Economy

Eight months into his second presidency, Donald Trump continues to be adored by his hardcore MAGA base. But when polls take into account voters on the whole — Republicans, Democrats, independents, and third party members combined — Trump is struggling.

Recent polls show Trump's approval rating at 39 percent (the Associated Press), 40 percent (Gallup), 41 percent (Reuters) or 38 percent (Quinnipiac).

The New Republic's Greg Sargent discussed Trump's approval numbers with Lakshya Jain (co-founder of the data firm Split Ticket) in an episode of the "Daily Blast" podcast posted on September 29. And Jain laid out some reasons why these polls are "horrible" for Trump at this point in his second presidency.

"This is the second term, but it's still the period in time at which the president's approval ratings are generally at their highest," Jain told Sargent. "You know, (former President) Joe Biden ended his tenure extremely poorly in the court of public opinion, but it's really important to remember that Biden was not this unpopular at this point in time in his first year. Trump is at levels that have only really been approached by Trump 1.0. That's it. That's the only historical comparable. But Greg, what's interesting to me, if I may, is that the disapproval this time is of a completely different nature — and I would argue a far more damaging nature than the first time around, because the first time around, it was centered around his abuse of the office, or so to say, people thinking he was unfit to lead the country. But people liked the economy."

Jain continued, "People really liked the economy under Trump. His economic numbers were consistently positive or break even the first time around. This time, what’s happening is people really hate Trump not for the abuse of office. They hate him for the economy."

The Split Ticker co-founder noted that inflation proved to be a major liability for former President Joe Biden — and now, the economy is hurting Trump's poll numbers.

"This time around," Jain told Sargent, "they think he's been obsessed with things like the woke culture wars and about persecuting his political opponents, and not focused enough on issues that they care about. You know, when people say like, 'the American people don't care about all these things that elites think they do' — I mean, that goes both ways, right?.... It is also true that Trump trying to focus all of his efforts on, you know, prosecuting his political opponents and going after them is also seen poorly because people don't care about that. They're like, 'Why are you focused on that? My bills are so high.'"

When Sargent noted that "the Democratic Party is polling as badly as it has in a very long time," Jain responded, "Democrats are unpopular because Democratic voters dislike the Democratic Party for not doing enough to stand up to Trump. But people have taken that to mean that the Republican party enjoys an edge with independents and with swing voters. And that is just not true."

Jain continued, "Look, whether a Democrat voter disagrees with the Democratic Party does not change the reality that, you know, among independents where the battle is generally won and lost, Democrats actually lead the Republicans. And that's a very big thing no one talks about."

Listen to the full New Republic podcast at this link or read the transcript here.

Economists on both the left and the right are sounding the alarm about the steep new tariffs that President Donald Trump is imposing on many of the United States' trading partners. Liberals economists Paul Krugman and Robert Reich are warning that consumers and businesses can expect to pay a lot more for a variety of imported goods, from electronics to food to construction materials. And that same warning is coming from right-wing economists who often quote the late Milton Friedman.

In an article published on September 29, New York Times business reporter Sydney Ember details the problems tariffs are causing for small businesses.

"While many larger companies have integrated soaring levies that kicked in last month into their businesses without raising prices for customers," Ember reports, "a growing number of smaller businesses are confronting a make-or-break moment. Many small businesses lacked the funds or storage capacity to stockpile goods before Mr. Trump’s tariffs kicked in. They have been reluctant to lift prices because they do not want to drive away customers. That has made some particularly vulnerable to the recent price shocks, leaving them with deteriorating profit margins and no easy choices. Because small businesses are crucial drivers of employment and growth, their health could have far-reaching implications in an uncertain economy."

According to Brandon Mills, chief executive of the Las Vegas-based Total Promotion Company — which specializes in promotional products and custom apparel — tariffs are forcing the small, Las Vegas-based business to make difficult decisions.

Mills told the Times, "It's hard to breathe…. It's difficult to have to survive because of poor policy."

According to Ember, Mills has already "laid off one of the company's seven workers" — and he "said the swelling cost of tariffs has so eroded his margins on some orders that he often wonders if he would have been better off not fulfilling them."

The worst for small businesses, according to Ember, may be yet to come.

"Most economic data does not yet reflect the strain from tariffs that small businesses say they are under, in part because many of the most onerous tariffs have only been in place since August," Ember explains. "A gauge of small-business optimism from the National Federation of Independent Business ticked up in August."

Read Sydney Ember's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

US president Donald Trump’s “meme coin” $TRUMP fell about 8% in five minutes in late September 2025, wiping millions off its value. Users can buy and sell this cryptocurrency, inspired by an internet meme, on the open market.

Buying solar can save you money and reduce your environmental footprint, but only if you know what to look for — and what to look out for. Door-to-door solar sales are a widely accepted form of lead generation in the solar industry, despite the lack of regulation. And while trade groups like the Solar Energy Industries Association recommend best practices, both for the well-being of consumers and the overall health of the industry, high-pressure sales tactics remain pervasive.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

If you are thinking about getting solar for your home, buying or leasing from a door-to-door salesperson of course isn’t the only way to go. (Solar panels can be purchased outright with loans, or accessed through leases or power purchase agreements — just be cautious, as leases can create complications with selling your home or updating your system.) In the event that a representative does come to your door, here’s a brief guide to help you navigate the process and avoid common pitfalls.

