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The Hill
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump unleashes troops on cities already making progress on crime
I was a mayor for 10 years. All mayors deal with crime, and we have learned a lot about what works to make cities safer for everyone. That's why so many cities, including Washington, D.C., are safer today than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. And that's why we know President Trump's send-in-the-troops stunt in Washington, D.C., is not really about public safety. People sometimes argue about whether Trump's actions are actually dangerous or merely efforts to distract people from news he wants to minimize. The truth is that all too frequently they are both. I believe Trump taking control of D.C.'s police department and calling out the National Guard, based on false claims about crime, is both an attempt to distract voters from bad news about the extraordinary harm he is unleashing on the American people and an effort to further test the limits of his own power. Let's not forget how much of Trump's second-term agenda — including the idea of undermining home rule for the citizens of Washington, D.C. and the deployment of troops against Americans — was envisioned and laid out in advance by the right-wing architects of Project 2025. Trump's ambitions to rule like the dictatorial strongmen he admires in other countries made him the perfect vehicle for a movement that wants to reverse a century of progress and legal protections regardless of how many workers, consumers, families and communities are harmed. And they're willing to use the military to quash inevitable protests. 'It's pretty clear that the president wants his own domestic police force, and step by step he's trying to create it,' Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) observed. Smith called Trump's maneuver 'a huge step toward an autocratic government.' Washington's unique status as a federal district — not a state or part of any state — makes it especially vulnerable to the abuse of presidential power. But no city is safe. Trump made it clear in Los Angeles that he will deploy National Guard troops over the objections of state and local officials. He has explicitly threatened to expand his tactics in D.C. to other cities where he has far less constitutional legitimacy to intervene. And just to clarify how much contempt the MAGA movement has for urban voters, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and primary sponsor of Project 2025, recently called on right-wing state legislators to gut democracy in their own capitals and turn them into 'state municipal districts.' Trump and the movement behind him, the MAGA activists and the institutional muscle represented by the Heritage Foundation and the more than 100 organizations endorsing Project 2025, seem eager to dismantle the checks and balances that are meant to keep a corrupt and abusive president in line. And that is proving to be extremely dangerous. The deployment of American troops against American citizens is illegal except in extraordinary emergencies. It can't be done to intimidate dissenters. It can't be done to make Trump feel good. It can't be done to shift public attention from news that is unflattering to the president. To be sure, Trump would like to distract us from scrutiny of his relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — and the sweetheart treatment his regime is now giving Epstein's accomplice and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. The president would like to distract us from bad economic news on jobs and the price of groceries. And, certainly, the president would rather that we not pay much attention to the astonishing levels of shady dealing that have made Trump and his family billions of dollars richer. Trump abusing his power to shift the narrative is an aspect of his authoritarian rule. It's not going to make the residents of D.C. or any other city safer. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, whose city has been another Trump target, noted in a CNN interview that his city has had the fewest homicides in 50 years this year. That kind of progress takes a thoughtful, collective effort — not just 'get tough' rhetoric and more militarized cops. It takes smart strategic investments in communities and stronger relationships between communities and police. 'Mayors across the country have brought together law enforcement, the legal community, the actual community through community violence intervention work, to reduce violence across this country in cities to lows that we have not seen in decades,' Scott told viewers. 'The president could learn a lot from us instead of throwing things at us,' he added. Listening and learning is not exactly the president's strong suit. Throwing things — smears, tantrums, distractions — is much more his style. That's bad for America and all Americans, not just those of us who live in the cities Trump likes to vilify.
CNBC
a day ago
- Politics
- CNBC
Ukraine doesn't have to be handed on a silver platter in a deal with Putin, says Victoria Coates
Victoria Coates, Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute vice president and former Trump administration Deputy National Security Advisor, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the fallout from President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, origins of the Russia-Ukraine war, what to expect from Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and European leaders, what a Russian-Ukraine deal could look like, and more.
