintained what he calls, at age 72, the best physical shape of his life, swimming three times a week and working out with a personal trainer. The regimen helps Powell manage stress, though the weight of decisions affecting millions of Americans sometimes wakes him in the middle of the night. Powell draws strength from an outpouring of support, voiced privately by lawmakers of both parties, bank executives and the occasional stranger who approaches him at the airport or gym. He keeps letters from people who thank him for his steadiness. 'He has a really strong sense of what he's doing there and why," said Jon Faust, who was a senior adviser to Powell for his first six years as Fed chair. At the congressional hearings this summer, Powell sidestepped a question about political pressure and said he was focused on keeping the economy in good shape with inflation under control. 'I want to turn it over to my successor in that condition," he said. 'That's the only thing I think about." Beyond partisan political pressures, the economic challenge alone would test any Fed chair. The Fed's tool—raising or lowering interest rates—is a blunt instrument for a complex $30 trillion economy: push rates too high and risk recession, lower rates too much and risk higher inflation. Powell must steer through an economy facing the uncertainties of Trump's trade policy and the impact of artificial intelligence. The still unknown fallout from tariffs and AI will shape how businesses hire and set prices. And the Fed's decisions will affect whether Americans can afford a home or see their paychecks keep up with costs. Inflation has been above the Fed's 2% target for four years. Officials worry tariffs will encourage businesses to raise prices and keep inflation elevated. Economic policymakers also worry about the health of the U.S. labor market, which can take years to return to normal after recessions. Postpandemic employment trends have been hard to read. Recent swings in business formation and immigration can make estimates of labor demand difficult to pin down. Monitors at the New York Stock Exchange showing Fed Chair Jerome Powell speak on July 30. 'They're in a no-win situation because they're going to be late on employment no matter what, given the downward revisions we've already seen," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. 'And inflation is likely to look worse before it looks better." Recent economic data shows the challenge. After declining gradually last year, a gauge of underlying inflation fell to a low of 2.6% this year and is now creeping toward 3%. Payroll growth slowed sharply over the three months that ended in July with significant downward revisions to May and June figures. Even so, the unemployment rate has held close to 4.2%. The hiring slowdown coincides with Trump administration policy shifts that include immigration crackdowns, tariffs, federal job cuts and reduced spending on government contractors and nonprofits. The Trump administration says its tax cuts and deregulation might offset some of those headwinds. A majority of Fed officials supported holding rates steady last month, though two Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, dissented in favor of a rate cut. Waller and Bowman are Trump appointees who are under consideration to become Fed chair when Powell's term ends in May. Waller warned that job growth is weaker than it looks, with some indicators 'flashing red." He has argued that officials shouldn't decide rates based on tariff-related price increases, saying those aren't likely to be repeated. In a swipe at Powell, Bowman said Fed decisions haven't been consistent. She pointed out that housing, consumer spending and the share of working-age people with jobs were weaker now than last year, when the Fed began to cut rates. On the other side of the rate-cut debate are the inflation hawks. Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid, a voting member of the rate-setting committee this year, argued in a speech last week that the effect of tariffs on inflation had been limited, in part, because the Fed hadn't eased rates prematurely. He said he expected the uncertainty of its impact on prices would last months. Powell's job is to forge consensus from these competing views and, when needed, guide it in his preferred direction. The path there may be emerging from the economic data itself. The July jobs report provided clearer evidence of labor market softness—potentially giving Powell rationale for a rate cut next month. The labor market 'is not bad right now," San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said. 'But you know that the direction of change is going the wrong way." She also said tariffs aren't passing through to higher prices as much as some forecasters feared, reducing the risk of a big shock. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said the Fed might have to cut rates now to support the labor market and leave open the prospect of reversing those moves if inflation resurges. 'I don't love that path," he said, 'but that might be the best of a limited set of options." Others are undecided. St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee flagged an unexpected rise last month in prices for services, which would suggest holding rates steady. Yet Musalem also pointed to slower economic growth, which could favor a future rate cut. Trump's challenge is that Fed independence runs deeper than any single leader. Even if Powell is replaced by someone more sympathetic to the White House next spring, there may still be officials worried about inflation and impervious to political pressure. Powell has served as a shield for some colleagues. His relationships with Fed peers are likely 'stronger than ever because the committee knows the tough spot that both the chair and the institution are in," Faust said. Some see less danger in the blustery attacks by Trump on Powell than the possibility of a White House campaign to weaken the Fed structure, including the 12 reserve banks. Meetings to set interest rates are attended by the 12 bank presidents and a seven-member board of governors, though only five presidents at a time have a vote on policy decisions. Unlike Fed governors, who are nominated by the president, regional bank presidents are chosen by their local boards and have traditionally operated independent of Washington. The Fed presidents serve five-year terms at a time, and the terms run concurrently. The 12 presidents must be reappointed by the governors to new five-year terms before next March. A Fed board could remove a regional bank president by majority vote, but it never has done so. Fed Chair Jerome Powell arriving for a Federal Reserve Board meeting last month in Washington. Since the