Red Flags

Licensing discrepancies: In states like California, which require a sales license, ensure the representative’s name matches the one on their license.

Misleading savings claims: Some reps may show outdated energy bills or suggest your solar system will cover gas bills. Solar covers electricity, not gas.

Incorrect buy-back rates: Utility buy-back rates have dropped significantly in many areas. Make sure the rep is using current numbers — this will require doing some research on your own.

System sizing mismatches: The system’s kilowatt capacity should match your household’s usage. Watch out for bait-and-switch scenarios where a smaller system is sold at a higher price.

Unresponsive company or representative: If you’ve just signed, call the installation company’s office and your representative to confirm they will answer and are responsive to customer questions.

Green Flags

Transparency on buy-back rates: The representative should be able to show current rates and explain how excess energy is compensated. Take the time to ask. (More on this below!)

Accurate contracts: The system size, battery capacity, and the representative’s name should all match what is discussed in the contract. Knowledgeable reps should be able to point to the exact pages in the contract that show the system size and battery capacity.

Hands-on experience: Reps who use a system themselves can show apps, troubleshoot problems, and answer real-world questions.

The system fits your needs: Representatives should ask detailed questions about your energy needs in relation to the kilowatt-hours used, so they can match the system size correctly.

Good referrals: Ask for referrals from past customers, but also note that a good rep offers customer referrals upfront.

Closing flexibility: While same-day signings aren’t inherently a red flag, you should feel comfortable walking away if something doesn’t add up.

Ask about overproduction (this is your silver bullet)

Before signing anything, ask the rep: “What happens if my system produces more electricity than I use?”

Then don’t just take their word for it. Verify it yourself with a quick online search while the representative is present. Check your utility’s current buy-back or net-metering policy online, or call them directly.

Rates vary by state and utility, and some representatives may exaggerate the amount you’ll receive in credit. If their answer doesn’t match reality, consider it a red flag and walk away. This single question can separate knowledgeable reps from those who are misleading or unprepared.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/door-to-door-solar-sales-beware-of-these-red-flags/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

WASHINGTON — Congress’ failure to pass a short-term government funding bill before midnight Tuesday will lead to the first shutdown in nearly seven years and give President Donald Trump broad authority to determine what federal operations keep running — which will have a huge impact on the government, its employees, states and Americans.

A funding lapse this year would have a considerably wider effect than the 35-day one that took place during Trump’s first term and could last longer, given heightened political tensions.

The last shutdown didn’t affect the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor and Veterans Affairs, since Congress had approved those agencies’ full-year funding bills.

Lawmakers had also enacted the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, exempting Capitol Hill from any repercussions.

That isn’t the case this time around since none of the dozen government spending bills have become law. That means nearly every corner of the federal government will feel the pain in some way if a compromise isn’t reached by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau offers you a quick guide to what could happen if Republicans and Democrats don’t broker an agreement in time.

How does the White House budget office determine what government operations are essential during a shutdown?

Generally, federal programs that include the preservation of life or property as well as those addressing national security continue during a shutdown, while all other activities are supposed to cease until a funding bill becomes law.

But the president holds expansive power to determine what activities within the executive branch are essential and which aren’t, making the effects of a shutdown hard to pinpoint unless the Trump administration shares that information publicly.

Presidential administrations have traditionally posted contingency plans on the White House budget office’s website, detailing how each agency would shut down — explaining which employees are exempt and need to keep working, and which are furloughed.

That appears to have changed this year. The web page that would normally host dozens of contingency plans remained blank until late September, when the White House budget office posted that a 940-page document released in August calls for the plans to be “hosted solely on each agency’s website.”

Only a few departments had plans from this year posted on their websites as of Friday afternoon.

The White House budget office expects agencies to develop Reduction in Force plans as part of their shutdown preparation, signaling a prolonged funding lapse will include mass firings and layoffs.

While the two-page memo doesn’t detail which agencies would be most affected, it says layoffs will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

Trump will be paid during a shutdown since Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution prevents the president’s salary from being increased or decreased during the current term.

No one else in the executive branch — including Cabinet secretaries, more than 2 million civilian employees and over 1 million active duty military personnel — will receive their paycheck until after the shutdown ends.

Are federal courts exempt from a shutdown since they’re a separate branch of government?

The Supreme Court will continue to conduct normal operations in the event of a shutdown, according to its Public Information Office.

The office said the court “will rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

As for any impact on lower federal courts, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the federal judiciary was still assessing the fiscal 2026 outlook and had no comment.

The office serves as the central support arm of the federal judiciary.

During the last government shutdown from late 2018 into early 2019, federal courts remained open using court fee balances and “no-year” funds, which are available for an indefinite period.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said that if those funds run out, they would operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which “allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers.”

Supreme Court justices and appointed federal judges continue to get paid during a government shutdown, as Article III of the Constitution says the judges’ compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term.

What happens to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

The three programs exist largely outside of the annual appropriations process, since lawmakers categorized them as “mandatory spending.”

This means Social Security checks as well as reimbursements to health care providers for Medicare and Medicaid services should continue as normal.

