There is a looming financial crisis that Washington politicians are not only ignoring, but they're also making it worse by ignoring it.

The New Republic's Grace Segers wrote Monday that food prices are continuing to rise as fuel prices drive up transportation costs. Wages, which continue to remain stagnant amid inflation, mean that many Americans are struggling to pay for everyday things like gas and groceries. So, they're turning to high-interest-rate credit cards or other forms of borrowing that put them in an even greater financial bind.

So-called payday loans or pay later loans give families an early boost, but at a high cost. On a credit card with a 25 percent interest rate, an individual pays $125 for $100 of groceries. Other pay-later lenders charge interest rates of 300 percent or more, even 600 percent in some states, explained one credit union.

The report recalled the high egg prices ahead of the 2024 election, in part due to the avian flu outbreak, but now high beef or bread prices have taken over.

“The war is just exacerbating all the angst around,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It’s a real problem financially, but also it’s being supercharged in the minds of people because people are really focused on the cost of food and groceries.”

Zandi explained that, unlike in 2024, with a few high-ticket items, the concern is that so many of the items are now higher-priced. “Almost everyone has a food item that they’re focused on [that] they buy regularly ... [and] use as a benchmark for the cost of living and their financial situation.”

At this point, even if President Donald Trump were to end the Iran war this week, the economic impact will be felt for the next several years. He asserted he's "already solved inflation."

“There’s no going back on energy costs, at least not in the next couple, three, four years,” Zandi said. “I think we’re all going to be paying a lot more for energy, and that will translate into higher costs for everything, obviously including groceries and food more broadly.”

Beyond the financial impact on the country as a whole, Segers frames it as part of a troubling trend and as a sign of deeper economic stress for most Americans, particularly lower-income families, who are more likely to use pay-later lenders.

The ultimate result is that rising costs for essential items put people on a kind of endless hamster wheel that they can't break. It's a problem that Congress could fix by investing in safety-net programs and expanding access to credit counseling. The problem is that Republicans made astronomical cuts to such programs in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" passed in 2025.

President Donald Trump has touted a new initiative to try and address a major economic pain point for midterm voters, but as a new piece from MS NOW argued, it is a "half-hearted" and "flimsy stunt" that perfectly encapsulates the collapse of his presidency.

Earlier this week, Trump took to Truth Social to tout "Freedom Fuel," a network of 25 gas stations in Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey that would be "lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President." As reporter James Downie noted in a Sunday piece for MS NOW, the post and an accompanying video were meant to give viewers "the impression that the administration, whether through subsidy or takeover, was directly intervening to lower gas prices."

It remains unclear at this time who is actually behind the Freedom Fuel locations and how they are managing to lower prices at their pumps. The only information available about its incorporation, per materials from the Delaware Department of State, shows that it was set up on June 23, and nothing else. The situation also drew some criticism that Trump was engaging in precisely the sort of "communist" government intervention policies that he has recently been railing against Democrats for supposedly espousing.

"But whoever is behind Freedom Fuel, Trump’s praise is emblematic of his second year back in the White House: a half-hearted, poorly thought-out stunt," Downie wrote about the whole affair. "Trump is apparently hoping for copycats. For days, he has complained that gas prices are not as low as they were before he recklessly started a war with Iran. Now he is lobbying for other retailers to do what Freedom Fuel has done. 'This Retailer is taking the lead,'” he wrote in that social media post praising the mystery retailer. 'And others should follow.'”

He continued: "Trump, in other words, is asking for volunteers to ease the economic pain that his own policies have caused. Such presidential requests have a checkered history. Herbert Hoover, the president with whom Trump most fears comparisons, declared more than a year into the Great Depression that the 'local communities through their voluntary agencies have assumed the duty of relieving individual distress and are being generously supported by the public.' He said, 'The result of magnificent cooperation throughout the country has been that actual suffering has been kept to a minimum during the past 12 months.' The suffering was in fact far from minimal, and the economy would find salvation not in private enterprise or individual fortitude, but in government spending and relief."

Downie called Trump's Freedom Fuel post a "particularly poor attempt" at his usual tactic of trying to "claim credit" whenever a company lowers prices. The attempt also "reminds drivers how much prices have jumped since Trump launched the Iran war," as $3.47 is still around $0.50 above what the national average was for gas prices before Trump's Iran war.

President Donald Trump appears to be trying to revive the Cold War-era "Red Scare" with his newest line of attack against Democrats, but as one former RNC Chair wrote for MS NOW, his effort falls apart in the face of "history and common sense" — and his own administration's machinations.

In the face of his own withering popularity and Democratic momentum heading into the midterms, Trump has taken to slamming his opponents as "godless communists" in various speeches, most notably his America 250 address at Mt. Rushmore. This tactic appears driven by a recent trend of self-described Democratic Socialists finding strong success in Democratic primaries in places like New York City and Colorado.

"These are not mere political disagreements, like differences over taxes or regulations," Trump said. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. … The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions. … They don’t want good, they don’t love God, and they don’t want God."

Writing in a piece for MS NOW Saturday, Michael Steele, who led the Republican National Committee from 2009 and 2011 and has emerged as an outspoken conservative Trump critic, argued that this sort of "Red Scare" rhetoric will not play well in the modern context, and dismissed the notion that modern socialists are anything like Cold War-era communists.