CNBC
2 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
CCTV Script 12/08/2025
On Monday, local time, U.S. President Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, Chief Economist of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, to serve as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This move comes shortly after Trump criticized the unfavorable U.S. employment data as being manipulated and subsequently dismissed the previous commissioner. The market has been closely watching who would take over the position and whether this change would impact the statistical reporting of U.S. economic data. Antoni's appointment still requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate before he can officially assume the role. He has long been a critic of the BLS, advocating for a comprehensive, top-to-bottom review of the bureau. Prior to Trump's public criticism and the dismissal of the previous commissioner, the BLS had been a relatively low-profile agency, rarely entering the public eye. It operates under the U.S. Department of Labor but maintains a degree of independence. The BLS is responsible for collecting crucial data on employment, inflation, and wages, which serve as vital references for business and policy decisions, emphasizing the importance of being free from political interference. In addition to the change in leadership, the BLS is also facing challenges and controversies due to budget cuts. Some analysts have noted that due to insufficient staffing, the BLS has ceased collecting inflation data in certain cities, relying more on estimation methods. Recently, concerns about the credibility of the BLS economic data have also begun to emerge on Wall Street. This raises questions about the potential impact of these changes on the accuracy and reliability of the data that businesses and policymakers depend on. Prominent figures, including Jeffrey Gundlach, known as the "Bond King," and Michael Gapen, an economist at Morgan Stanley, have expressed concerns that U.S. economic data has become unreliable. They argue that this could lead to skepticism about the quality of data released by U.S. government agencies. Currently, the market is closely watching the upcoming release of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for July, scheduled for Tuesday local time. This inflation report is expected to provide critical insights into the state of the economy. Analysts point out that concerns over inflation data performance led to a decline in the three major U.S. stock indices overnight. Market forecasts suggest that the July CPI will show a monthly increase of 0.2% and a yearly increase of 2.8%. When excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI is expected to rise 0.3% monthly and 3.1% yearly. The market is also hoping to glean signals from the latest inflation data regarding the Federal Reserve's potential rate-cut path. However, Wall Street remains divided on the timing of rate cuts. One camp believes the Fed will cut rates as early as September, arguing that such a move is overdue. This divergence in expectations highlights the uncertainty surrounding monetary policy and its impact on the economy. 'I think the rate right now is modestly because rates are lower, therefore stocks must go higher, but the damage that perhaps modestly restrictive rates are doing to the economy and eventually corporate profits would be reduced." However, another camp believes that the Federal Reserve will continue to wait and see, monitoring the impact of tariffs on inflation before making any decisions. "We don't think it'd be September, so the Fed will take this time. Powell, if he doesn't have too much pressure, will continue at his path, which we believe is the case, and we'll likely see the Fed act in December and then aggressively act next year. " Morgan Stanley and Bank of America both predict that the Federal Reserve will not cut rates this year, while JP Morgan Chase anticipates three rate cuts in 2025.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Trump stuns Wall Street, Washington with controversial BLS nominee
President Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is breaking the mold of his predecessors and causing alarm among economists of all stripes Commissioners of the BLS are usually academics or career civil servants with decades of experience in statistics and economics. But EJ Antoni, who Trump nominated to lead the agency after firing former BLS chief Erika McEntarfer on the heels of a disappointing jobs report earlier this month, has more bona fides as a pundit and conservative advocate than he does as a statistician. The choice of Antoni to lead a statistical division whose data is scrutinized by businesses and governments all over the world is getting major backlash from the economics profession and sparking concerns about the politicization of bedrock-level economic data. 'E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS Commissioner,' Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who worked for the Obama administration, wrote on social media. 'He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant experience.' Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, echoed Furman's words. 'He's utterly unqualified and as partisan as it gets,' he told the Washington Post. Who is EJ Antoni? Antoni has been the chief economist of the Heritage Foundation's center on the federal budget for the past four months. The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank that produced the wide-ranging Project 2025 policy agenda. Project 2025 took aim at the 'permanent political class' in Washington, and many of its budget-cutting recommendations have been carried out by the Trump administration. He held two research fellowships at Heritage prior to his current position and two other fellowships at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group led by billionaire Steve Forbes. Antoni submitted his doctoral dissertation in 2020, in which he defends positions associated with 'supply-side economics,' a conservative policy doctrine that became popular in the 1980s. Besides stints as an adjunct at a community college and as an instructor at his alma mater of Northern Illinois University, he's held no other academic posts. By comparison, McEntarfer worked for 20 years as an economist with the Census Bureau. Her predecessor William Beach was the chief economist for the Senate Budget Committee, and his predecessor Erica Groshen spent 20 years as an economist at the New York Federal Reserve and referees for about a dozen academic journals. Antoni is a frequent guest on a number of conservative media outlets. While BLS makes it a point to produce — rather than interpret — economic data, Antoni has been hitting talking points on recent BLS releases in media appearances, a stark contrast with the agency's typical cut-and-dry communications. Discussing the dismal July jobs report, he emphasized job growth among native-born Americans on former Trump adviser Steven Bannon's internet podcast. 