One possible hitch is the salaries for people who run those programs are covered by annual appropriations bills, so there could be some staffing problems for the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, depending on their contingency plans.

The first Trump administration’s shutdown guidance for the Social Security Administration showed 54,000 of 63,000 employees at that agency would have kept working. The CMS plan from 2020 shows that it intended to keep about 50% of its employees working in the event of a shutdown. Neither had a current plan as of Friday.

Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be able to keep providing health care and benefits?

Veterans can expect health care to continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics in the event of a shutdown. Vets would also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs contingency planning for a funding lapse that is currently published on the department’s website. It’s unclear if the plan will be the one the Trump administration puts into action.

But a shutdown would affect other VA services. For example, the GI Bill hotline would close, and all in-person and virtual career counseling and transition assistance services would be unavailable.

Additionally, all regional VA benefits offices would shutter until Congress agreed to fund the government. The closures would include the Manila Regional Office in the Philippines that serves veterans in the Pacific region.

All department public outreach to veterans would also cease.

Will Hubbard, spokesperson for Veterans Education Success, said his advocacy organization is bracing for increased phone calls and emails from veterans who would normally call the GI Bill hotline.

“Questions are going to come up, veterans are going to be looking for answers, and they’re not going to be able to call like they would be able to normally, that’s going to be a big problem,” Hubbard said.

“Most of the benefits that people are going to be most concerned about will not be affected, but the ones that do get affected, for the people that that hits, I mean, it’s going to matter a lot to them. It’s going to change the direction of their planning, and potentially the direction of their life,” Hubbard said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for current VA shutdown guidance.

What happens to immigration enforcement and immigration courts?

As the Trump administration continues with its aggressive immigration tactics in cities with high immigrant populations, that enforcement is likely to continue during a government shutdown, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s March guidance for operating in a government shutdown.

Immigration-related fees will continue, such as for processing visas and applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

And DHS expects nearly all of its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees to be exempt — 17,500 out of 20,500 — and continue working without pay amid a government shutdown.

That means that ICE officers will continue to arrest, detain and remove from the country immigrants without legal status. DHS is currently concentrating immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago, known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Other employees within DHS, such as those in Transportation Security Administration, will also be retained during a government shutdown. There are about 58,000 TSA employees that would be exempt and continue to work without pay in airports across the country.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a contingency plan if there is a government shutdown.

Separately, a shutdown would also burden the overwhelmed immigration court system that is housed within the Department of Justice. It would lead to canceling or rescheduling court cases, when there is already a backlog of 3.4 million cases.

The only exceptions are immigration courts that are located within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention centers, but most cases would need to be rescheduled. The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 caused nearly 43,000 court cases to be canceled, according to a report by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.

And 28 states have an immigration court, requiring some immigrants to travel hundreds, or thousands, of miles for their appointment.

States that do not have an immigration court include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Will people be able to visit national parks or use public lands during a shutdown?

Probably, but that may be bad for parks’ long-term health.

During the 2018-2019 shutdown, the first Trump administration kept parks open, with skeleton staffs across the country struggling to maintain National Park Service facilities.

Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association, said in a Sept. 23 statement the last shutdown devastated areas of some parks.

“Americans watched helplessly as Joshua Trees were cut down, park buildings were vandalized, prehistoric petroglyphs were defaced, trash overflowed leading to wildlife impacts, and human waste piled up,” she wrote. “Visitor safety and irreplaceable natural and cultural resources were put at serious risk. We cannot allow this to happen again.”

The National Park Service’s latest contingency plan was published in March 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration. It calls for at least some closures during a shutdown, though the document says the response will differ from park to park.

Restricting access to parks is difficult due to their physical characteristics, the document said, adding that staffing would generally be maintained at a minimum to allow visitors. However, some areas that are regularly closed could be locked up for the duration of a shutdown.

But that contingency plan is likely to change before Tuesday, spokespeople for the Park Service and the Interior Department, which oversees NPS, said Sept. 25.

“The lapse in funding plans on our website are from 2024,” an email from the NPS office of public affairs said. “They are currently being reviewed and updated.”

Hunters and others seeking to use public lands maintained by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will likely be able to continue to do so, though they may have to make alternative plans if they’d planned to use facilities such as campgrounds.

Land Tawney, the co-chair of the advocacy group American Hunters and Anglers, said campgrounds, toilets and facilities that require staffing would be inaccessible, but most public lands would remain available.

“Those lands are kind of open and they’re just unmanned, I would say, and that’s not really gonna change much,” he said. “If you’re staying in a campground, you’ve got to figure something else out.”

As with national parks, access to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and other hunting and fishing sites will differ from site to site, Tawney said. The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t require permits for hunting on its lands, but access to some refuges is determined by a staff-run lottery drawing. If those drawings can’t be held, access to those sites will be limited, Tawney said.

What happens to the Internal Revenue Service?

How the Internal Revenue Service would operate during a government shutdown remains unclear.

When Congress teetered on letting funding run out in March, the nation’s revenue collection agency released a contingency plan to continue full operations during the height of tax filing season.

The IRS planned to use funds allocated in the 2022 budget reconciliation law to keep its roughly 95,000 employees processing returns and refunds, answering the phones, and pursuing audits.