"Trump’s speech comes at a very different time than [Joseph] McCarthy’s, however," Steele wrote. "The West won the Cold War decades ago; the remaining communist countries, such as China and Vietnam, have mixed economies, and even Cuba has adopted some market reforms. The 'communists' Trump is attacking are democratic socialists who want to do things like expand Medicare and start city-run grocery stores in needy areas, not seize the means of production."

Steele further noted that, when the original Red Scare began, average incomes were much higher in the U.S. than they are now, meaning that Americans had reasons "to be optimistic about their economic futures and to see capitalism as a system worth protecting." Now, not so much.

"In fact, if anyone is trying to create a government-run economy, it’s not the democratic socialists; it’s Trump himself," Steele argued. "The president has imposed illegal tariffs and is now subsidizing farmers suffering under those tariffs to the tune of $44 billion by the end of this year. He spearheaded partial state ownership of private companies. As recently as this week, the administration even announced so-called 'Freedom Fuel' centers to offset uncertainty at the pump caused by Trump’s war with Iran, which he entered without congressional approval. All the while, Trump has not only insulated his own riches from the disastrous economic policies he’s implemented, but he’s multiplied them."

He added: "Even more sinister, the president has embraced the same authoritarian tactics associated with actual communist leaders. Since Day One of his second term, his administration has worked overtime to purge the federal workforce of anyone he suspects of disloyalty. His Homeland Security Department has detained people for writing op-eds and flooded cities with masked federal agents. His Justice Department has targeted perceived enemies with the full might of the U.S. criminal justice system."

commondreams.org

'Lots of Pain But Little Gains': Report Shows How Much Trump Tariffs Have Cost Americans | Common Dreams

A US small business coalition on Wednesday released a state-by-state analysis detailing how President Donald Trump’s capricious tariffs have cost American businesses and consumers upward of $317 billion since March 2025.

We Pay the Tariffs launched an interactive map, which uses data compiled by the international research firm Trade Partnership Worldwide, LLC to show the costs from additional tariffs the Trump administration has imposed by illegally invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—a move blocked by the US Supreme Court in February—and by using Sections 122, 232, and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

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With Section 122 tariffs—which impose a 10% surcharge on imports from almost all countries—set to expire on July 24, the Trump administration has said it will replace them with permanent Section 301 tariffs, which, according to We Pay the Tariffs will add “new costs on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars businesses have already paid.”

“The latest figures are a damning indictment of tariffs’ impact on the US economy, with lots of pain but little gains for American workers, businesses, and families,” We Pay the Tariffs executive director Dan Anthony said on Wednesday. “The trade deficit is up, goods exports and manufacturing jobs are down, and inflation is at its highest level in years. It’s disappointing that the administration is barreling ahead with a flurry of new tariffs despite the results to date.”

In an open letter to members of Congress signed by small businesses across the country, the coalition noted that “once new tariffs take effect, history shows they are rarely undone.”

“The Section 301 statute says tariffs should terminate after four years. Yet Section 301 tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration in 2018 were continued by the Biden administration, and remain in effect today,” the letter states. “So do many Section 232 tariffs imposed in 2018 and expanded upon in 2025. There is no reason to expect this pattern to change.”

The coalition argued that this is why “Congress must act before more Section 301 and 232 tariffs take effect.”

“This is not a partisan issue. Tariffs are deeply and broadly unpopular with American voters,” the letter asserts. “They are hurting small businesses in every state. Tariffs are taxes, and no president should be able to unilaterally impose hundreds of billions in permanent new taxes without a vote of Congress.”

Progressive economists and consumer advocates argue that tariffs function as a regressive tax, falling disproportionately on working-class families who spend a larger share of their income on consumer goods. They warn that Trump administration tariff policies have also aided large corporations at the expense of smaller competitors.

Critics also note that the tariffs have failed to deliver the manufacturing renaissance promised by Trump, noting that the sector has still shed tens of thousands of jobs even as output increases due to automation, and that workers have seen few benefits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in additional import taxes paid by businesses and consumers.

“We paid—and will be forced to keep paying—the tariffs,” the coalition letter concludes. “We need Congress to act now, before a permanent tariff regime is imposed on small businesses across America.”

A conservative-leaning economist argued in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that President Donald Trump’s trade policies are destroying America’s economy — and two liberal-leaning experts who spoke with AlterNet agreed with him.

After mentioning that Trump refused to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) earlier this month, American Institute for Economic Research senior research fellow David Hebert wrote that Trump is creating a climate of economic uncertainty that will disincentivize business investment.

“The main value of a trade agreement isn’t that it lowers tariffs but that it eliminates doubt,” Hebert argued. “USMCA’s greatest achievement was never a slate of tariff rates, exceptions and rules. It was the confidence that the rules would stay stable long enough for companies to make plans and act on them. A parts supplier in Michigan could sign a 10-year lease and order supplies because the terms governing what crossed the border were set.”

By praising the USMCA, Hebert put himself on the side of Trump’s first term trade policies (the deal was signed in 2020 to replace the 1994 trade agreement NAFTA) but distancing himself from his second term approach. Rejecting the notion that trade deficits are a problem by saying "your persistent trade deficit with the grocery store doesn’t mean you are losing,” Hebert prioritized the need for businesses to feel a sense of confidence about the future policies that will impact their financial bottom lines.

“The incentives that annual reviews create are predictable,” Hebert wrote. “Industries seeking tighter rules of origin, higher domestic-content requirements and new carve-outs will have annual opportunities to lobby Washington. The benefits will accrue to those with the resources and connections to influence the process. Trade lawyers, lobbyists and consultants who bill by the hour have had their work extended and made more expensive. The costs will be dispersed across consumers, who will pay higher prices, and workers, who will see promotions, raises and opportunities delayed.”

