All posts tagged "federal reserve"

These brutal firings and closures mean Trump is flying blind — and heading for a crash

Flying blind is dangerous, but it’s what Trump and his lackeys are forcing America to do.

For starters, the current government shutdown means that critical economic statistics — such as job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that normally would have appeared last Friday — are delayed. No one knows when they’ll appear.

The BLS also produces data on inflation and wages — also delayed.

At a time when there’s reason to worry that the American economy is weakening — when Trump’s tariffs (import taxes) are pushing prices higher, his ICE dragnet is causing labor shortages, and he is asserting control over the Fed’s interest-rate decisions — turning the lights off on the economy is a particularly bad idea.

But even if the government weren’t shuttered, Trump is still turning out the lights.

His firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, on the basis of a jobs report showing a dramatic slowdown in the number of new jobs created under Trump’s watch, has caused many to wonder whether Americans will ever know the truth about how the economy is doing.

Once Trump completes his takeover of the Fed, there will be no inflation cop on the beat, with the result that no one can have any confidence that inflation will be controlled in the future.

Trump intends to replace quarterly earnings reports by publicly traded companies with twice-annual updates. This would put investors in the dark.

Trump and the sycophants surrounding him don’t mind turning the lights off on the economy because they’d rather Americans not know how badly it’s doing under Trump.

Besides, Trump doesn’t like data. He eschews facts. He wants investors and consumers — and everyone else — to be in the dark, because then he can lie without fear of factual contradiction. He can create even more of a fantasy world. He can pretend that he’s been wildly successful even when he’s been a terrible failure.

Trump’s concealment extends beyond the economy. He’s been misrepresenting evidence on vaccines. He’s slowing or stopping data collection on climate change and on bird flu.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced it was defunding its annual survey on food security. This is the nation’s longest-running and most consistent measurement of whether American families are meeting their basic nutritional needs.

Without this information, policymakers and researchers can’t track how many Americans are hungry and how many children are failing to receive adequate nutrition.

Trump doesn’t mind, because he and his Republican enablers in Congress just enacted the largest cuts to food assistance ever to hit American families. Meanwhile, his tariffs — combined with lack of antitrust enforcement — are making food prices soar.

In April, the Trump administration laid off all the analysts at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) responsible for updating the federal poverty guidelines used to calculate eligibility for more than 40 programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance and parts of Medicaid and Medicare.

I doubt Trump wants Americans to know that poverty is rising on his watch, as it surely is. Nor is he especially concerned about updating eligibility for programs that keep Americans out of poverty — programs he’s actively and illegally cutting.

In March, DHHS suspended data collection for the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a database on maternal mortality. In April, the full PRAMS team was put on administrative leave.

Trump doesn’t want Americans to know that women are very likely getting sicker and dying at higher rates due to his (and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s) absurd policies limiting access to drugs and vaccines, his bonkers announcement that pregnant women shouldn’t take Tylenol (even if they’re running a fever), and policies denying women abortions — such as ending Medicaid payments to reproductive health care clinics that offer abortions.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in May that it will no longer be updating its Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters data, which tracks major weather and climate disasters that have total damages or costs of $1 billion or more.

I’m sure Trump is fine with this because he believes climate change is a “hoax.” He’s stopped funding wind and solar energy and instead given carte blanche to the oil companies. Of course he doesn’t want to track large climate disasters.

The lights are going out across America.

The problems that we as a nation have sought to illuminate, so that we can remedy them, are disappearing — not because the problems are disappearing or have been remedied, but because we will no longer know about them.

It is impossible to protect American consumers, workers, investors, families, and children without adequate data. Trump and his lackeys have little or no interest in protecting them — and even less in allowing Americans to know how little they care.

When this Trump daymare is over, one of our first priorities must be to restore all the ways of knowing what’s happening to Americans — and dedicate ourselves and the nation to sharing the truth.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.

Irony oozes from Trump's latest self-made scandal

Bill Pulte is the head of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He has been in the news recently over his allegations that prominent opponents of President Donald Trump committed mortgage fraud. Most recently, Pulte has put Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook in his crosshairs, claiming that she listed two homes as principal residences on mortgage applications.