'There was some good news in the report, too, that we should definitely highlight,' he said. 'All of the net job growth over the last 12 months has gone to native-born Americans.' The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for an interview with Antoni. Backlash from economists Economists aren't mincing their words about Antoni's credentials. One economist at the University of Wisconsin refuted one of Antoni's recent papers, showing it contained basic statistical mistakes and finding that it wasn't possible to replicate its results — an academic kiss of death. Alan Cole, an economist with the conservative Tax Foundation think tank, described the errors in the paper as 'stunning.' 'Stunning errors in a tweet are bad, but worse to do it in long form, where there's more time and effort involved,' he wrote on social media. Conservative economists have also been blasting the firing of McEntarfer after the July jobs report showed that a meager 106,000 jobs have been added to the economy since May. Trump accused the agency — without any evidence — of producing 'rigged' data, which many economists have said is poppycock. 'The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer … sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,' William Beach, a Trump appointee who preceded McEntarfer as head of the BLS, wrote online. Warnings to senators Antoni is expected to be easily confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate after he appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which will also need to approve his nomination. Antoni's critics are waging a long-shot effort to turn GOP members of the committee against the nominee ahead of his likely confirmation. Friends of the BLS, a group that advocates for the agency and that's chaired by Beach and his predecessor Erica Groshen, called out Antoni in a statement Wednesday, describing the debate about his nomination as 'contentious.' 'BLS now … faces the additional challenge of a contentious debate over the nominee for the next Commissioner, Dr. EJ Antoni,' they said. Groshen told The Hill they hope the nomination process will be 'very thorough.' 'The responsibility of the Senate HELP committee … is particularly important at this time,' she added. The Hill reached out to all Republican members of the committee about Antoni's qualifications, most of whom didn't respond. A representative for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she wouldn't be commenting on the nomination prior to the hearing. What would politicized labor data look like? Antoni has already floated some massive changes to BLS data releases, including canceling regular monthly reports in favor of quarterly releases — a change that would alter the entire cadence of economic data output and affect nearly every private and public sector model of the U.S. economy. He told Fox News before his nomination that 'the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly jobs reports, but keep publishing more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data,' since BLS data is often subject to revision. Former BLS chiefs told The Hill they're keeping an eye on a regulatory standard known as OMB Directive No. 3, which governs the rules of BLS releases, for any sign that agency data could become politicized. 'Violations of that would be very unusual, and therefore indicative of something unusual underneath it,' Groshen said. Antoni has delivered some conflicting remarks on BLS data revisions, attributing them to 'incompetent' leadership under McEntarfer during his appearance on Bannon's podcast and then noting later that the problems pre-dated her time as agency commissioner. 'I think that's part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems,' he said before adding that 'this is not a problem unique to the Trump administration.' Real problems with BLS data In fact, the downward revisions in the July jobs report that prompted Trump's firing of McEntarfer were due to the late reporting of educational employment figures by state and local governments, along with the more pronounced seasonal effects in that sector since teachers don't work in the summer. That's fairly typical for the agency, current and former employees of the BLS told The Hill. Political narratives aside, the BLS has seen a substantial drop in survey response rates in the aftermath of the pandemic, a decline that has made the data less reliable, but that has affected statistical agencies in a number of countries beyond the U.S. 'This is not a failure of the BLS … This is a phenomenon that is worldwide,' Erica Groshen told The Hill. 'This is a slow-moving train wreck,' she added, exhorting CEOs across the economy to make a priority of the surveys. 'There is no silver bullet. Believe me – people have been looking for it for a long time.' Economists have been lamenting the survey response rates for years. 'Like Orwellian newspeak, [the U.S. employment report] can often mean the reverse of what it says it means. The household and establishment surveys portray contrasting pictures of employment (and both have shocking response rates),' UBS economist Paul Donovan wrote earlier this month, having noted declines since 2023.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
To help low-income kids with cancer have better treatment outcomes, a researcher tries a different innovation: Cash
