Following Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s first major address last week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle suggested Warsh is not his own man.

Appearing on “Morning Joe,” the “Money, Power, Politics” host, who was a Wall Street executive before moving into journalism, became visibly exasperated with President Donald Trump’s hand-picked appointee.

“People do not feel good about the economy,” she declared to host Jonathan Lemire, ”So when you think about Kevin Warsh’s comments last week in Jackson Hole, he was very, very careful trying to figure out who exactly is his daddy. Is Donald Trump his daddy? Is the market his daddy, you know, is the overall economy?”

“And, you know, he was really careful in basically saying inflation isn't where we want it to be — it's higher than where we want, we may potentially have to do something in the future,” she observed. “So he's not saying we're going to have to raise rates, but he's definitely leaving the door open that he could.”

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The decisive voter bloc in this year's midterm elections has dramatically shifted away from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party on the issue that helped elect him, according to CNN's Harry Enten.

In August 2024, independents trusted Trump over then-Vice President Kamala Harris on inflation by 12 percentage points, a margin Enten described as a key factor in Trump's victory. That advantage has since collapsed, and Trump's net approval rating on inflation among independents now stands at 64 points underwater – marking a swing of 76 points in a little over two years.

"Whoa!" Enten said. "You don't see changes like this. But the key issue that got him elected, now he's way down there in the Gulf of Mexico."

A similar reversal has occurred at the party level. In August 2022, ahead of that year's midterms, independents trusted Republicans over Democrats on inflation by 27 points, a margin that helped the GOP retake the House, but independents now say they trust Democrats more on the issue, by 18 points — a 45-point swing from four years ago.

Enten said such large shifts in voter trust on a single issue are unusual, and noted that the change matters because inflation remains the top concern for independent voters heading into November.

According to the data presented, 38 percent of independents named inflation as their top issue, followed by 14 percent who cited the broader economy and 10 percent who pointed to the conflict with Iran, which Enten said is also closely tied to economic concerns. Combined, more than half of independents identified inflation or the economy as their most pressing issue.

Gas prices, a visible driver of inflation concerns, may not offer Republicans relief before Election Day.

Enten said the combination of persistently high gas prices and the sharp erosion of trust on inflation, the very issue that fueled Republican gains in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, could pose a significant risk for the party in this year's midterm contests, given how central the issue clearly remains to independent voters' concerns.

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President Donald Trump used his social media platform Sunday to call for federal regulatory action against an NBC News anchor and against pollsters he accused of publishing inaccurate approval numbers.

Brendan Carr, the Project 2025 co-author who Trump tapped to lead the Federal Communications Commission, has blatantly used his post to advance the White House's interests, and MS NOW's Steve Benen said the president's threats against "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker show he plans to exploit that loyalty to punish his enemies.

Trump criticized Welker in a Truth Social post Sunday, referring to her as "the Unpopular 'Hostess' of 'Meet the Press'" after she remarked, during a segment on a local NBC affiliate rather than the network's flagship program, that his record endorsing candidates in the 2026 midterms has been mixed.

"How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?" Trump wrote, adding that Welker "will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment" and calling on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to treat the matter as "a Threat to our Country."

In a separate post the same morning, Trump wrote in all capital letters that "the fake polls used by our crooked media are out of control, and something must be done about it," adding, "FCC to the rescue!" The post came five days after Trump alleged, without evidence, that major independent polling organizations were coordinating with Democratic officials to discourage Republican voters, according to earlier reporting.

"It's genuinely difficult to know where to start with such brazen nonsense, but let's begin with the fact that Trump's endorsement record really is mixed, whether this accurate observation hurts the president's feelings or not," Benen wrote.

Carr, a co-author of the Project 2025 policy blueprint, was appointed by Trump to lead the FCC and has previously taken actions favorable to the administration's interests regarding broadcast media. It remains unclear whether the FCC will pursue any formal action in response to Trump's posts.

The posts echo a similar call Trump made in May 2025, when he urged an investigation into pollsters he accused of election-related misconduct, directing his complaint at the time toward the Federal Election Commission rather than the FCC. No such investigation followed.

Independent tallies show Trump's 2026 primary endorsements producing a mix of wins and losses across several state races, a record consistent with the assessment Welker cited on air.

"Time will tell whether Carr and his colleagues take the president's directives seriously, but let's not miss the forest for the trees," Benen wrote. "Confronted with data showing his broad unpopularity, Trump can either (a) change course; (b) accept the fact that his presidency lacks public support; or (c) pursue investigations into journalists and independent entities that have dared to present him with information he doesn't want to see or hear."

"The fact that he's choosing door No. 3 isn't surprising," the analyst concluded, "but it does offer a timely reminder about his twisted perspective."