He continued, “No one represents the workers who might have found jobs at a factory that is never built.” Overall everyone except business owners “that treat the annual review and lobbying expenses as an investment in securing greater returns from a favorable rule of origin rather than by making a better product” will lose.

“Investment requires confidence, and confidence requires stability,” Hebert concluded. “That stability is what the administration chose not to renew.”

Speaking exclusively with AlterNet, Ed Gresser, the Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the liberal-leaning think tank Progressive Policy Institute, described Hebert’s position as “plausible.”

“I think the administration isn't so much looking at what's badly wrong with it, but whether it can show an achievement — or, if not, whether it can show it's intimidating some corners in some way,” Gresser told AlterNet. “So I think Hebert is right to take the best interpretation of what they're doing: they're hoping to get small, individual policy achievements at the expense of a larger-scale increase in costs and loss of stability and predictability.”

While adding that both the Mexican and Canadian governments are likely to consider “reasonable changes” to the USMCA, Gresser doubted that any new trade deal will “leave Americans significantly better off than they would've been otherwise.”

When asked about Hebert’s observation that “the benefits will accrue to those with the resources and connections to influence the process,” and whether that is similar to President Grover Cleveland describing protectionism as a “communism of pelf” in 1894, Gresser compared the policies not to communism but to socialism.

“I don't think of it as communism, although the Trump administration is actually a very big-government presidency — taking stakes in big companies and trying to manage them in a fairly inappropriate way,” Gresser told AlterNet. “So it's a bit odd to see them drumming up fears of socialism, since that's very much in the background of a lot of what they've done."

Dr. Robert Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the administration of President Bill Clinton and principal economic adviser to Clinton's 1992 campaign, told AlterNet that Trump’s policies will create tremendous uncertainty.

“It's about uncertainty,” Shapiro explained. “Every investment is based on an assessment of the likely future demand for whatever you're investing in, and how much it's going to cost to produce it. So there are assumptions about labor costs, material costs and other input costs — and again, about demand. If you have a set of arrangements that give you some confidence about the price of your inputs coming from Mexico or Canada, or about demand for goods in Canada — and don't forget, we have virtually no trade deficit with Canada; we have enormous trade, and it goes in both directions — so it's certainly right, and it's not just about investments based on these probabilities that the trade agreement can help reduce uncertainty about.”

Shapiro continued, “It's also about how much you're going to produce today, apart from investment, because you've got thousands of companies selling goods or services into Canada. And so there's uncertainty about whether this will lead to more conflict with Canada, which would hurt Canadian demand for US goods, or whether Canada will impose a new tariff in retaliation for ours that makes my goods less competitive there. Of course it's bad — it's bad for American workers, it's bad for American investment.”

He speculated that Trump is renegotiating the USMCA because he wants to “divert attention from the economic failures of his presidency — as if to say: the problem isn't that I raised all prices through tariffs, the problem isn't that I raised prices by choosing to go to war with Iran — the problem is Canada.”

Asked about whether Hebert’s characterization of Trump’s trade policies can be described as a Clevelandesque “communism of pelf,” Shapiro instead used the term “crony capitalism.”

“Trump operates with a form of crony capitalism,” Shapiro said. “The people who get US contracts, the people who get preferences on tariffs, are those who have influence with him. It ranges from the absurd — where the guy who did the coating for the swimming pool gets a no-bid contract to do the reflecting pool — to all the other no-bid contracts. That's all crony capitalism. And certainly, opening this up could create more opportunities for that.”

Overall Trump’s tariffs have not yielded any demonstrable economic benefits. Back in February, Allison McManus and Dawn Le of the liberal-leaning think tank Center for American Progress released a report revealing that “far from the manufacturing sector ‘roaring back’ as Trump promised, the United States has lost more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs over the past year. These actions have pushed the country’s closest trading partners to seek deals elsewhere, including with China: Canada, India, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union have all recently sought new agreements without the United States.”

At least one conservative predicts that these tariffs will cost Trump in the upcoming midterm elections.

“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” wrote The Bulwark's Mona Charen, who served as a communications adviser to President Ronald Reagan. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”

Workers are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's decades-spanning hatred of wind turbines, per The Guardian, warning that his crusade against wind energy is destroying jobs.

Trump has long expressed disdain for wind turbines — referring to them as "windmills" — with his antipathy appearing to stem from a group of them being installed off the coast of his golf course in Scotland. Since returning to the White House, he has renewed his campaign against them, issuing an executive order to try and halt wind energy construction, and paying billions to convince comapnies to stop their turbine projects.

In a Monday morning report, The Guardian detailed how "hundreds" of workers have lost their jobs due to Trump's anti-wind crusade, speaking with various sources in the industry. Thomas Kilday, a furnace electrician with IBEW Local 99 in Rhode Island, told the outlet that he was in the midst of a four-week turbine-build project for the Revolution Wind Project in the Atlantic Ocean when the company was hit with a stop-work order from the federal government.

“No one really knew what was going on. We didn’t know what it meant for us. We just knew that everything was up in the air,” Kilday explained. “You plan your whole life around being gone for 28 days, and to come out here and have it thrown up in the air, worrying what does this mean for me, for my pay for the next four weeks, what’s going to happen? There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

After a court blocked that initial order, the Trump administration issued another stop-work order against the project in December.