Ultimately Congress agreed on a stopgap funding bill to avoid a March shutdown, but much has changed since then.

The new tax and spending law, signed by Trump on July 4 and often referred to as the “one big beautiful bill,” made major changes to the U.S. tax code.

Additionally, the agency, which processes roughly 180 million income tax returns per year, has lost about a quarter of its workforce since January. Top leadership has also turned over six times in 2025.

Rachel Snyderman, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said workforce reductions combined with a string of leadership changes could factor into how the agency would operate during a funding lapse.

“It’s really difficult to understand both what the status of the agency would be if the government were to shut down in less than a week, and also the impacts that a prolonged shutdown could have on taxpayer services and taxpayers at large,” said Snyderman, the think tank’s managing director of economic policy.

Do federal employees get back pay after a shutdown ends?

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown.

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown.

What role does Congress have during a shutdown?

The House and Senate must approve a stopgap spending bill or all dozen full-year appropriations bills to end a shutdown, a feat that requires the support of at least some Democrats to get past the upper chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., control their respective chambers’ calendars as well as the floor schedule, so they could keep holding votes on the stopgap bill Democrats have already rejected or try to pass individual bills to alleviate the impacts on certain agencies.

Neither Johnson nor Thune has yet to suggest bipartisan negotiations with Democratic leaders about funding the government. And while they are open to discussions about extending the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, they don’t want that decision connected to the funding debate.

Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that Republicans shouldn’t expect them to vote for legislation they had no say in drafting, especially with a health care cliff for millions of Americans coming at the end of the year.

Members of Congress will receive their paychecks regardless of how long a shutdown lasts, but the people who work for them would only receive their salaries after it ends.

Lawmakers must be paid under language in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution as well as the 27th Amendment, which bars members of Congress from changing their salaries during the current session.

Lawmakers have discretion to decide which of their staff members continue working during a shutdown and which are furloughed.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police, which is tasked with protecting members amid a sharp rise in political violence, said a shutdown “would not affect the security of the Capitol Complex.”

“Our officers, and the professional staff who perform or support emergency functions, would still report to work,” the spokesperson said. “Employees who are not required for emergency functions would be furloughed until funding is available.”

Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine intends to use funds from the state treasury to sustain services the state is at risk of losing in the event of a government shutdown, which he says is a common fiscal practice. But Conine says he’s concerned about Nevada being paid back by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Conine, a Democrat who is running for Attorney General, said he’s speaking out to “just let Nevada know it’s going to get weird before it gets unweird,” should Congress allow the government to shut down. “We’re doing what we can to understand what’s going on and preparing the state treasury to front these dollars.”

In the past, the state has provided funding to keep programs such as school lunches served during government shutdowns, and “historically, that has gotten cleared up when a continuing resolution gets passed,” Conine said during a phone interview Thursday.

Fronting state money poses “an opportunity cost issue,” Conine says, but allows vital services to continue, based in the past on the federal government’s pledge to reimburse the state.

“I don’t have a ton of comfort that they’re actually going to make good on the promise. We don’t know that they’re actually going to pay us back. The government has not released guidance on whether or not we will get paid back. If they did make a promise that they were going to pay us back, would they actually do it?”

If the feds don’t settle up, Conine says, “the state will be out tens —maybe more — millions of dollars, depending how long we front for them.”

The state receives, on average, $5 million to $30 million a day from the federal government for programs at risk of shutting down, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which provides assistance to families for essentials such as rent and childcare. Funding expires Sept. 30.

Conine says the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) generally sends information to federal agencies who communicate details to states, such as what employees are deemed essential, who can be furloughed, and how agencies are to handle payments.

This time, the only memo Conine said he’s “seen to date” from OMB suggested the federal government “fire a bunch of people if given the opportunity to do so. Use this shutdown in order to do dramatic reductions in force.” The OMB, he says, wants agencies to fire employees who are not currently funded through a budget, and those with jobs outside the administration’s priorities.

What that probably means, Conine says, “is you’re going to have a bunch of federal employees laid off. Even when the funding gets restored for some of these programs, there won’t be anyone on the other side to do the work.”

An existing example, he says, are student loan forgiveness programs, which “still exist but the people we need to make those programs work aren’t there anymore.”

Medicaid and Medicare will not be affected, Conine says, because they are already funded. However, “peripheral” programs, such as substance abuse programs, or services to sign up for Medicaid, could be curtailed.

Gov. Joe Lombardo is aware of Conine’s plans, and has voiced no objections or input on which programs to sustain, the treasurer says.

Back in 1987, two of the year's most famous commentaries on the U.S. economy were Donald Trump's book "The Art of the Deal" and the Oliver Stone film "Wall Street" (starring Michael Douglas as ruthless financier Gordon Gekko and Charlie Sheen as the protégé who eventually turns against him). Now, 38 years later, Trump is serving his second term as president, and the Gekko character's famous line "greed is good" is still quoted in critiques of the financial world.

Many economists, including Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, are warning that Trump's steep new tariffs are a recipe for severe inflation — and even stagflation, the painful mixture of inflation, high unemployment, and low growth that plagued the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But The New Republic's Timothy Noah, in an article published on September 25, lays out some reasons why Wall Street could crash the economy even without Trump's help.

