The Calls Did Not Work. The Fed Hiked, 12 to 0.
At 2 p.m. Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point, to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent. It is the first increase since July 2023. The vote was unanimous, 12 to 0, and the twelve included Kevin Warsh, the chairman President...
Trump Called His Fed Chair All Summer. At 2 P.M., We Learn If It Worked.
At 2 p.m. Eastern this afternoon, the Federal Reserve announces whether it is raising interest rates for the first time since July 2023. Futures markets put the odds of a quarter point hike at 93 percent, which would lift the benchmark rate to a range of 3.75 to 4...
The EPA Freed 1.5 Billion Tons of Carbon, Then Tried to Burn the Key
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency did two things at once, and the second is the one to watch. First, it finalized the repeal of the 2024 carbon pollution standards for power plants, the rules covering the coal and gas fleet responsible for more than 1.5...
Trump Asked the Supreme Court Three Times. Monday Night, It Said No.
Mail voting in the 2026 election will work the way it always has. That is the plain meaning of a brief, unsigned order the Supreme Court issued Monday night, rejecting the administration's request to switch on the Postal Service's mail ballot rule while its appeal...
They Halved the Disaster Agency, Deleted the Messages, and Lost in Court
In the middle of hurricane season, a federal judge has ruled that the administration broke the law when it ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cut its workforce roughly in half. The decision, issued late Friday by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in...
The Election Ends November 3. The Cliff Comes in December.
Everyone's calendar says the big date is Tuesday, November 3. This newsletter would like to direct your attention seven weeks past it, because the largest concentration of consequential deadlines in this political year sits not on Election Day but in the five weeks...
They Ran 67 Million Voters Through a Benefits Database. Now They Want It Back On.
While the mail ballot fight holds the spotlight, a second emergency application about your right to vote is sitting at the Supreme Court, and it may be the more consequential one. On Tuesday, September 8, the Justice Department asked the justices to lift a lower court...
Missouri Folds: The Gerrymander Is Dead, and the Contempt Finding Stands
The Missouri map war ended Thursday, in the right order and just barely. In the morning, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the federal court order that had briefly revived the state's Trump-backed congressional gerrymander, effectively throwing the map out for November....
Two Courts, Two Maps, and a Secretary of State Summoned This Morning
Missouri does not currently know what its congressional districts are. That is not a rhetorical flourish; it is the literal legal situation 54 days before the election, produced by one of the strangest afternoons in modern election law. On Tuesday at about 4:30 p.m.,...
The Counter Tariffs Are Live. Here Is Who Pays.
At one minute past midnight on Tuesday, Canada's retaliation went into effect: tariffs of 15 to 50 percent on 27.6 billion Canadian dollars' worth of American goods, covering hundreds of product lines from milk and cheese to steel, furniture, appliances, farm...
Blocked Through November. Appealed by Sunday.
The mail voting fight we have tracked for three months reached its most decisive ruling on Friday evening, and its most telling response by Sunday. In a 49 page decision, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Postal Service's...
Labor Day, By the Numbers: What a Year Did to the American Worker
Labor Day is the one holiday with a thesis: that the people who do the work deserve a share of what the work produces. So today, instead of speeches, this newsletter offers a ledger. Every number below is from federal data or named researchers, most of it published in...
The Medicaid Letters Are in the Mail. The First 200 People Are Already Gone.
Sometime this month, roughly 20 million Americans will get a letter about their health insurance. Federal law requires it: states must warn Medicaid expansion enrollees, no later than September, that starting January 1, 2027 they will have to document 80 hours a month...
A Genuinely Good Jobs Report. Here Is What It Buys You: A Rate Hike.
The August jobs report, released Friday morning, was better than almost anyone predicted. Employers added 162,000 jobs, roughly triple the consensus forecast of about 56,000. July, which the government initially reported as a loss of 23,000 jobs, was revised to a gain...
They Skipped a Court. The First Ballots Move at Noon.
On Thursday morning, a Justice Department lawyer stood in a Boston courtroom and could not tell a federal judge whether the Postal Service's system for screening mail ballots is ready to run. On Thursday afternoon, before that judge could rule and before the appeals...
A USPS Whistleblower Says the Ballot-Screening System Was Built in Weeks and Could Reject Ballots by the Batch. The Hearing Is Today.
Hours before a federal judge decides whether the Postal Service's mail ballot rule stays blocked through November, a whistleblower inside the agency has told Congress and reporters what the rule looks like from the inside — and the description, in the words of the...
Trump Says the Economy Could Grow 20 Percent. It Grew 1.5. Even the Fed Chair He Handpicked May Raise Rates Anyway.