Trump immediately used this allegation as a basis for trying to fire Cook, even though the Fed is supposed to be an independent agency outside of the president’s control. Governor Cook sued Trump over his firing effort, and the courts will ultimately decide whether this is within his power.

At this point, it is important to remember that Cook has not even been indicted for anything, much less convicted. We only have an allegation from Mr. Pulte.

It is also worth noting the irony of Trump, who was convicted in a civil trial for putting false information on loan forms, trying to fire someone for listing two homes as principal residences. Among the items that Trump put on his loan form was the claim that his 10,000 square foot condo was actually 32,000 square feet. Perhaps President Trump is offended by the pettiness of Cook’s alleged crime.

While the validity of Pulte’s allegations will have to be determined by the courts, the real scandal is Pulte himself. He is supposed to be running the agency that oversees the processing of tens of millions of mortgages by two huge quasi-public agencies. We are not supposed to be paying him to rifle through mortgage documents to find and disclose dirt that Trump can use against his political opponents.

The media really need to be directing some serious questions in Pulte’s direction.

First and foremost, how did he happen to discover the mortgage abuses that he alleges were committed by NY Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and now Governor Lisa Cook? Were these “discoveries” the result of random inspections done by agency staff?

Furthermore, was he looking through non-public mortgage files to gather this information?

Also, why did he make this information public when he uncovered it, instead of going through normal channels. If he had followed established procedures, he would have turned over the information to the agency’s inspector general, who would then turn if over to the Justice Department, if they determined it was appropriate. The first time the public would hear about it was when an indictment was issued.

What reason does Pulte have for not following normal procedures?

Pulte really needs to come clean on this.

He should also come clean on his holdings of Pulte Group stock, the huge housing construction company started by his grandfather. It may be the case that conflicts of interest are almost a job requirement in the Trump administration, but many of us still think that government officials should be working for the public, not trying to fatten their pocketbook.

If Pulte helps Trump get his wish and a Trump-controlled Fed lowers interest rates, it would provide a big boost to the Pulte Group’s profits. That hope would give Pulte a strong motivation to try to hasten the day when Trump appointees dominate the Fed’s Open Market Committee that sets interest rates.

Anyhow, there is definitely a big scandal here — but it involves Bill Pulte, not Lisa Cook. The media really need to take notice.

Dean Baker is the co-founder and the senior economist of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of several books, including "Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better bargain for Working People," "The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive," "The United States Since 1980," "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" (with Mark Weisbrot), and "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer." He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

These new figures make it official: we're in a Trump jobs crash

This morning’s jobs report shows that Trump’s economy is experiencing a jobs crash.

When I say jobs crash, I mean that employers have essentially stopped hiring. Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the economy added only 22,000 jobs in August (relative to the normal monthly gain of 180,000 to 200,000).

The revised figures for June, based on added data, show that 13,000 jobs were lost that month. That’s the first net loss in monthly jobs since the start of the pandemic.

Trump blames Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve for not cutting interest rates sooner but that’s not the reason employers have stopped hiring.

They’ve stopped because the risk is too great.

Trump’s arbitrary, capricious, and mercurial decisions about tariffs and everything else that affects the economy have made it impossible for employers to make even modest predictions about the future. So they won’t hire.

Meanwhile, the Fed can’t cut interest rates much without risking more inflation.

Trump promised to reduce prices, but prices continue to rise. Blame Trump’s tariffs. Prices for wholesalers rose at the fastest pace in three years in July, and those wholesale prices are now being passed on to retailers and consumers.

Food prices are rising especially quickly. The prices of vegetables skyrocketed 40 percent in July. A recent Consumer Price Index report found electricity prices rising at double the rate of inflation, increasing 5.5 percent over the past year.

A jobs crash coupled with soaring prices is bad for everyone — including Republicans seeking to be reelected to Congress next year.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.

At last, a Trump outrage to tear even MAGA SCOTUS from his side

Donald Trump thinks he can control all aspects of American life, including free market interest rates. The Fed chair, and the global economy, disagree.

If the Fed were to fall under the influence of an elected official seeking to tie interest rates to his political agenda, economic consequences would be dire: Investors would face heightened market volatility due to uncertainty and artificially manipulated interest rates, causing confidence in US assets to drop.