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'What this showed us is that poverty exposure needs to be targeted in the same way that we think about targeting mutations,' Bona said. Advertisement The launch of Bona's study in late June came weeks before Advertisement The results put into question the efficacy of basic income, which has been heralded as a potential tool to alleviate poverty. But researchers and proponents of cash transfer programs in Massachusetts say the results have not dampened optimism here about the role they can play in supporting low-income families. Instead they say 'Baby's First Years' demonstrates the need for more research into just how much money and other resources and services is needed to pull people out of poverty. It also sharpens the question of what researchers, program managers, funders, and policymakers consider a valuable result. 'These programs are held to unrealistic standards, that this has to be some transformative, life-altering intervention, or it's not worth anyone's time or effort or concern,' said Richard Sheward, a director at Boston Medical Center's Children's HealthWatch, who has 'It would be a major failure if we focused on this one thing and lose sight of the fact that we also need to protect our safety net programs, like SNAP and WIC and other programs that help families thrive and move up the economic ladder, as they are Massachusetts has been a leader in piloting cash programs. Since 2020, Unlike 'Baby's First Years,' these programs focus not on whether the cash transfers impact childhood development markers, but whether they allow families, particularly low-income families, to weather economic storms, spend more on healthy food, and spend more time together, especially during a child's crucial early years. Advertisement Early results of the 'Baby's First Years' study were promising, Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a critic of cash transfer programs, But while 'Baby's First Years' didn't show significant developmental changes, it did show that women who received the cash transfers spent the money on food and clothing for their children, not on things like alcohol or cigarettes, which had long been a concern of conservative critics of such programs. The women also spent more time with their children. 'That's dismissed, because we thought we would see these developmental changes,' said Margaret Anne McConnell, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health. 'But think about what that means. A small amount of cash means people got to spend more time with their children. That's incredibly important.' Jennifer Valenzuela is the executive director of Children's Trust, which just finished a program that offers cash transfers during home visits for some new moms in Springfield. She said cash assistance programs can be tremendously helpful for parents who would otherwise be stressed and cash strapped when trying to figure out how to buy basics like food, gas, and utilities. Advertisement 'All those things make an impact on who we can be as parents and how we can engage with a child,' Valenzuela said. 'What would it mean if you weren't able to do some of the basic things that we think about as a parent, things that should be a norm, that many parents don't get to do.' In addition to outcomes, the amount of cash given varies greatly across programs. 'Baby's First Years,' for example, offered $333 a month to moms, regardless of how many children they have. The Unconditional Cash Study, which took place in Illinois and Texas, offered low-income individuals $1,000 per month. During COVID, the federal child tax credit expanded, offering what was essentially a cash transfer of several thousand dollars at once, depending on family size and children's age. As a result of the expanded credit, childhood poverty '['Baby's First Years"] is a valuable study because it challenges us to be more thoughtful about how we design and implement these programs,' said Sheward. 'It just shows us the context matters, the amount matters, what we measure matters, very deeply.' Bona's study, which offers up to $1,000 twice a month per family, is the first of its kind to consider how cash transfers may impact pediatric cancer outcomes for low-income families. It's taking place in multiple sites across the country, is in the early stages, and will last four years. Bona is certain of the relationship between poverty and poorer clinical outcomes. But she isn't clear on the drivers of unequal outcomes, or on how to fix these. Advertisement 'Will this be the right dose? Is it for the right duration in cancer treatment? Will we have to repeat it later on in cancer treatment? We don't know yet,' she said. But if the study shows that cash injections alter a family's food security, reduce parents' psychological distress, and allow sick kids to stay on a clinical trial for longer, 'it will be one of the 'cheapest' interventions we could possibly imagine in the cancer space — far cheaper than most drugs." McConnell, at the Harvard School of Public Health, recently launched a similar study, considering how cash transfers impact time that low-income mothers of premature babies can spend with their children hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit. McConnell isn't measuring the long-term outcomes of the children or the moms. Instead, she's measuring outcomes that may indicate a baby's longer-term health: provision of breast milk and skin-to-skin contact. 'The work I'm doing is to see how to ease the financial strain of having a NICU baby, not replace people's income or lift people out of poverty,' she said. Although her study is designed differently and measuring something different than 'Baby's First Years,' she thinks that everyone can learn from it — even if it has a null result. 'I think you can learn a lot from a study like this, it shows how complex and challenging it is to address child development, without drawing the conclusion that you've learned everything ," she said. 'Any time you have one study that's a definitive answer to a question is unfortunate. It sets up any intervention to fail.' Advertisement This story was produced by the Globe's team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter . Mara Kardas-Nelson can be reached at