governors are appointed by the president, there are nervous conversations about the possibility of the White House seating a future board dominated by Trump appointees, who would threaten to block reappointments of Fed presidents before March or remove them after they are reappointed. A Trump administration official alleged Wednesday that Cook, a Fed governor appointed by Biden, might have committed mortgage fraud by applying for loans on two properties she each identified as her primary residence. Trump selected one of his economic advisers to fill the seat of a Fed governor who resigned unexpectedly this month. If another governor leaves early, the president could install an ally and give his appointees a majority on the board. A final source of pressure on the Fed came last week from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge-fund investor with keen knowledge of monetary policy who is overseeing the search for the next Fed chair. Bessent, who had pledged not to comment on rates, said in a TV interview that the Fed should consider a larger half-percentage-point rate cut in September and, after that, to continue to lower its benchmark rate, currently around 4.3%, to less than 3%. Some investors subsequently dialed up expectations for a half-point cut. Bessent did more than just voice an opinion. He appeared to put Powell in a corner. If investors buy or sell assets because the Treasury secretary's comments lead them to believe a sizable rate cut has become more likely, Powell risks disappointing markets and taking the blame for any selloff if the Fed doesn't follow through. When Bessent was asked about his comments during an interview the following day, he said, 'I didn't tell the Fed what to do." Write to Nick Timiraos at
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Business Standard
5 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Texas House approves redrawn maps sought by Trump ahead of 2026 elections
The Texas House has approved redrawn congressional maps that would give Republicans a bigger edge in 2026, muscling through a partisan gerrymander that launched weeks of protests by Democrats and a widening national battle over redistricting. The approval on Wednesday came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. The maps, which would give Republicans five more winnable seats, need to be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate and signed by Republican Gov Greg Abbott before they become official. But the Texas House vote had presented the best chance for Democrats to derail the redraw. Democratic legislators delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing Texas earlier this month in protest, and they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday's session. The approval of the Texas maps on an 88-52 party-line vote is likely to prompt California's Democratic-controlled state Legislature this week to approve of a new House map creating five new Democratic-leaning districts. But the California map would require voter approval in November. Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas map in court and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month. Texas maps openly made to help GOP Texas Republicans openly said they were acting in their party's interest. State Rep Todd Hunter, who wrote the legislation formally creating the new map, noted that the US Supreme Court has allowed politicians to redraw districts for nakedly partisan purposes. The underlying goal of this plan is straight forward: improve Republican political performance, Hunter, a Republican, said on the floor. After nearly eight hours of debate, Hunter took the floor again to sum up the entire dispute as nothing more than a partisan fight. What's the difference, to the whole world listening? Republicans like it, and Democrats do not. Democrats said the disagreement was about more than partisanship. In a democracy, people choose their representatives, State Rep Chris Turner said. This bill flips that on its head and lets politicians in Washington, DC, choose their voters. State Rep John H Bucy blamed the president. This is Donald Trump's map, Bucy said. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows that the voters are rejecting his agenda. Redistricting becomes tool nationwide in battle for US House The Republican power play has already triggered a national tit-for-tat battle as Democratic state lawmakers prepared to gather in California on Thursday to revise that state's map to create five new Democratic seats. This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country, California's Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. And we're going to fight fire with fire. A new California map would need to be approved by voters in a special election in November because that state normally operates with a nonpartisan commission drawing the map to avoid the very sort of political brawl that is playing out. Newsom himself backed the 2008 ballot measure to create that process, as did former President Barack Obama. But in a sign of Democrats' stiffening resolve, Obama Tuesday night backed Newsom's bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP's Texas move. I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party's main redistricting arm. The incumbent president's party usually loses seats in the midterm election, and the GOP currently controls the House of Representatives by a mere three votes. Trump is going beyond Texas in his push to remake the map. He's pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to create new Republican seats. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland's and New York's maps as well. However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval. Texas Democrats decry the new maps In Texas, there was little that outnumbered Democrats could do other than fume and threaten a lawsuit to block the map. Because the Supreme Court has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the only way opponents can stop the new Texas map would be by arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act requirement to keep minority communities together so they can select representatives of their choice. Democrats noted that, in every decade since the 1970s, courts have found that Texas' legislature did violate the Voting Rights Act in redistricting, and that civil rights groups had an active lawsuit making similar allegations against the 2021 map that Republicans drew up. Republicans contend the new map creates more new majority-minority seats than the previous one. Democrats and some civil rights groups have countered that the GOP does that through mainly a numbers game that leads to halving the number of the state's House seats that will be