Donald Trump announces new Bureau of Labor Statistics leader
The firing raised concerns about the future accuracy and integrity of the nation's job numbers. Like Trump, Antoni has criticized the BLS' jobs data.
Trump declared in his social media post announcing Antoni's nomination that "our economy is booming." But recent BLS reports indicate an economic slowdown.
The July report also revised payroll gains for May and June down by 258,000. That left May's additions at 19,000 and June's at 14,000, the weakest performance since the nation was climbing out of the COVID-19 recession in December 2020.
Contributing: Joey Garrison and Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
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The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
NYC candidate Zohran Mamdani is making his messaging for the mayoral race clear: Me vs Trump
As he heads into November's general election for New York City mayor, Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani has a warning: If he loses, the next mayor could be in Donald Trump's pocket. Mamdani has launched a 'five boroughs against Trump' tour to draw attention to the president's agenda and how the administration's impact has already been felt throughout the city — from threats to food stamps and healthcare to immigration raids and courthouse arrests. 'There is no borough that will be free from Donald Trump's cruelty,' Mamdani told supporters in Manhattan Monday. But he's also using the tour to tie his opponents — former Governor Andrew Cuomo, current mayor Eric Adams, and Republican challenger Curtis Sliwa — to the president. The race for the Democratic primary saw Mamdani relentlessly focus his campaign around affordability, including no-cost childcare, freezing rent in tens of thousands of rent-controlled apartment units, boosting taxes on corporations and the wealthiest residents to fund free buses, and creating city-owned grocery stores in one of the country's most expensive places to live. That platform remains at the center of his campaign, but Mamdani is ringing alarm bells about the future of the city under the Trump administration with an ill-equipped mayor at the helm — or, worse, one that works in concert with the president. 'We see far too many parallels between Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo, far too many stories that make clear that both administrations have been characterized by corruption, by a sense of impunity,' Mamdani told reporters Monday at the offices of the 1199SEIU labor union, which had endorsed Cuomo in the primary but is now backing Mamdani. 'We know a fraud when we see one,' he said. Cuomo, who resigned from the governor's office under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations, conceded to Mamdani in the Democratic primary after losing by nearly 13 points. Then, he entered the general election as an independent, arguing that he faced off against Trump as governor and can do it again as New York City mayor. 'Trump will flatten him like a pancake,' Cuomo recently wrote on X. 'There's only one person in this race who can stand up to Trump: the one who already has, successfully and effectively.' Trump and Cuomo spoke directly about the mayor's race on a recent phone call, according to The New York Times. Both Trump and Cuomo have denied speaking to one another, though the president has been briefed by allies about how best to keep Mamdani out of the race. Mamdani said the call is 'disqualifying' and a 'betrayal of New Yorkers.' 'While housing experts are ringing the alarm, Andrew Cuomo is ringing Donald Trump's cell,' Mamdani told supporters in Brooklyn Tuesday. In a recent meeting with New York business leaders, Cuomo also said he was not 'personally' looking for a fight with the president and said their relationship was more like a 'dysfunctional marriage.' Adams, meanwhile, has avoided speaking out against the president after the Department of Justice dropped federal corruption charges against him in an apparent effort to win his support for the president's anti-immigration agenda. The current mayor has said he is not beholden to anyone, including the president, while insisting he can develop a working relationship with Trump for the city's benefit. Sliwa, the longshot Republican candidate taking another stab at the mayor's race after losing in 2021, has even urged the president to stay out of the race. 'Every day it's Trump versus Zohran Mamdani, it's a good day for Zohran Mamdani,' Sliwa said in a recent radio interview. 'Every day that Cuomo and Adams talks about you, 'you drop out, you job out,' it's a good day for Zohran Mamdani,' he said. 'The fact is that the president has three candidates in this race,' Mamdani recently told WNYC. 'One that he's directly been in touch with, another that he bailed out of legal trouble and now functionally controls, and the final one literally being a member of the same Republican Party.' Mamdani, a 33-year-old Ugandan-born Democratic socialist, would be the city's first-ever Muslim and Indian American mayor, if elected. He has faced a wave of racist and Islamophobic attacks since securing the Democratic primary, including from Republican members of Congress and the White House. Trump has repeatedly questioned Mamdani's citizenship, falsely branded him a communist, threatened to arrest and deport him, and suggested his administration would 'run' New York City should he win in November. 'I'm not getting involved,' Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting last month. 'But I can tell you this. I used to say we will not ever be a socialist country. Well, I'll say it again. We're not gonna have it,' he continued. 'If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same. But we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.' While Mamdani touts endorsements from former Cuomo backers and other prominent New York Democrats on his latest tour, the latest Siena Research Institute poll shows the Democratic nominee in the lead with 44 percent of the vote, followed by Cuomo at 25 percent. Sliwa is at 12 percent and Adams is in single digits with 7 percent, the poll found. Mamdani has picked up key endorsements from progressive powerhouses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, as well as prominent New York Democratic officials like state Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler — all of whom are targets of the president and his party. But he has not received any full-throated endorsements from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, as national Democrats fear Mamdani's democratic socialist agenda could be a liability for moderates in a high-stakes race to take back control of Congress in 2026. 'Every seat matters, every race matters, and who is mayor of New York is crucial,' Nadler said. 'New York City needs a leader who won't give Trump an inch, who won't flinch or bargain away our rights.' If elected, Mamdani's fight with the White House would 'be delivered forcefully, rhetorically, through conversations, both public and private,' including staffing up the city's legal departments with dozens of attorneys to push back against Trump threats to send in federal troops, he said. He also argues that his election would also serve as its own signal that the city is fighting back against Trump with 'a governance that is actually characterized by competence and by compassion.'