Sixty-two days before an election his own advisers privately admit is slipping away, President Trump stood in the Oval Office and described an American economy that does not exist. U.S. growth, he said, could hit "14, 15, 16, 20 percent." For the record: the economy...
The Judge Refused to Pause Her Own Order. The Hearing That Decides November’s Mail Rules Is Tomorrow — and the First Ballots Move Thursday.
The mail voting fight arrives at its decisive week fully loaded. On Monday, the federal judge whose restraining order blocks the Postal Service's mail ballot rule denied the administration's request to pause that order pending appeal — ruling that a temporary...
Democrats Are Prewriting the Legal Briefs for November. Their Stated Lesson From January 6: Don’t Fail to Imagine It.
Congressional Democrats have formed a task force to prepare for the possibility that President Trump attempts to undermine November's elections — by claiming fraud, by interfering in the voting process, or by contesting results — NPR reported Friday. The preparation...
A Judge Struck Down the 75-Country Visa Ban. The Administration’s Answer: Freeze Every Immigrant Visa Interview on Earth.
Last week, a federal judge struck down the State Department's freeze on immigrant visas from 75 countries, ruling the policy unlawful. The administration's response was not to narrow the policy. It was to expand it to everyone. On Tuesday, the State Department...
The Economy Is Slowing Ten Weeks Before the Election. Republicans Are Debating Rebate Checks — Funded by Tariff Revenue the Supreme Court Already Struck Down.
The economic backdrop to the midterms turned visibly worse this month. Growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the second quarter, down from 2.1 percent in the first. The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence fell in August. Inflation, per The Hill's reporting on...
The Mail Voting Rule Was Enforceable for About One Day. A New Court Order Stopped the Postal Service Again — With Ballots Moving in a Week.
Late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing core parts of its newly finalized mail ballot rule — one day after she had vacated her own nationwide injunction and...
Canada Published Its List: 700 American Products, Tariffs Up to 50 Percent, Starting September 8. No New Talks Are Planned.
The U.S.-Canada trade war now has two armed sides and no negotiation. On Tuesday, Canada published its retaliation for the 50 percent U.S. tariffs that took effect August 22: duties of 15, 25, and 50 percent on more than 700 American products — nearly C$27.6 billion,...
Darline Graham Wins the Runoff, 52.5 to 47.5. South Carolina Republicans Ratified the Appointment — and Handed Trump’s Endorsement a Needed Win.
Senator Darline Graham won South Carolina's special Republican runoff on Tuesday, August 25, defeating Congressman Ralph Norman 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent — 193,396 votes to 175,327 — to become the Republican nominee for the Senate seat she was appointed to after...
The Supreme Court Did Not Say the Mail Voting Order Is Legal. It Said the States Cannot Ask. Ballots Start Going Out September 4.
The Supreme Court on Monday opened a path for the Trump administration to begin implementing the president's executive order restricting mail voting — without deciding whether the order is lawful. The Court's conservative majority ruled that the 23 Democratic-led...
The U.S. and Canada Were Hours From a Trade Deal. Now 50 Percent Tariffs Are in Effect, and Canada’s Answer Arrives September 8.
Fifty percent U.S. tariffs on almost $20 billion in Canadian goods took effect at midnight Friday, August 22, after trade talks that both governments had described as nearly complete collapsed in their final hours. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who days earlier had been...
Trump Endorsed Darline Graham for Her Brother’s Senate Seat. On Tuesday, South Carolina Republicans Decide Whether That Settles It.
South Carolina Republicans vote Tuesday, August 25, in the runoff that will almost certainly decide who holds Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. Senator Darline Graham — appointed to the seat after her brother's death on July 11, encouraged to run by President Trump, and...
Health Insurance Premiums Jumped 58 Percent This Year. Insurers Have Now Filed for Another 15 Percent — and the New Rates Arrive Two Days Before the Election.
Insurers selling coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces have proposed a median premium increase of 15 percent for 2027, according to KFF's analysis of rate filings from 276 insurers across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is the second-highest...
RFK Jr.’s Health Department Canceled Nearly 200 Research Grants Without Explaining Why. Cory Booker and 29 Senators Are Demanding Them Back.
On July 15, roughly 150 research teams across nearly 30 states received notices from the Department of Health and Human Services that their federal grants were canceled, effective immediately. The grants came from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the...
Missouri Voters Gathered Signatures to Put Their New Map to a Vote. A Judge Ruled They Don’t Get One. The Redistricting Wave Is Now Locked In.
A Missouri judge ruled Wednesday that the state's new Republican-drawn congressional map will be used in November — and that the citizens who gathered signatures to overturn it by referendum do not get to vote on it. The ruling removes one of the last obstacles to the...