“That was really difficult,” Kilday continued. “I just spent a bunch of money on Christmas gifts for my family, and it was not what I wanted to be thinking about. Six months out of the year we’re away from home, and for what little time we do have at home, not to be able to spend just focus all of that time and energy on our families, it’s tough. It’s not a great feeling to be worried about your job when you’re supposed to be home.”

He continued: “We’re proud of the work that we do out here, and we want to be able to continue to do it. We think it’s important work. When I’m at home, and I drive down my street, I look up at those power lines. I helped create the power that’s running through those power lines, and I’m proud of that.”

Trump's bid to buy out wind turbine contracts came after his administration backed efforts to enforce his initial executive order. So far, the government has paid out around $2.6 billion to energy companies as part of this crusade, with Pat Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, telling The Guardian that the plot is not only damaging for the environment, but also for American jobs.

“I think it’s a foolish policy that the Trump administration is engaging in trying to buy out these leases,” Crowlay said. “These projects are not only helping to reduce our carbon emissions, they’re providing good-paying union jobs for thousands.”

During his first presidency, Donald Trump was a vehement critic of cryptocurrencies — calling Bitcoin a "scam" and saying that cryptos could never hope to compete with the U.S. dollar. But these days, Trump is an aggressive promotor of cryptocurrencies, which have done a lot to increase his net worth since his return to the White House. And the Trump family's crypto-oriented World Liberty Financial, launched in 2024, has made them a fortune.

According to the New York Times, however, the "overall results" have been "remarkably bad" for MAGA supporters who invested in a Trump-themed memecoin.

Times reporters Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany, on the Fourth of July 2026, explain, "Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump's memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion. The analytics firm's assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025."

Trump, Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany report, "profited whether the price of his memecoin went up or down" and "collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens" — which he promoted on his Truth Social platform. But crypto investor and 2024 Trump voter Nicholas Pinto, according to the Times reporters, wasn't so lucky.

Pinto told the Times he invested roughly $500,000 in the $TRUMP digital coin and has lost around half of that investment.

Pinto said of Trump, "He is leveraging the power of being president to launch currencies, when he seems trustworthy in the public's eye. It is kind of incredible. It is almost a legal scam."

Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany point out that "several crypto ventures…. reeled in profits for Mr. Trump and his allies."

"Mr. Trump's total profits from World Liberty reached $799 million last year, according to his financial disclosure, including hundreds of millions from the United Arab Emirates, which secretly moved in early 2025 to buy nearly half the company," the reporters note. "A Trump business entity also collected a 75 percent cut of sales of $WLFI, after the deduction of certain expenses, guaranteeing that Mr. Trump would profit, even if the coin's price ultimately crashed. The losses on World Liberty's coin are more complicated to track."

New York University Stephen Gillers said he wouldn't be surprised if Trump and his crypto partners face a class-action lawsuit from investors who lost money.

Gillers told the Times, "Trump, back when he was a real estate developer, boasted that he plays 'to people's fantasies.' Here, he seems to have encouraged supporters to invest with the expectation they could anticipate riches — even as he himself was cashing out."

For many years, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member Canada was among the United States' closest economic partners. But major tensions between the U.S. and Canada have emerged during President Donald Trump's second term. And liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his Substack column, argues that Trump is doing everything he can to undermine the traditional North American economic alliance: the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

"In what would be major news except for all the other disasters happening," Krugman laments, "Donald Trump has declined to renew the USMCA — the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement — which he himself negotiated. This puts businesses on notice that tariff-free shipments within North America, which NAFTA supposedly made permanent, may go away. Some commentators have dismissed this as no big deal, because Trump's successor will probably reverse his decision and make the USMCA permanent after all. However, this misses the point of such agreements."

Krugman adds, "Before NAFTA went into effect, North American tariffs were already low. The average tariff imposed by the U.S. on imports from Mexico was only 2 percent. But NAFTA gave more than tariff relief. It gave, or seemed to give, certainty: businesses could invest in border-spanning supply chains confident that they would be able to use these chains for many years to come."

Krugman makes his points by highlighting comments he made during a recent appearance on Bloomberg Television, where he was interviewed by "Bloomberg Wall Street Week" host David Westin.

The economist and former New York Times columnist emphasized that the North American countries, for decades, enjoyed a close economic alliance. But under Trump, Krugman warned, that mutually beneficial alliance is suffering.

Krugman told Westin, "The great virtue of this whole world's trade system that the United States basically set up after World War 2 was that it provided, it wasn't just that their tariffs were low, though that’s important. But even more important, things were predictable. I would almost prefer that Trump put on more tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but committed to keep them in place, than have rolling negotiations where every year you don't know what next year will be like."

Krugman argued that extreme protectionism is harmful, not helpful, to the U.S. economy. And he called for a "free movement of goods" between the U.S., Canada and Mexico and a European Union-like arrangement between the North American countries.

The economist told Westin, "The idea that somehow, turning our back on the world here is going to add jobs is probably wrong…. There is no trade conflict here except in Trump's mind…. We shouldn't be worried about being dependent on Canadian aluminum."

Krugman did say, however, that some "conditional tariffs on Chinese cars" are "probably going to be necessary."

Krugman told Westin, "We have a real problem with China. The problem with Mexico and Canada is just a figment of the president's imagination."

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President Donald Trump has so far avoided the most dire predictions about how gas prices would react to his war with Iran, but according to experts who spoke with Politico, the win he is currently feeling at the pump could wind up being a "temporary sugar high."