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
S&P 500, Nasdaq at record highs as inflation rises moderately in July
Aug 12 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq at record highs after data showed inflation rose broadly in line with expectations in July, bolstering expectations that the Federal Reserve could lower interest rates next month. A Labor Department report showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by an expected 0.2% on a monthly basis in July, while annual inflation came in slightly below forecasts, drawing calls from President Donald Trump to lower interest rates. However, there was also some caution, as the data suggested that underlying inflation rose by its fastest pace in six months in July as markets look for signs that tariffs and trade uncertainty were filtering into prices. Yields on shorter-dated Treasury bonds - a reflection of interest rate expectations - slipped and interest rate futures showed traders are giving an 88.8% chance that the Fed could lower interest rates by about 25 basis points in September. "This is still early innings of this process and just as the Fed will be beginning to cut rates in the autumn, that's when the inflation data will probably start to be registering some of these more direct tariff price increases and it's going to complicate the rate-cutting decision," said John Velis, a macro strategist at BNY. The data also comes at a time when there are growing concerns over the quality of economic data, weeks after Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following downward revisions to previous months' nonfarm payrolls counts. At 12:00 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab rose 465.62 points, or 1.06%, to 44,440.71, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab gained 55.29 points, or 0.87%, to 6,428.74 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab advanced 212.21 points, or 0.99%, to 21,597.61. Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were higher, with communication services (.SPLRCL), opens new tab in the lead after a 1.7% rise. Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab rose 1.2% as Perplexity made a $34.5 billion cash offer to buy the company's Chrome browser. Further providing some relief, U.S. and China extended their tariff truce until November 10, staving off triple-digit duties on each other's goods. U.S. stocks have rallied in recent weeks, putting the benchmark S&P 500 on track for its first record high close in nearly two weeks on the back of strong tech earnings, easing trade tensions and rate cut expectations. Reflecting the confidence, data from BofA Global Research showed that inflows into U.S. stocks last week were the largest in two years. Markets are monitoring developments around Trump's nominee E.J. Antoni to the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner post and potential candidates for the Fed's top job. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index (.RUT), opens new tab, tracking small-cap companies (.RUT), opens new tab, also advanced 2.1% to hit a two-week high. An index tracking airline stocks (.SPLRCALI), opens new tab surged 7.9%, putting it on track for its biggest one-day rise in over a month after data showed air fares rose 4% in July. Cardinal Health (CAH.N), opens new tab dropped 7% after the drug distributor said it will buy healthcare management firm Solaris for $1.9 billion. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.31-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.3-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 70 new highs and 75 new lows.
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Reuters
Russia has won war in Ukraine, Hungary's Orban says
BUDAPEST, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia has won the war in Ukraine, right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday ahead of a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday. In power since 2010, Orban has been criticised by some European leaders for his government's ties with Russia and opposition to military aid for Ukraine, while his cabinet is struggling to revive the economy from an inflation shock. Orban, who has maintained close ties with Putin even after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, became the only European Union leader on Monday not to endorse a joint statement saying Ukraine should have the freedom to decide its future. "We are talking now as if this were an open-ended war situation, but it is not. The Ukrainians have lost the war. Russia has won this war," Orban told the 'Patriot' YouTube channel in an interview. "The only question is when and under what circumstances will the West, who are behind the Ukrainians, admit that this has happened and what will result from all this." Hungary, which gets most of its energy from Russia, has refused to send weapons to Ukraine, with Orban also strongly opposing Ukraine's EU membership, saying it would wreak havoc on Hungarian farmers and the wider economy. Orban said Europe had missed an opportunity to negotiate with Putin under former U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and now was at risk of its future being decided without its involvement. "If you are not at the negotiating table, you are on the menu," Orban said, adding that he partly opposed the EU's joint statement on Ukraine as it made Europe look "ridiculous and pathetic." "When two leaders sit down to negotiate with each other, the Americans and the Russians ... and you're not invited there, you don't rush for the phone, you don't run around, you don't shout in from the outside."