In his second term, Trump has made repeated threats to remove officials from the Federal Reserve, including Fed chair Jerome Powell and governor Lisa Cook. Trump is unhappy that the Fed has not yet lowered interest rates to mask economic fallout from his ill-conceived tariffs, which have caused unprecedented levels of volatility and uncertainty.

Trump’s threats have already jeopardized the Fed’s goals, destabilized global markets and eroded trust in US fiscal autonomy. AInvest reports early market responses to his threats and stresses in sum that “the Fed’s independence remains critical to global stability, as political interference risks undermining dollar dominance and triggering cascading effects on bond yields and equity valuations.”

Usurping the Fed’s role

In his latest attempt to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates, Trump seeks to fire Cook, whose appointment can only be terminated for cause under Section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act, in effect since 1913.

“For cause” in this legal context does not mean whatever Trump wants it to mean. It is statutorily defined as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Trump, no surprise, is trying to remove Cook for allegations falling outside that statutory definition. In response to unsubstantiated allegations from a Trump ally that Cook made false statements on a mortgage application in 2021, before she joined the Federal Reserve, Trump purported to fire her on Aug. 25.

In a letter addressed to Cook, Trump wrote, “In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter … I do not have confidence in your integrity.”

Trump, convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records, whose organization was found guilty on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud, whose “Trump University” defrauded students to the tune of 25 million dollars, and who is illegally enriching himself from the presidency in unprecedented ways, appears blind to irony.

If he succeeds in removing and replacing Cook, Trump will have appointed the majority of the seven-member Board of Governors, giving him direct, improvident, and economically catastrophic influence over their decisions.

Cook says not so fast

Cook is fighting back. In a civil suit filed on Aug. 28, Cook avers that the attempted firing violates her due process rights as well as the Federal Reserve Act. Seeking an emergency injunction to block her firing and confirm her status as a member of the Fed’s governing board, Cook’s attorneys pled that, “The President’s effort to terminate a Senate-confirmed Federal Reserve Board member is a broadside attack on the century-old independence of the Federal Reserve System.”

The Supreme Court, despite having granted nearly all of the Trump administration’s 19 emergency appeals on its shadow docket, may finally be poised to tell Trump ‘No’ on this one.

In May, SCOTUS reiterated the Fed’s independence in Wilcox v. Trump, ruling that, “the Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” distinguishing the operational independence of the Fed from that of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and other quasi-independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

Although the Roberts court often limited the powers of the executive under the Biden administration, it has done a 180 for Trump. The Republican majority now embraces the unitary executive theory on steroids, vesting an unstable president with broad Article II authority over the entire executive branch. They have let Trump ignore agency expertise, eliminate agencies altogether, and remove agency staff and directors without cause.

But in Wilcox, they bent over backward to protect the independence of the Fed, distinguishing it from other federal agencies now subject to Trump’s ruinous fiat and whim.

The law is not what Trump says it is

If Trump is allowed to go on a fishing expedition to discover infractions in personal life that he can then use to terminate employees whose terms are statutorily protected, regardless of whether those infractions have any bearing on their performance, then there is no such thing as “for cause” termination restrictions. This would suit delusional Trump, who claims Americans yearn for a dictator, just fine. But it would not serve Americans or the economy.

It is fairly obvious that short-term political interests of a president often diverge from sound long-term fiscal policy. It is also fairly obvious that Trump, who still doesn’t understand how tariffs work, is economically illiterate. Trump favors lower interest rates today to support the appearance of economic strength, because he doesn’t understand the long term economic implications.

Only an independent Fed can prevent administrations from using monetary policy for self-serving political ends in other ways, like simply printing more money to finance debt. If left unchecked, like his tariffs, Trump’s short-sighted and self-serving economic impulses could lead to total economic collapse. They could also lead to the collapse of the US dollar, which may explain Trump’s bitcoin obsession.

Even for a Trump-stacked MAGA court willing to let a criminal president run roughshod over civil liberties, the environment, education, science, and healthcare, letting him kill the US dollar may be a bridge too far.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

This illegal Trump move will hit us all in the pocket

President Trump’s attempted removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is a flagrant violation of the law.

The Federal Reserve Act is clear: Fed governors can only be removed for serious misconduct, and there’s no credible basis for that. By targeting Governor Cook — who brings vital expertise to economic policymaking and is the first Black woman to ever serve on the Fed Board — Trump undermines both the rule of law and extremely hard-won progress toward inclusive leadership in our economic institutions.

