Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The White House won’t care for these comments, but Powell had a point: “The Federal Reserve would have cut interest rates by now if President Donald Trump’s tariffs weren’t so substantial, central bank chief Jerome Powell said Tuesday.”
* The administration’s latest court defeat: “A federal judge has ruled that recent mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt plans to downsize and reorganize the nation’s health workforce.”
* A case worth watching: “Sixteen states are suing the Trump administration for ‘unconstitutionally’ ending more than $1 billion in mental-health-related grants created to help after mass school shootings, the states’ attorneys general said Tuesday.”
* The deteriorating dollar: “The dollar is off to its worst start to a year in more than half a century. The United States’ currency has weakened more than 10 percent over the past six months when compared with a basket of currencies from the country’s major trading partners. The last time the dollar weakened so much at the start of the year was 1973, after the United States had made a seismic shift that had ended the linking of the dollar to the price of gold.”
* A gut-wrenching figure: “More than 14 million people could die over the next five years because of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to an analysis published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet.” * Acting suspiciously tends to heighten suspicions: “The Department of Homeland Security has formally instituted a new requirement that members of Congress and their staff provide a week of notice before they visit immigration detention facilities, a policy that is at odds with a federal law that allows lawmakers to make unannounced oversight trips.” * I guess they’re fighting again? “President Donald Trump threatened to have the Department of Government Efficiency re-examine government support for Elon Musk’s businesses, saying in a Truth Social post shortly after midnight that there was ‘big money to be saved.’” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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