"I've written a good bit about the economic wreckage wrought by President Donald Trump's economic policies — tariffs, manipulation of the Federal Reserve, a deficit-doubling tax cut for the rich — and how these might tank the economy," Noah explains. "Today, let's consider how, even if Trump weren't president, the finance sector could tank the economy all by its lonesome through shadow banking, most especially in the private equity industry. The term 'shadow banking' was coined in 2007 by a money manager named Paul McCulley to describe financial institutions that mimic what commercial banks do — money markets, mortgage companies, investment banks, hedge funds, and, yes, private equity — but are not regulated like banks."

Noah adds, "It's called shadow banking because these firms lack banks' transparency."

Noah, author of the 2013 book "The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It," notes that "much of the mischief in the 2008 financial crisis" was "caused by shadow banks" and warns that by 2013, "shadow banks' holdings represented nearly 80 percent of global gross domestic product."

"Today, almost everybody who doesn't work in private equity hates private equity for loading up companies with insurmountable debt and raking in so much money on fees that private equity firms don’t have to care all that much whether this or that company survives," Noah observes. "Another common criticism is that private equity puts the squeeze on certain enterprises — hospitals, retirement homes, even hospice providers — that were never intended to be profit-maximizers, weakening the quality of the vital social services they provide…. Of course, Trump doesn't help matters by urging us all to throw our money into private equity and other risky shadow banks. But barring strict regulation of this sector to a degree that seems politically impossible at the moment, these outlaw financial institutions are fully capable of crashing the economy on their own."

Timothy Noah's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

During the United States' 2024 presidential race, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris warned that if Donald Trump won the election and followed through on the steep tariffs he was proposing, Americans could look forward to much higher prices. Yet it was Trump who, according to polls, had the advantage on inflation, hammering Harris and then-President Joe Biden relentlessly on that issue. And it was enough of an advantage for Trump to narrowly win the popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent.

Many polls cited the economy as a top reason why a small majority of voters favored Trump over Harris in the end. But now, eight months into his second presidency, Associated Press (AP) polling is showing that what was once Trump's greatest advantage — the economy — is now a major weakness.

Associated Press (AP) reporter Linley Sanders, in an article published on September 24, explains, "Once strengthened by economic issues, Trump's approval is now relatively low on the economy — and he's leaning on his stronger issues of crime, border security and immigration. Concerns about the economy and immigration helped propel him to the White House, but polling over the past year shows that Americans' faith in the Republican president's handling of the economy is low — particularly among independents — and his approval on immigration has fallen slightly."

Sanders continues, "Now, Trump's strongest issues are border security and crime, but there were signs of potential weakness on crime in the most recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research."

According to AP/NORC, only 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy. And Trump fares slightly worse on his handling of health care, with 35 percent approval.

However, Trump enjoys 55 percent approval on border security, according to AP/NORC found that. And his overall approval, AP/NORC finds, is 39 percent.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that he is more concerned with labor market weakness than with inflation, which is why he backed the decision to lower interest rates last week, CNBC reports.

The rate cut came, CNBC explains, because the "supply and demand of workers is waning at the same time that near-term impact from tariffs has pushed inflation higher."

In remarks he made in a speech to business leaders in Providence, Rhode Island, the Fed Chair said that “Near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside — a challenging situation. Two-sided risks mean that there is no risk-free path.”

In layman's terms, CNBC says, Powell's description is consistent with "stagflation, in which growth slows and inflation is high." And though it's less severe than in the 70s and 80s, it has "presented a policy challenge for the Fed."

“The increased downside risks to employment have shifted the balance of risks to achieving our goals,” Powell said. “This policy stance, which I see as still modestly restrictive, leaves us well positioned to respond to potential economic developments.”

Powell also pointed to a "marked slowdown" in supply and demand in the labor market, saying "the downside risks to employment have risen."

Inflation, which still remains stubborn thanks to Trump's tariffs, still remain a concern, too, Powell says.

“Uncertainty around the path of inflation remains high,” he said. “We will carefully assess and manage the risk of higher and more persistent inflation. We will make sure that this one-time increase in prices does not become an ongoing inflation problem.”

President Donald Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 continues to draw scathing criticism from countless liberals and progressives, who argue that it harms the United States' social safety net considerably while giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

But in a listicle published on September 23, The New Republic's Timothy Noah lays out seven ways in which he believes Trump is shaking down the "oligarchs" he allied himself with.

"The oligarchs are complaining," Noah observes, "and for once, they have good reason to be upset…. And though they claim Trump's 'state-driven capitalism' — which I think is more accurately termed fascist corporatism — offends their sense of patriotism, what they really seem to resent is having routinely to pay Trump tribute, either by enriching him personally or by helping him try to plug the $3 trillion revenue hole he created with his idiot Big Beautiful Bill. This is government by shakedown, and they are the mark."

Noah goes on to cite the ways in which Trump is ripping off "oligarchs."

They are: (1) "H-1B visas are being put up for sale," (2) "The million-dollar gold card," (3) "Government-built factories," (4) "Trump's turnstile on the TikTok sale," (5) "The World Liberty Financial deal with the United Arab Emirates," (6) "Nice little invention you got there — too bad if something were to happen to it," and (7) "Don't you dare close that steel mill."