Further, this move radically undermines what Trump says his own goal is: lowering U.S. interest rates to spur faster economic growth. Instead, it will likely raise interest rates over the long term and lead to higher costs for working people.

Why will this happen?

The interest rates that truly influence economic growth are long-term rates generally set in financial markets. These longer-term rates are usually strongly influenced by the Fed’s decisions over the shorter-term rates it controls directly — but that’s only because the Fed has, until now, been seen as a non-political, evidence-based institution. If the Fed instead becomes politicized, its influence will falter, and changes it makes to short-term rates will have far less effect on the long-term rates that influence economic growth.

Presidential capture of the Fed would signal to decision-makers throughout the economy that interest rates will no longer be set on the basis of sound data or economic conditions but instead on the whims of the president.

Confidence that the Fed will respond wisely to future periods of macroeconomic stress — either excess inflation or unemployment — will evaporate. As a result, investors will demand higher premiums to hold on to U.S. Treasury bonds (and other long-term bonds), because without faith that the Federal Reserve will tamp down inflationary pressures when they appear, they will need reassurance, in the form of higher long-term interest rates, to hold on to these investments.

These higher long-term rates will ripple through the economy — making mortgages, auto loans, and credit card payments higher for working people — and require that rates be held higher for longer to tamp down any future outbreak of inflation.

In the first hours after Trump’s announcement, all of these worries seemed to be coming to pass.

The source of the allegation of mortgage fraud against Governor Cook is also extremely concerning: a public announcement by the head of the Federal Housing Financing Authority (FHFA), the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The FHFA has access to mortgage information for tens of millions of U.S. households — access that could be abused by a politically motivated agency looking to harm perceived political opponents of the president.

This seems clearly to be what is happening in the Cook case. Under an honest and well-run administration, any potential impropriety identified by FHFA staff in the normal course of their activities would have been referred (without public notice) to the Department of Justice, which would have conducted an investigation without any public comment.

Only if the allegations rose to the level of an indictment would a public announcement be made. That the FHFA has been weaponized to find damaging allegations against a perceived political opponent of the president is deeply worrying.

The Economic Policy Institute urges the courts to act quickly to overturn this unlawful dismissal and to reaffirm the independence of the Federal Reserve, which is critical to the health of our economy and our democracy.

Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that uses the power of its research on economic trends and on the impact of economic policies to advance reforms that serve working people, deliver racial justice, and guarantee gender equity. Previously, she was Chief Economist to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, serving under Secretary Thomas Perez.

Abrupt resignation at Federal Reserve has big implications for Trump

Despite the turmoil over poor job growth numbers on Friday, President Donald Trump scored a major victory with the resignation of a Federal Reserve Board member.

Adriana D. Kugler submitted her resignation letter to Trump, effective Aug. 8, so she can return to teaching at Georgetown University. She has served as a governor on the board since September 2023.

“It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,” Kugler said in a statement. “I am especially honored to have served during a critical time in achieving our dual mandate of bringing down prices and keeping a strong and resilient labor market.”

Trump has moaned for months about Fed Chair Jerome Powell in an attempt to get him to resign for not following orders on interest rates, but this could be the next best thing, now that Trump has a board vacancy he can fill with an ally.

"Her decision to step down also comes as Trump and top administration officials ramp up their search for whom will replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell when his term leading the central bank ends in May 2026," Bloomberg reported. "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had suggested the administration might nominate someone to first fill Kugler’s seat and then later move to elevate that person to chair."

Read the Bloomberg report here.

Trump lashes out moments after White House insider vows Jerome Powell won't be fired

President Donald Trump lashed out at Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Truth Social Wednesday moments after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on MSNBC to claim Powell's job is safe.

Morning Joe host Jonathan Lemire asked Bessent, "Should the president just simply say, 'I'm going to let the Fed Chair finish his term? Wouldn't that supply a bit of comfort and stability to the markets that seem to rattle every time the president suggests that Powell should go?"

"Well, I'm not sure where that question comes from because President Trump has repeatedly said that he's not going to fire Chair Powell," Bessent said. "He might like for him to resign but he's not going to fire him. He's said that on numerous occasions, I think he may have even said it again yesterday."