In the wake of the temporary ceasefire deal with Iran and the shaky reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices have fallen at a steady clip, bucking the warnings from energy experts of "$150 barrel of oil, $5 gasoline and summer recessions" as a result of the war. While Americans have certainly felt considerable pain from skyrocketing gas prices, they have nevertheless avoided the worst-case scenarios, despite the worst supply shock in recorded history.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Rory Johnston, an oil analyst for the Commodity Context newsletter, told Politico. “I’ve never seen a market like this.”

"In addition to reduced Chinese demand, the energy futures market and the cost of actual real-world barrels of oil wildly diverged for much of the war, keeping prices at the pump lower than most thought possible," the outlet explained. "The market continued to focus on Trump’s claims of a quick resolution to the war and his pledge to quickly drop prices while the price of crude oil in some regions spiked upward as the actual barrels available for sale became scarce."

It added: "Trump also used Truth Social to successfully jawbone the markets, repeatedly promising victory and ceasefire, which appears to have helped calm markets and keep oil prices from rising much past $110 per barrel."

Some experts, however, are warning that this good fortune could end up being temporary, and could end as soon as "empty ships return through the strait to load up more crude oil, as Johnston explained.

"That means oil prices are still at risk of a quick spike," the report continued. "The ceasefire also remains incredibly fragile. Iran attacked at least two ships in recent days and the U.S. launched counterstrikes. The latest round of tit-for-tat strikes reduced the number of ships leaving the strait from 57 on June 24 to 12 on June 28, according to Kpler."

The report also added: "China could also ramp up oil imports, Johnston said. And the buffer of oil storage inventories in multiple countries that kept price artificially low in the last few months is virtually gone, as some facilities hit tank bottom, making the market far more vulnerable to future disruptions."

Greg Piddy, who previously worked for the U.S. Energy Information Administration under former President George W. Bush and specializes in energy market disruptions, told the outlet that there are still many things, within Trump's direct control, that could cause prices to spike again, noting that the situation is "still a ticking time bomb."

A former Republican congressman and ex-supporter of President Donald Trump says that his former GOP colleagues are “going to go down” with their commander-in-chief, despite his flaws.

“I'll tell you what, Jim — you and I have talked about this before,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) told reporter Jim Acosta on Acosta’s Substack. “There are so many things that just make me angry and sad about what Trump's done to this country, but I think it is this more than anything: his attack on our elections process. We have the safest, most secure elections in the world. And damn near all of my former Republican colleagues say that and believe that — but they cannot say it publicly.”

He added, “Think about what Trump is saying: that someone who goes to vote in person on Election Day at 12 noon, that vote counts — but somebody who gets their ballot in and submits their mail-in ballot by 12 noon on Election Day, that ballot doesn't count. This is his continued effort to attack our elections. And if you attack our elections, you're our enemy. We know what he's trying to do for the midterms. We know what he's trying to do.”

Acosta then asked Walsh if Republicans will ever stand up to Trump.

“There are bits and pieces on the outside, but generally they're all sticking with him,” Walsh told Acosta. “They had an effort to vote against his war, and even in a non-binding resolution, [Louisiana Sen. Bill] Cassidy and [Kentucky Sen.] Rand Paul took their vote back. They generally stand with him on everything Their opposition to the SAVE Act is not really the SAVE Act. It's the institutionalists in the Senate who don't want to get rid of the filibuster.”

He concluded, “Generally, they're all with him and they're going to go down with him in November.”

Trump is reportedly “livid” that a Supreme Court judge he appointed, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not support his effort to stop mail-in votes from arriving after Election Day.

“He is completely livid over the mail-in ballot ruling,” CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes explained on Monday. “And of course, part of this is about the justices who decided to rule against him in this case. Just a reminder — this was the Republican National Committee challenging a Mississippi law that allowed mail-in ballots that came in after Election Day to still be counted.”

Meanwhile on MS NOW Hogan Gidley, a former White House deputy press secretary for Trump, was met with laughter when he tried to deflect from Trump’s saying that he views affordable housing legislation with a “yawn” until he gets his voter regulation law passed.

“I do think, though, he is focused on making sure that our elections have some semblance of faith, trust and confidence, which they have been losing in this country for decades,” Gidley said. “You'll remember around 65 percent of Republicans did not believe that Joe Biden won the election.”

The studio laughed when Gidley claimed Trump is not obsessed with stopping voters who he believes will oppose him.

Dan Vicuña, the Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at the nonprofit good government group Common Cause, told AlterNet earlier this month that Trump’s attempts to regulate voting are arguably illegal.

“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected. Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”

Democrats in the US House of Representatives quickly fired back on Monday after President Donald Trump called pending affordable housing legislation a “big yawn” compared to the attack on voting rights that he wants Republicans to pass.

Trump last Wednesday canceled a planned signing ceremony for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act and demanded that Congress, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans, pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday sent Trump the bipartisan housing bill—which will become law with no action by the president after 10 days.

Asked by reporters whether he’ll sign the housing legislation, Trump replied: “It hasn’t been sent to me yet. It’s coming, I understand, and then I’ll make a de—Here’s what I would like to say... It’s a yawn. Some people say it’s wonderful. To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”

Sharing a clip of the president’s remarks on social media, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) declared, “He truly doesn’t give a damn about you.”

Other Democrats delivered similar responses. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) said that “Trump does not care about lowering housing prices,” while Rep. Becca Balint (Vt.) wrote of his comments, “Donald Trump literally does not care about your cost of living, part one million.”

Democratic Colorado Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen said: “A yawn? Try telling that to the families who can’t afford rent, can’t afford to buy gas or groceries, and are one paycheck away from losing everything. Believe him when he tells you who he is.”