Noah writes, "To approximately the same degree that I applaud this outcome, the oligarchs hate it. In general, they struck a bad bargain by allowing Trump to replace the rule of law and the interaction of multiple branches of government with crude and not-always-legal Trump shakedowns. As business lobbyists never tire of saying, the business world prizes predictability above all else. Trump is anything but."

Timothy Noah's full listicle for The Bulwark is available at this link.

President Donald Trump's discredited claims tying acetaminophen to autism, advising pregnant women to avoid Tylenol because of it, sparked outrage and, on Tuesday morning, a big rebound for the pain reliever's maker, Kenvue, in pre-market trading, according to WFTV.

Immediately following Trump's remarks in which he struggled to pronounce acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol, telling pregnant women to "tough it out" and avoid the pain reliever that has been deemed safe by all major medical organizations, shares of Kenvue, Inc., based in Summit, New Jersey, dropped 7.5%.

The morning after, shares regained most of those losses early Tuesday in premarket trading, climbing 5% in premarket trading.

Kenvue, a spinoff of Johnson & Johnson, disputed any link between the drug and autism "this week and warned that if pregnant mothers don’t use Tylenol when in need, they could face a dangerous choice between suffering fevers or using riskier alternatives," according to WFTV.

Citi Investment Research analyst Filippo Falorni says that despite a possible risk "to Tylenol consumption given the negative headlines," he anticpated a "positive reaction for Kenvue’s stock at the opening bell on Tuesday given the lack of new scientific evidence."

President Donald Trump's so-called American oligarchs—the 1 percent CEO class who voted for him for tax cuts and deregulation—are complaining about getting nothing of the sort and, instead, being on the receiving end of "highly personalized government control," according to The New Republic.

In off-the-record conversations facilitated by The Yale School of Management's Jerry Sonnenfeld, chief executive officers say this isn't what they signed up for when they voted for Trump.

"They claim Trump’s “state-driven capitalism”—which I think is more accurately termed fascist corporatism—offends their sense of patriotism, what they really seem to resent is having routinely to pay Trump tribute, either by enriching him personally or by helping him try to plug the $3 trillion revenue hole he created with his idiot Big Beautiful Bill," writes TNR's Timothy Noah.

These CEOs, who have also privately expressed alarm over the erosion of democracy, want their money back, but it's looking like there are no refunds just yet—only tariffs.

About those tariffs, seventy-one percent of CEOs say they are killing their businesses, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, and three quarters of them agreed that tariffs are illegal. That same seventy-one percent also agreed that Trump has decimated the independence of the Federal Reserve.

"This is government by shakedown, and they are the mark. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch," Noah quips.

But what really burns CEOs most, according to an article Sonnefeld co-wrote with Yale colleague Stephen Henriques in Fortune, is Trump's dipping into the coffers of companies like Intel and Nvidia.

"The Trump administration’s drift toward a quasi-socialist statism, seizing ownership from private shareholders, dictating staffing, and selectively blocking moves into strategic markets based upon politics and kickbacks," they said.

Between Trump's hawking of H-1B Visas at a hefty $100,000 per and his multi-million dollar gold card offering a fast-track to U.S. permanent residency for wealthy foreigners and corporations, "it's only gotten worse" for the CEOs, Noah says.

And then there are the government-built factories, that are allegedly being paid for by the $500 billion investment the administration required Japan to make in July, or what Noah deems as "Trump's factory scheme."

"That’s all well and good, but if Trump were sincerely interested in creating manufacturing jobs he wouldn’t be blocking at every turn the even larger sum allocated under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create green technologies," Noah notes.

Trump's "turnstile on the TikTok sale," in which the alleged buyers could be a host of Trump supporters Larry Ellison, Jeff Yass, William Ford, and or Rupert Murdoch's family, in which the Trump administration expects to collect a fee that The Wall Street Journal says will be in the billions, and the World Liberty Financial deal with the United Arab Emirates in which the" money goes not to the Treasury but to Trump himself, making this the biggest bribery scandal since Teapot Dome," writes Noah, are two more catalysts to CEOs' ire.

The Commerce Department considering imposing an annual tax of up to five percent of a patent’s assessed value on top of the fees already charged for a patent, which can run up to $10,000, is not what Trump promised, either.

"This is different from a Trump proposal to reserve for the United States government some of the proceeds from university patents," Noah explains.

Lastly, the Nippon-U.S. Steel merger, approved by Trump on the condition that the government acquired, free of charge, a “golden share” allowing it to veto certain actions by the new company that affect workers, is yet another match to the oligarchs' fire.

"They struck a bad bargain by allowing Trump to replace the rule of law and the interaction of multiple branches of government with crude and not-always-legal Trump shakedown," Noah says.

"It may take Jerry Sonnenfeld’s CEOs some time to fathom precisely how foolish they were to get behind Trump, but I predict that before this is over, they’ll be asking America why on earth we ever put their guy in the White House."

Rising prices aside, the United States economy, reports CNN, is starting to resemble that of a third-world country as "American democracy is being undermined in real time."

Following the firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after President Donald Trump's baseless accusations of her manipulating the abysmal monthly jobs reports for “political purposes," attacks on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, tariff wars, and profiteering off private companies, Trump, CNN says, has undermined the economy.