Lemire then asked if Trump's "fairly incessant pressure campaign" against Powell was "a good thing for the nation's economy."

"I think anyone who goes into public service should expect pressure," Bessent answered. "I get pressure from the president, from the Congress, from constituents. I put pressure on myself. So, I think everyone's used to that. And, Chair Powell's been around a long time."

Shortly after Bessent's comments, Trump used his go-to nickname to blast Powell once again on Truth Social.

"Housing in our Country is lagging because Jerome “Too Late” Powell refuses to lower Interest Rates. Families are being hurt because Interest Rates are too high, and even our Country is having to pay a higher Rate than it should be because of “Too Late," the president wrote.

"Our Rate should be three points lower than they are, saving us $1 Trillion per year (as a Country). This stubborn guy at the Fed just doesn’t get it — Never did, and never will. The Board should act, but they don’t have the Courage to do so!"

Watch the MSNBC clip below.

Fed chief Jerome Powell accused of criminally lying under oath: report

MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has referred Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to the Department of Justice on two criminal counts of lying under oath, according to Fox News Digital.

The outlet first reported Luna's accusations after obtaining her letter to the DOJ. It reads, in part,

"On June 25, 2025, Chairman Powell provided testimony under oath before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs regarding the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building. In his statements, he made several materially false claims," Luna's letter said.

Luna went on to accuse Powell of "lying about lavish amenities at the Federal Reserve's Eccles Building and misrepresenting its state of maintenance," according to the report.

President Donald Trump has floated the idea of firing Powell over fraud allegations regarding the building project. Trump has been upset with Powell, his own appointee, for failing to lower interest rates according to his instruction.

According to Fox News Digital, "Trade outlet Mortgage Professional reported that Powell denied all accusations of perjury and has directed a formal watchdog probe into renovation project costs of the Eccles Building."

Read the Fox News Digital Report here.

Trump's Jerome Powell fury is just a distraction for something much, much worse

The president is trying to change the subject after the attorney general closed the case on disgraced financier and Jeffrey Epstein. That’s why Donald Trump has lately been harping on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Someone is to blame for some make-believe problem and Trump wants to be seen as the solution.

But even if Trump were able to redirect the press corps’ attention, he is unlikely to change the dynamics under way among the MAGA faithful. Trump says Powell must go so that interest rates fall, but to the extent that MAGA base was ever motivated by inflation or the cost of living, it was a secondary concern. MAGA’s principal motivation is drawn from a cosmic story about the battle between good and evil, and with the Epstein scandal, Trump has raised doubts about which side he’s on.

Which story? QAnon. It’s the belief that Trump is the epic hero in a secret war against powerful and malevolent (and Jewish) conspirators who have plotted with agents in the government (the deep state), corporations (wokeness) and the media (lies) to sabotage America. The end of the story was supposed to come when Trump released the Epstein files in advance of executing God’s enemies.

But when US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that there was no list and no conspiracy, she said, in effect, that “the prophecy” was phony. As Lindsay Beyerstein memorably put it: “To the QAnon base, it’s akin to the pope tweeting, ‘We’ve reviewed the files and Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. Thank you for your attention in this matter.’”

Something about QAnon that’s important to bear in mind is that lots of people have surfed it to become rich and influential, which is to say, lots of people have cynically exploited antisemitic fear and paranoia to create a gigantic rightwing media apparatus that has been able to shield the president from feeling the consequences of virtually all of his choices, not matter how destructive they might be, even to MAGA.

Another thing to bear in mind is that Trump decided to bring into his administration some of these self-same people who have gotten rich and influential telling and retelling the story about Trump being the hero who is going to save the world and make America great again.

Two of them are Kash Patel, the FBI Director, and Dan Bongino, the FBI’s Deputy Director. They were reportedly in agreement with Bondi’s decision to close the Epstein case, but once they understood fully the incendiary backlash against it, they apparently chickened out. Bondi forced them to choose between loyalty to Trump and loyalty to the true believers of “the prophecy,” which is to say, she forced them to choose between a “false prophet” and their lucrative media careers. (I don’t know about Patel, but Bongino is reportedly looking for an exit.)