Rep. Christian D. Menefee, a Texas Democrat, charged that “Trump cares more about rigging elections than Americans affording homes.”

The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) rapid response director, Kendall Witmer, said in a statement that “Donald Trump continues to mock what everyday Americans are experiencing. Time and again, Trump has had the chance to lower costs for working families, but without fail, he has chosen to prioritize his own interests and those of his wealthy friends.”

“As Americans struggle to put a roof over their heads and afford basic necessities,” Witmer added, “Trump continues to double down on his disastrous policies and self-serving agenda—and Americans are fed up.”

Trump’s comments came just over four months away from the November midterm elections, in which Democrats aim to regain control of both chambers of Congress.

In the lead-up to the midterms, Trump has ramped up pressure on Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would force Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and photo identification at the ballot box. Critics have warned that the former requirement could disenfranchise millions of Americans who may not have access to documents such as a birth certificate or passport with their current name.

Johnson said Sunday on Fox News that “we’re going to try to pass it again, and this time we’re going to try to put it on a reconciliation bill,” which “prevents the necessity of 60 votes in the Senate.”

The speaker on Monday also sent a message to his GOP colleagues who might block unrelated legislation in a bid to pressure senators to pass the SAVE America Act: “Whomever is thinking that stopping the work of House Republicans to make Americans safer right now and to bring down the cost of living—impeding that progress just because stubborn Senate Democrats won’t do the job of the American people is self-defeating. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Punchbowl reported on Monday that GOP leadership has also expressed interest in creating a $4 billion grant program that would incentivize states to enact parts of the bill. Some Republican state lawmakers have already pursued copycat legislation.

As elected Republicans attack voting rights at the national level, the US Supreme Court—whose right-wing supermajority has often rubber-stamped Trump’s agenda—delivered a surprise victory for voting rights on Monday: Two conservatives joined the three liberal justices in rejecting the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) challenge to states counting mailed ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received afterward.

“The DNC is proud to have stood with the state of Mississippi to defeat the RNC’s latest attack on Americans’ voting rights,” said the Democrats’ chair, Ken Martin. “Trump and Republicans are attacking our elections and trying to rig the system in their favor because they know the American people are ready to reject their chaos and corruption this November.”

During World War 2 in 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement made the U.S. dollar the world's reserve currency. And 82 years later, it still enjoys that status. But liberal economist Paul Krugman, in a late June Substack column, lays out some problems the U.S. dollar is facing during Donald Trump's second presidency.

"We are now four months into a war that was supposed to last a couple of weeks," Krugman argues. "There is no end in sight as strikes and counterstrikes continue despite Trump's farcical proclamations of American victory and Iranian surrender. Sixteen months into his presidency, Trump has squandered all of America's credibility with the rest of the world. So let me add one more item to the tally of destruction: the supremacy of the dollar, the pre-eminent tool in America's toolbox of global financial power, has been seriously damaged by the rise of alternative payment systems — a rise that was greatly hastened by the Iran war."

Krugman explains exactly what he means when he speaks of the U.S. dollar's "supremacy" being "seriously damaged." And he cites Trump's "stunning failure" with the Iran war as a key factor.

"Let me be clear that I don’t mean that the dollar is close to losing its dominant role in global business," Krugman writes. "And I am definitely not claiming that the dollar's weakened status will make the United States substantially poorer. Instead, what I am talking about is the loss of a non-military tool of coercion — the power to punish that the dominant role of the dollar in international financial transactions gave the United States. That power is now greatly diminished because Trump's Iran war demonstrated to other nations that they can bypass the dollar-centered world payments system — largely thanks to China."

Krugman notes that the U.S. dollar's "importance in international financial transactions far outweighs the U.S. economy's global importance."

"America is by no means a dominant force in world trade or world GDP," Krugman observes. "There are, in fact, three roughly comparable-sized economic superpowers in today’s world: China, the United States, and the European Union. However, the U.S. dollar does play a dominant role in world finance…. Why does everyone use dollars? Because so many other people and businesses use dollars, which makes markets in dollars far more liquid and efficient than markets in any other currency…. What dollar dominance does do…. is give America a powerful economic weapon against other nations."

Krugman continues, "Transactions that involve dollar payments normally require transferring money between U.S. banks — which means that they are visible to and can be blocked by U.S. authorities…. The Iran debacle has demonstrated that using dollars and retaining access to the U.S. banking system, while convenient, aren't necessary. Iran's ability to withstand American pressure has demonstrated that U.S. sanctions are a lot less effective than in the past given that rogue actors can use the yuan and CIPS as a work-around. And as the Gulf States' actions show, even countries that are U.S. allies are now considering signing onto the Chinese payment system."

As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, the global data we collect and analyze shows that the country is failing to “promote the general Welfare,” as the Constitution’s framers promised a little more than a decade later.

MAGA Republicans often hail Florida as a symbol of their movement's success, praising Ron DeSantis' two terms as governor and arguing that President Donald Trump chose wisely when he made Mar-a-Lago his primary residence. The Sunshine State is associated with a who's-who of MAGA, including Trump, DeSantis, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, ex-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, among many others.

But Florida, according to Bloomberg, is now facing higher-than-average unemployment.

"While the U.S. unemployment rate has been little changed over the past year, joblessness in Florida has surged," according to Bloomberg News reporter Augusta Saraiva. "It's climbed more than a percentage point to 4.8 percent — faster than nearly any other state — and is now among the highest nationwide. Job growth has slowed to a crawl amid a pullback in key industries like real estate, retail and tourism, all of which are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand."