"The stakes are massive for the US economy and the business world," they report.

Economists and CEOs are panicking as a result.

“I have never been this concerned about democracy in the United States,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow of governance studies at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, told CNN.

And while most CEOs remain silent so as not to ruffle the president's delicate feathers, self-described "CEO Whisperer" and Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnefeld says business leaders are "alarmed," to say the least.

“We’ve had a serious erosion of the foundations of democracy,” Sonnenfeld said.

Trump's plans to "subvert a functioning democracy" are poison to a thriving economy, experts say.

"“Democracy is just good for the economy. And autocracy is bad for the economy,” Williamson said. “Autocrats are just not good at managing economies. Policymaking tends to be erratic as democratic institutions decline.”

According to the Journal of Political Economy, a University of Chicago peer-reviewed journal, "the positive effects of democracy appear to be driven by greater investment in capital, schooling and health.”

The American Economic Review agrees, saying, "Populist leaders leave a long-lasting negative imprint on the economic and political pathways of countries."

Williamson says that not only are things dire, but that "we’re trending in the direction of the worst-case scenarios I’ve envisioned," pointing to the recent firing of ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel as another example of the undermining of democracy.

“The erosion of free expression in the media is really alarming,” Sonnenfeld added, who also said that Trump's revenue sharing with companies like Intel are also alarming.

“It’s as if MAGA has gone Maoist, if not Marxist,” Sonnenfeld said.

“That’s what you would expect to see in an unfree country. It’s straight from the autocratic playbook,” Williamson said.

The president refuses to acknowledge any of these determinations, saying in July, “We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world."

And though Disney's former CEO Mike Eisner came out loudly against Trump in the wake of Kimmelgate, Sonnefeld said it's time for others to come out of the boardrooms.

“We’re not seeing those forceful voices come together,” Sonnenfeld said. “But they need to. They are very much alarmed.”

As anticipated, US President Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies are harming American farmers’ ability to earn a living—and testing the loyalty of one of the president’s staunchest bases of support, according to reports published this week.

After Trump slapped 30% tariffs on Chinese imports in May, Beijing retaliated with measures including stopping all purchases of US soybeans. Before the trade war, a quarter of the soybeans—the nation’s number one export crop—produced in the United States were exported to China. Trump’s tariffs mean American soybean growers can’t compete with countries like Brazil, the world’s leading producer and exporter of the staple crop and itself the target of a 50% US tariff.

“We depend on the Chinese market. The reason we depend so much on this market is China consumes 61% of soybeans produced worldwide,” Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland, who is president of the American Soybean Association, told News Nation on Monday. “Right now, we have zero sold for this crop that’s starting to be harvested right now.”

Ragland continued:

It’s a five-alarm fire for our industry that 25% of our total sales is currently missing. And right now we are not competitive with Brazil due to the retaliatory tariffs that are in place. Our prices are about 20% higher, and that means that the Chinese are going elsewhere because they can find a better value.And the American soybean farmers and their families are suffering. They are 500,000 of us that produce soybeans, and we desperately need markets, and we need opportunity and a leveled playing field.

“There’s an artificial barrier that is built with these tariffs that makes us not be competitive,” Ragland added.

Tennessee Soybean Promotion Council executive director Stefan Maupin likened the tariffs to “death by a thousand cuts.”

“We’re in a significant and desperate situation where... none of the crops that farmers grow right now return a profit,” Maupin told the Tennessee Lookout Monday. “They don’t even break even.”

Alan Meadows, a fifth-generation soybean farmer in Lauderdale County, Tennessee, said that “this has been a really tough year for us.”

“It started off really good,” Meadows said. “We were in the field in late March, which is early for us. But then the wheels came off, so to speak, pretty quick.”

It started with devastating flooding in April, followed by a drier-than-usual summer. Higher supply costs due to inflation and Trump’s tariffs exacerbated the dire situation.

“So much of what has happened and what’s going on here is totally out of our control,” Meadows said. “We just want a free, fair, and open market where we can sell our goods... as competitively as anybody else around the world. And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.”

Farmers are desperate for help from the federal government. However, Congress has not passed a new Farm Bill—legislation authorizing funding for agriculture and food programs—since 2018, without which “we do not have a workable safety net program when things like this happen in our economy,” according to Maupin.

Maupin added that farmers “have done everything right, they’ve managed their finances well, they have put in a good crop... but they cannot change the weather, they cannot change the economy, they cannot change the markets.”

“The weather is in the control of a higher power,” he added, “and the economy and the markets are in control of Washington, DC.”

It’s not just soybean farmers who are hurting. Tim Maxwell, a 65-year-old Iowa grain and hog farmer, told the BBC Sunday that “our yields, crops, and weather are pretty good—but our [interest from] markets right now is on a low.”

Despite his troubles, Maxwell remains supportive of Trump, saying that he is “going to be patient,” adding, “I believe in our president.”

However, there is a limit to Maxwell’s patience with Trump.

“We’re giving him the chance to follow through with the tariffs, but there had better be results,” he said. “I think we need to be seeing something in 18 months or less. We understand risk—and it had better pay off.”