This is the source of the division among the MAGA faithful, between a political leader who, over a decade, rode a rising tide of conspiracy theory — from birtherism to Pizzagate to the stop the steal — and a tightly-knit group of rightwing operatives, some of them are funded by the governments of Russia and Iran, who rode that tide along with him.

United, they could bend the will of the Washington press corps and prevent any scandal from truly taking root, up to and including an attempted paramilitary takeover of the United States government.

Divided, however, the president is badly exposed.

One way Trump diverts attention away from his incompetence, indecency and criminality is to accuse the media of being “the enemy of the people,” knowing his conspiracy-minded followers will interpret that to mean reporters are an extension of a Satan-worshiping pedophiliac cabal that’s plotting to destroy America and God’s chosen.

But now, he risks feeling the consequences of every choice. If he does indeed sack Powell, it will trigger a global reaction, the result of which will almost certainly drive up the cost of everything, including the cost of money, making borrowing and credit that much harder to get. His followers won’t complain about that explicitly, but they may do so implicitly – channeling their hardship through a proper MAGA lens.

As Lindsay Beyerstein insightfully told me, there is now a “permission structure” in place so the president’s followers can criticize him in “MAGA-coded way.”

“Lashing out against the tariffs or the massive cuts to Medicaid makes you a RINO or ‘woke’ in their eyes,” she said. “But lashing out at Donald Trump in the name of Jeffrey Epstein’s child victims and the war on the deep state makes you a better, purer MAGA.”

Those victims, by the way, represent an entry point into the MAGA movement for Republicans who are squeamish about being associated with the kooks and cranks of QAnon. As one reader put it: “There’s a more ‘centrist’ element to MAGA that entered into the movement with legitimate concerns about child trafficking. All those ‘report trafficking’ signs you find in bathrooms are a product of their work. So Trump’s dismissal of Epstein is a slap in their faces, too.”

New polling underscores this and suggests the backlash against Trump is far from isolated to the 20 percent of MAGA that’s diehard for QAnon.

“Sixty-nine of respondents thought the federal government was hiding details about Epstein's clients,” Reuters said, “compared to 6 percent who disagreed and about one in four who said they weren't sure.”

The number of Republicans?

Nearly two-thirds, or 62 percent, agreed.

The MAGA movement has never held Trump responsible for this choices, no matter how outrageous or illegal or treasonous they have been, because he convinced them that he and they are the real victims of a real conspiracy perpetrated by the greatest of evildoers, namely, a covert confederacy of scum and perversion that sells children for sex to seemingly untouchable men, like George Soros and Barack Obama.

So even though Trump was actually convicted of committing actual crimes against actual victims, in the eyes of MAGA, he remained the real victim of a much larger crime committed by much larger criminal forces that he, and only he, could bring to justice once elected.

That was the subtext beneath Donald Trump Jr’s question posed before the election. “How is it that my father can be convicted of 34 crimes, but no one on Epstein’s list has even been brought to light?” And that has been the subtext behind virtually every effort by Trump to draw attention away from the consequences of his choices.

The difference, now that he has tried to dismiss the Epstein case of nothing to see, is that the MAGA base can no longer be relied on to fill in the blanks. He wants them to believe that the evil doers are trying to persecute him over Epstein the way they persecuted him over Russia, but he can’t equate “the Russia hoax” with “the Epstein hoax” without also inadvertently admitting to the base that MAGA has been a scam.

That seems to be what Nick Fuentes has concluded.

“When we look back on the history of populism in America, we are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history, and the liberals were right,” the former Trump supporter and white supremacist said on his podcast. “The MAGA supporters were had. They were."

He added: “The Republicans must be hanged in the midterms. … It just needs to be a Democrat avalanche at this point. That’s not because I’m a Democrat. I don’t like the Democrats. I hate the Republicans more. Because the Republicans are traitors. Because I have voted for Republicans. I have supported Republicans. And they shit on our face.”

The essence of MAGA is faith. No matter what it looks like – no matter how scary or chaotic or costly or wrong things may seem – you must doubt the evidence of your eyes. Donald Trump was sent by God to fulfill a prophecy, or at least punish those whom MAGA believes deserve pain. But now the evidence of your eyes is looking more dependable.

Trump has never been held accountable.

But every con meets its end.