represented by a Black representative. State Rep Ron Reynolds noted the country just marked the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act's passage and warned GOP members about how they'd be remembered if they voted for what he called this racial gerrymander. Just like the people who were on the wrong side of history in 1965, history will be looking at the people who made the decisions in the body this day, Reynolds, a Democrat, said. Republicans hit back at criticism Republicans spent far less time talking on Wednesday, content to let their numbers do the talking in the lopsided vote. As the day dragged on, a handful hit back against Democratic complaints. You call my voters racist, you call my party racist and yet we're expected to follow the rules, said State Rep Katrina Pierson, a former Trump spokesperson. There are Black and Hispanic and Asian Republicans in this chamber who were elected just like you. House Republicans' frustration at the Democrats' flight and ability to delay the vote was palpable. The GOP used a parliamentary maneuver to take a second and final vote on the map so it wouldn't have to reconvene for one more vote after Senate approval. House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced as debate started that doors to the chamber were locked and any member leaving was required to have a permission slip. The doors were only unlocked after final passage more than eight hours later. One Democrat who refused the 24-hour police monitoring, State Rep Nicole Collier, had been confined to the House floor since Monday night. Some Democratic state lawmakers joined Collier Tuesday night for what Rep Cassandra Garcia Hernandez dubbed a sleepover for democracy. Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug 3, and Republican Gov Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust several Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Economic Times
5 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Tulsi Gabbard slashing intelligence office workforce, cutting budget by over $700 million
Synopsis The Trump administration, under Director Tulsi Gabbard, is significantly downsizing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, cutting its budget by over $700 million and reducing its workforce by more than 40%. This move includes restructuring the Foreign Malign Influence Centre, with its functions being integrated into other government areas. AP Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday. The move amounts to a major downsizing of the office responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence, as President Donald Trump has tangled with assessments from the intelligence community. His administration also this week has revoked the security clearances of dozens of former and current officials, while last month declassifying documents meant to call into question long-settled judgments about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. "Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorised leaks of classified intelligence, and politicised weaponisation of intelligence," Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement announcing a more than 40% workforce reduction. She added: "Ending the weaponisation of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people's trust which has long been eroded." Among the changes are to the Foreign Malign Influence Centre, which is meant to track influence operations from abroad and threats to elections. Officials said it has become "redundant" and that its core functions would be integrated into other parts of the government. The reorganisation is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded given Trump's long-running resistance to the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election. In February, for instance, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target US elections. The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation's critical infrastructure, including election systems. And the State Department in April said it shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Reaction to the news broke along partisan lines in Congress, where Sen Tom Cotton, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the decision as "an important step towards returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission. And it will help make it a stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump". The panel's top Democrat, Sen Mark Warner, pledged to carefully review Gabbard's proposals and "conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security". He said he was not confident that would be the case "given Director Gabbard's track record of politicising intelligence". Gabbard's efforts to downsize the agency she leads is in keeping with the cost-cutting mandate the administration has employed since its earliest days, when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency oversaw mass layoffs of the federal workforce. It's the latest headline-making move by an official who just a few month ago had seemed out of favour with Trump over her analysis of Iran's nuclear capabilities but who in recent weeks has emerged as a key loyalist with her latest actions. The Foreign Malign Influence Centre was created by the Biden administration in 2022 to respond to what the US intelligence community had assessed as attempts by Russia and other adversaries to interfere with American elections. Its role, ODNI said when it announced the centre's creation, was to coordinate and integrate intelligence pertaining to malign influence. The office in the past has joined forces with other federal agencies to debunk and alert the public to foreign disinformation intended to influence US voters. For example, it was involved in an effort to raise awareness about a Russian video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election. Gabbard said Wednesday she would be refocusing the centre's priorities, asserting it had a "hyper-focus" on work tied to elections and that it was "used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition." Its core functions, she said, will be merged into other operations. The centre is set to sunset at the end of 2028, but Gabbard is terminating it "in all but name," said Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks foreign disinformation. Though Gabbard said in a fact sheet that the center's job was redundant because other agencies already monitor foreign influence efforts targeting Americans, Brooking refuted that characterisation and said the task of parsing intelligence assessments across the government and notifying decision-makers was "both important and extremely boring." "It wasn't redundant, it was supposed to solve for redundancy," he said.