It’s also not just Trump’s economic policies that are putting farmers in a squeeze. The president’s anti-immigrant crackdown has left many farmers without the labor they need to operate.

“The whole thing is screwed up,” John Painter, a Pennsylvania organic dairy farmer and three-time Trump voter, told Politico Monday. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”

As Politico noted:

The US agricultural workforce fell by 155,000—about 7%—between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.

“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, another Pennsylvania dairy farmer and a member of the state’s Farm Bureau board of directors.

Charlie Porter, who heads the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Ag Labor and Safety Committee, told Politico that “it’s a shame you have hard-working people who need labor, and a group of people who are willing to work, and they have to look over their shoulder like they’re criminals—they’re not.”

Painter also said that he is “very disappointed” by Trump’s immigration policies.

“It’s not right, what they’re doing,” he said of the administration. “All of us, if we look back in history, including the president, we have somebody that came to this country for the American dream.”

On September 5, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that in August, the United States had 4.3 percent unemployment. The U.S. is not in a recession, yet there are warning signs for the American economy.

Job creation, according to the BLS, is weak. And major economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich fear that President Donald Trump's steep new tariffs will lead to "stagflation" — a painful combination of inflation, high unemployment and weak economic growth that the U.S. suffered in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Stagflation fears are addressed in a conversation between four economists — Larry H. Summers, Rebecca Patterson, Oren Cass and Jason Furman — published in Q&A form in the New York Times' opinion section on September 18.

Summers, who served as U.S. Treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and director of the National Economic Council (NEC) under former President Barack Obama, told the others, "I think we may be at the foothills of stagflation. I don't think tariff impacts have been fully felt or will be for some time, and confidence has more room to decline than to rise. I think inflation will surprise a bit on the high side. I suspect we are seeing unemployment and inflation forecasts both being revised up."

Furman noted that he shared "Larry's inflation concerns," adding, "Core inflation, excluding items like food and energy, has been running at a 3 percent rate. Some of that is tariffs, and they might be transitory. But even without tariffs, inflation is still running about 2.5 percent."

Patterson stressed that while some Americans are doing well economically, others are "struggling" to find work.

Patterson told Summers, Furman and Cass, "While overall economic growth has been fine, it is masking very different experiences for different parts of the population. High-income earners with homes and equities have rising levels of wealth and continue to spend. But young people just out of college, lower-income earners and retirees on fixed incomes are increasingly struggling, given high and still-rising prices, a stagnant job market and a lack of housing supply."

Cass, meanwhile, described himself as "the biggest optimist in the group."

Cass recalled, "When Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, the Fed induced a sharp recession to tame stagflation. Even at the time, certainly in hindsight, people recognized that the short-term numbers were not the right measure."

Read the full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

In MAGA media outlets, Never Trump conservatives — from attorney George Conway to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to ex-GOP strategist Tim Miller — are often accused of moving to the left. But Never Trumpers maintain that the Republican Party has changed, not them — and that President Donald Trump is bad for the conservative movement.

Veteran Washington Post columnist and outspoken Never Trumper George Will remains a scathing critic of Trump's second presidency. In his September 17 column, Will laments that Trump is "floundering" in a variety of ways, from the economy to foreign policy.

"Whirlpool, the U.S. appliance maker, still is not happy," the 84-year-old Will observes. "(Russian President) Vladimir Putin, however, seems to be. The U.S. president is floundering on several fronts. In 2006, Whirlpool paid $1.7 billion to buy its largest competitor, Maytag, and said competition from foreign producers would prevent it from wielding unseemly market power. But U.S. consumers continued to like imported machines' prices and qualities."

READ MORE: There's only one question left as Trump makes a new threat

Will adds, "So, early in his first term, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines to protect Whirlpool from the competition it had said it welcomed."

The conservative ex-Republican notes that Trump's tariffs are also "costly for the largest U.S. manufacturer of agricultural machinery," John Deere.

"John Deere, the New York Times reports, expects higher steel and aluminum tariffs to add $600 million to this year's manufacturing costs," Will warns. "And because China retaliated for Trump's tariffs with tariffs on soybeans, U.S. exports of this crop are down 51 percent and $3.4 billion from 2024. So, growers will buy fewer John Deere machines…. Similar stories are multiplying across the economy, producing a paralytic uncertainty that probably is taking a toll on hiring."

Trump's "seamless unseriousness," Will notes, is also evident in his foreign policy.

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"Since Putin took Trump's measure in Alaska last month," Will explains, "Russia's intensified assault on Ukraine has been matched by Russia's undisguised contempt for him. The Post reports a senior Russia politician dripping with disdain: 'Trump is in a normal state, either waiting to talk to Putin, talking to Putin or explaining how well he talked to Putin'…. Trump's idea of strength can be gauged by his response on social media when a swarm of Russian drones violated Poland's airspace."

Will continues, "About what The Economist called the 'most serious incursion into NATO territory since the alliance began in 1949,' Trump's less-than-Churchillian response was: 'What's with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go'…. From Benton Harbor, Michigan (Whirlpool), to Moline, Illinois (John Deere), to the skies where NATO aircraft downed some but not all Russian drones, the world becomes more serious as the president becomes less so. There is an eerie disconnect between events and his flippant “Here we go!”

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George Will's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).