Saraiva continues, "That marks a reversal from Florida's run as a magnet for workers and retirees coming out of the pandemic, when its economy was one of the hottest in the U.S. It also raises questions about the viability of the state's growth model as a rising cost of living starts to send would-be Floridians elsewhere."

Interviewees offered some reasons why unemployment is rising in Florida.

Howard Frank, a public policy expert at Florida International University, told Bloomberg News, "We're highly dependent on tourism and retail. If people aren't going out to eat, if people aren't going to Disney, if people are cutting back on discretionary expenses, well, Florida will be hit quite hard."

Jesse Wheeler, who studies macroeconomics at Revelio Labs, told Bloomberg News,

"By the way its economy is set up, Florida just tends to be more cyclical than the U.S. economy as a whole. It shares the trends of the U.S., but it tends to exacerbate them."

Saraiva notes that Florida's "lack of job opportunities" is "likely to become front-and-center ahead of this year's midterm elections."

"The tide has turned amid worsening affordability problems, a surge in immigration enforcement and a slowdown in tourism," the Bloomberg News journalist reports. "Net domestic migration to Florida totaled just 22,517 people in the year through July 1, 2025, according to Census Bureau figures — less than a tenth of the peak recorded in 2022. And Visit Florida, the state's official tourism bureau, says the number of visitors fell 1 percent in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier."

“Up and Up” writer Rachel Janfaza covers younger voter concerns and Gen Z issues — and Gen Z is definitely having issues with President Donald Trump’s economy this summer.

“It’s no secret that the job market for Gen Z is bleak,” wrote Janfaza. “That’s true for recent high school and college grads looking for entry-level work. But it’s also increasingly the case for students looking for summer opportunities to make some cash and stack their pre-professional resume.”

Janfaza pointed out that summer hiring for teens is expected to fall (from 801,000 teen jobs gained last summer to 790,000 this summer, according to reports after last year’s eight decade low.

“That would be the worst summer hiring total for teens since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track in 1948,” said Janfaza, which mixes horribly with the rise in young people looking for extra work in the gig economy by taking shifts on apps like Uber.

When asking young adults in the Gen Z community about their summer plans in Trump’s awful job market, they had little good to say about the prospects of retail, waitressing, and corporate internships.

“I do not have a job this summer,” said a 20-year-old student from Pennsylvania, who also said the most recent situation she felt least confident was when is “applying for jobs that I may not have the proper experience for and feeling like I am behind in life.”

“No,” said an 18-year-old in Arizona, who also said his biggest financial pinch is tuition.

“I don’t have a job this summer,” said a 19-year-old student in Miami, Florida, who also complained that gas and food prices are a financial concern.

“The through line was that those without a job weren’t in that situation from a lack of trying. But the reality of a summer without work is affecting their finances and their own sense of self-confidence,” wrote Jafanza, who added that beyond the obvious financial strain and emotional toll, the job market is increasingly becoming a political issue for potential young voters.

“Asked the biggest political issue leading up to the midterms, the 20-year-old from Pennsylvania who’s waitressing at two separate restaurants said: “The cost of everything, people can’t find jobs, can’t afford housing, and can’t afford to put food on the table.”

“Summer jobs are a right of passage — one that boosts confidence, cultivates independence, and builds resiliency,” said Janfaza. “They also, of course, help students save up for college or pay their way through it. In arming fewer young adults with these opportunities, we’re not only bleeding that professional experience, but cultivating frustration from members of a generation desperately searching for it.”

In addition to turning on the Trump administration over the president’s unilateral war in Iran, Genz Z is whacking the administration over inflation and the increasingly shrinking and unfriendly job market.

Joshua Byers, 26, told the Post: "I feel betrayed. I don't know why we are fighting (in Iran) if we have never been attacked.”

On Wednesday, June 17, U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian remotely signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the U.S./Iran war — an agreement that, many critics argue, gives Iran way too much power. Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his Substack column, describes the deal as a "surrender" on Trump's part that is unlikely to save Republicans from a blue wave in the 2026 midterms.

"There is no mystery about Trump's surrender: He's desperate to end the war because he is paying a steep political price for high gasoline prices, and the midterms are only four and one-half months away," Krugman argues. "But can Trump rehabilitate his standing with American voters by throwing in the towel? Probably not, for both economic and political reasons. I would argue that there are four points of slippage between Trump's political goals and what is likely to happen."

Those "points of slippage," according to Krugman, are: (1) "the state of" the Strait of Hormuz, (2) "rockets and feathers," (3) "prices beyond gasoline," and (4) "the cost of broken promises."

With "rockets and feathers," Krugman is referring to a "well-documented pattern" in which "the price of gasoline responds to changes in the price of crude oil."

"When there is a global shock that causes the price of crude oil to soar," the former New York Times columnist explains, "gasoline prices rise like a rocket. But when the crisis is over and crude prices plunge, the price of gas declines only gradually ­— it drifts down like feathers. Will that happen this time? Gasoline and, to a lesser extent, diesel, have fallen considerably in price from their peak…. Crude oil prices are $10-$15 a barrel higher than they were pre-war, which would point to gasoline prices $0.25-$0.37 higher per gallon. Yet gasoline is currently almost $1 a gallon higher than it was before the war. So, if the 'rockets and feathers' pattern continues to apply, gasoline prices will be elevated for months to come, thwarting Trumpist hopes of quick political relief from capitulating to Iran."