'Oh my God!' Dems prepare for 'A-bomb' to hit market after Trump threat

WASHINGTON – A California Republican admitted to not being a “super-duper financial expert” — then said he understood President Donald Trump’s urge to break with political convention and fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

That move, many financial experts and Democrats have said, will mean disaster for the U.S. economy.

“I don't get the feeling [Powell] is very responsive to the cues of the economy like you should be,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) told Raw Story at the U.S. Capitol, as Washington fixated on whether Trump will fire Powell, as he is reportedly preparing to do.

“That's where the frustration comes in here, it seems to me,” LaMalfa said. “Like [I’m] not a super-duper financial expert on it but they could be more responsive to what we see happening here. I would like to see interest rates adjusted.

“Maybe he’ll just go away on his own.”

Trump has raged publicly about Powell, on Wednesday telling reporters: “He’s a terrible Fed chair. I was surprised he was appointed.”

Countless sources pointed out that Trump nominated Powell in 2017 and oversaw his appointment the following year.

Trump added that he “was surprised that [President Joe] Biden put him in, extended him”, and said that though he was not “planning on doing anything” and a firing was “highly unlikely,” he was “very very concerned.”

Powell was actually appointed by Trump during his first term.

The New York Times first reported that Trump has prepared a letter with which to fire Powell. Aides to the president have said he is looking into whether he has the authority to do so.

Rep. LaMalfa told Raw Story Powell’s firing “would probably be handy” for Republicans, but added: “I don't know if the protocol allows for just being able to kick the guy out.”

Then he asked: “You know what his term is?”

Fed Chairs typically serve four-year terms, operating independently of the presidents who appoint them. Powell’s second term ends next year. But in Trump’s own second term, the White House has shown scant regard for convention.

LaMalfa said: “I understand the frustration, but there does have to be some sense of, you know, continuity that is about the political thing too.

“I just hope they come to the realization on their own that we need to … align interest rates with how good the economy is, instead of just … interest rates are going to be bad for managing our debt around here, so we all want to see them low for a lot of reasons.”

Like every other House Republican but one, LaMalfa recently voted for Trump’s “big beautiful bill” of tax cuts and spending cuts, which is projected to add $4 trillion to the national debt.

‘Very dangerous’

Democrats do not think Trump should fire Powell.

“I think [it would be] very dangerous,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told Raw Story.

“Oh, my God, yeah. There's a great essay in the New York Times … about you want 35% inflation, make the Fed not independent.

“If [the Fed Chair is] serving at the pleasure of the president, then they're gonna do short-term stuff all the time. You need long-term thinking, which Powell’s been great at and virtually everyone” says it.

Raw Story asked: “So you think meddling is bad?”

Citing an economist hero of free-market Republicans, Beyer said: “You all go back to Milton Friedman. They're all big fans of Milton Friedman. He said don't adjust it at all. You know, figure out what the rate of increase of the population is, and let the money supply increase that much and just stay out of it.”

Raw Story asked: “You think if [Trump] did it” and fired Powell, would it “hit like an A-bomb” on Wall Street?

Beyer said: “Oh my God! I just don't know how he could. You know, Trump cares about the stock market. And the tariffs [on international trade] have been bad for the stock market, and then we pull them back up, but this would be pretty interesting, pretty fast. And inflation is slowly ticking up. And most of the tariffs, three-quarters haven't even hit yet.

“It could get a lot worse, and you have no Jay Powell, you put a lap dog in there who's saying, ‘Mr. President, what should I do now?’ Like our speaker?”

That was a shot at Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who apart from advocating for the release of the Epstein files has been a remarkably compliant speaker when it comes to Trump’s priorities.

‘Absolutely needs to go’

On the other side of the Capitol, in the U.S. Senate, one Republican firebrand was in no doubt that Trump should fire Powell and would be within his rights to do so, according to precedent as well as politics.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) cited widely reported “cost overruns” relating to a renovation of the Federal Reserve building as part of Powell’s alleged “mismanagement of the Fed [including] losing hundreds of billions of dollars in the private sector.”

Experts say President Trump likely does not have sufficient cause to fire Powell. Moreno rejects such experts.

“Jerome Powell absolutely needs to go,” Moreno told reporters. “He's costing his country hundreds of billions of dollars and [is] just completely inept. Would you be able to lose $300 billion? OK.”