Krugman emphasizes that "soaring prices" go way beyond the cost of gas itself, affecting the cost of a variety of goods and products. And voters, according to the economist, will be thinking about those prices as the 2026 midterms draw closer.

"I would add that it may be especially hard for the Trumpists to make the case that things have turned around when they were never willing to admit that anything was wrong in the first place, insisting, even as prices soared, that we were living in a 'golden age,'" Krugman writes. "So, will Trump's surrender to Iran rescue him and his party from a blue wave in November? It's very unlikely. I suggest they find themselves some lifejackets."

President Donald Trump remains fixated on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, angrily berating "stupid" GOP senators for not passing the voting bill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and other Republican lawmakers are saying that the votes to pass it simply aren't there — and that Trump should be focusing on the economy instead. But conservative David M. Drucker, in a Bloomberg News column, stresses that Republicans who hope Trump will change course and "pivot" to the economy are dreaming.

"For Republicans in Congress who've been clinging to hope that President Donald Trump might finally focus on the economy ahead of the midterm elections," Drucker argues, "their time might be better spent searching for proof that the tooth fairy is real. The same day Trump reaffirmed support for an agreement with Iran to end the war, he turned his attention to Capitol Hill. Did he demand or introduce legislation addressing voters' No. 1 priority, what they believe is an unacceptably high cost of living? No. Rather, the president revived his push to strongarm how the 50 states and Washington, DC administer elections — an issue that barely registers on voters' radar, outside of MAGA social media circles."

Trump, according to Drucker, is so obsessed with the SAVE America Act that he is "holding hostage renewal of crucial government spying tools, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" — much to the frustration of GOP senators.

"Of course, the president could be focused on more than one issue at a time; that goes with the job," Drucker writes. "But he still refuses to acknowledge that any aspect of the economy is underperforming on matters related to affordability or otherwise."

In a June 21 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "Our Country is doing GREAT. Record Jobs Numbers and Stock Market. BEST ECONOMY EVER! We are WINNING on all fronts. WINNING LIKE NEVER BEFORE." And he recently told reporters, "The word 'affordability' is a fake word, made up by the Democrats."

Such messaging, Drucker notes, is frustrating GOP lawmakers and is "just not reality."

"Inflation has spiked since Trump launched the Iran war on February 28, with the Consumer Price Index climbing 0.5 percent from April to May — and a whopping 4.2 percent since the same period in 2025, according to the Labor Department," Drucker observes. "That was the highest rate of inflation since the 4.9 percent during the year that ended April 2023, as Bloomberg reported this month. Theoretically, there's still time for Trump to address the economy to improve his party's prospects in the midterms, still more than five months away…. If Trump's ratings go up, so, too will the GOP's chances of preserving its roughly 10-seat House majority and defending its three-seat Senate advantage. Absent that, Democrats are poised to have quite a bit to celebrate on the evening of November 3."

President Donald Trump has touted his Trump Accounts as a great investment vehicle to help young people build up savings, but one financial reporter argues that they are not living up to his promise.

“My 1-year-old son qualifies for a Trump Account, and I’ve opened it to claim the $1,000 government deposit,” reported The Wall Street Journal's Adam Michel on Monday. “But I won’t be putting any of my personal after-tax wages in it, and neither should most parents. That is a shame. Trump Accounts are a good idea, poorly executed. A simple reform could make them worthwhile.”

Michel argued that Trump Accounts are flawed because they tax the money going into them and tax the money coming out of them.

“The accounts accept after-tax dollars from parents and other authorized individuals, but when the child turns 18, they convert to traditional IRAs for retirement,” Michel wrote. “That means the gains (along with the original $1,000) are taxed at withdrawal as ordinary income rather than at the lower capital-gains tax rate, which would have applied if the investment weren’t in a Trump Account. You pay taxes on the front end and the high rate on the back end. No deduction, no capital-gains rate, no flexibility.”

Describing a 529 as a better investment in terms of education savings than Trump Accounts, Michel concluded that Trump could easily fix this, and if he does not the Trump Accounts will amount to little more than a one-time gift to their recipients.

“The fix is easy: Lawmakers should pick a lane,” Michel said. “Make contributions tax-free and then tax the withdrawals. That is how a traditional IRA works. Alternatively, keep the after-tax contributions and make the withdrawals tax-free, like a Roth. Either path would give parents an incentive to add their own money. While they are at it, lawmakers should drop the lock-up rules and penalties, and instead let the savings roll into a more flexible account at age 18.”

Michel concluded that without those changes, "the $1,000 handout is where it stops. The rest I’ll save elsewhere."

In May, a financial journalist for TheStreet pointed out a different problem with Trump Accounts.

“The federal government is less than two months away from opening Trump Accounts for private contributions on July 4, 2026, and a debate over what should go in them has begun,” TheStreet's Damilola Esebame wrote at the time. “White House and Treasury officials have discussed allowing wealthy donors to contribute shares of stock directly into the children's savings accounts, a shift that could reshape the program.”

Yet as Esebame observed, Trump Accounts upon being launched only accepted cash and invested it into low-cost S&P 500 index funds that cap the expense ratios at 0.1 percent. Even at the time, the White House and Department of Treasury began discussing altering the rules about how the accounts were managed so that stock shares could go directly into children’s savings accounts.

“If the rules change, millions of children already enrolled may end up with a completely different type of account,” Esebame said. “What you need to understand is how this fight over stock donations could affect the money designated for your child.”