US bond rating downgrade is telling, Republican congressman says
U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., joins 'CUOMO' to talk about the GOP majority's continuing challenge in crafting a balanced federal budget as Moody's downgrades the government's credit rating. 'We have a spending problem in this country that we're going to have to address,' Zinke, an Appropriations Committee member, says. #Budget #Congress #Politics
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The Hill
36 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump touts ‘great unity' in GOP after Iran strikes, pushes to get ‘big, beautiful' bill done
President Trump touted the 'great unity' among Republicans following the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, as he called on the party to focus on getting his agenda bill through to his desk. 'Great unity in the Republican Party, perhaps unity like we have never seen before,' Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday. 'Now let's get the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill done. Our Country is doing GREAT. MAGA!' he added. The president's remarks come after he announced Saturday evening that U.S. forces bombed three Iranian nuclear sites and said to Iran in a social media post, 'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' The bombs targeted three nuclear sites in Natanz, Esfahan and Fordow, located inside a mountain. Six 'bunker buster' bombs were reportedly dropped on Fordow, while more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles were launched at the other two sites. The bombings put the U.S. directly in Iran's crosshairs for retaliation and made it an active participant in the Mideastern war, which Israel launched with airstrikes against Iran on June 13. Ahead of the strikes, news outlets had focused on the so-called 'civil war' in the GOP, between the pro-Israel foreign policy hawks and supporters who identified more with the 'America-First' agenda. Members of both groups had been publicly lobbying the president in opposite directions as he considered taking military actions against Iran. While some anti-interventionist Republicans—including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—still publicly criticized the strikes, most of the GOP expressed support following the announcement. The news also comes as the Senate enters a pivotal week for the president's massive agenda bill, which Republican leaders in Congress still say they hope to get done by July 4.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Trump ropes Fed into debt fight as GOP faces fiscal mess
President Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve to go beyond its legal mandate and help him manage the national debt as Republicans face growing pressure over the nation's finances. In a series of remarks and social media posts, Trump has ripped Fed Chair Jerome Powell for refusing to lower interest rates, insisting he should help the White House manage the costs of servicing more than $36 trillion in national debt. ''Too Late' Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government, and the Fed Board is complicit,' Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social, a day after the Fed held rates steady. While Trump has spent most of his two White House stints berating Powell to cut rates, only recently has he tied those demands to the country's deteriorating fiscal health. 'We're beginning to see what I think are the early warning signs that the Fed is going to be increasingly called upon to keep the government solvent,' said David Beckworth, senior research fellow and monetary policy director at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian-leaning think tank at George Mason University. 'When you begin to see this type of rhetoric, it's a clear sign that people are beginning to get nervous,' Beckworth explained. 'And how else can we save money? Well, let's turn into the Fed and put pressure on them.' Trump's escalating pressure on Powell over the national debt comes as he and Republicans stand to add trillions of dollars to it through a major tax-cut bill. Republican lawmakers are attempting to find common ground on what Trump has called his 'big, beautiful bill.' The legislation features an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, additional cuts the president proposed during the 2024 campaign, and steep cuts to social safety net programs. While GOP lawmakers claim the bill would help solve the country's fiscal woes, a range of ideologically diverse analysts forecast the bill to add anywhere between $2 trillion to nearly $4 trillion to the national debt. At the same time, Trump is attempting to secure GOP support to raise the debt ceiling before the Treasury Department runs out of ways to avoid a default — a deadline that could come as soon as August. Trump is 'kind of speaking out of both sides of his mouth,' said Dan Alpert, managing partner at investment firm Westwood Capital 'He's got this enormous, $3.5 trillion dollar continuation of a tax cut from his first term that he wants to get across the line,' Alpert added. Republican lawmakers have argued that such estimates don't take into account the economic growth unlocked by lower tax rates, which they say would help narrow deficits over time. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that even when accounting for growth impacts, the bill would still add $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next ten years — more than the CBO projected without considering the preferred GOP scoring. 'The fundamental issue is we have a Congress and a president who cannot bring the budget deficit under control,' Beckworth said. While both Republicans and Democrats are to blame, he added, 'for a party that has claimed historically it is concerned about their debt burden, it is going to blow things up even more.' Trump's efforts to push the Fed into managing the debt mark a significant break from more than 70 years of federal economic policy. During World War I and II, the Fed yielded to pressure from presidential administrations to keep interest rates low and ease the burden of the rising debt. While that practice extended for nearly a decade after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Fed and Treasury eventually reached an agreement in 1951, setting the stage for the next seven decades of economic management. 'The purpose of the 'accord' was to make Treasury manage its debt, rather than expecting the Fed to 'monetize' it. In turn, the Fed asserted its control of monetary policy via the setting of interest rates to meet congressional mandates for price stability and maximizing employment,' said Sarah Binder, political science professor at George Washington University and co-author of 'The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve.' The Fed has since avoided anything that could be considered financing the federal debt while sticking to its 'dual mandate' of balancing unemployment and inflation. And while several presidents have verbally pressured the Fed to keep rates low since 1951, none has made a formal move to limit its legal authority over monetary policy. 'Based on most concepts of 'independent' monetary policy, the central bank shouldn't be monetizing the debt. That is, it shouldn't be taking the administration's financing needs into account when it aims to meet its mandates,' Binder said. 'Those mandates are price stability and strong labor markets,' she added. 'Congress has not given the Fed an additional mandate to make it easier for the Treasury to finance its debt.' But Trump could be laying the groundwork for a shift toward a 'fiscal dominance' regime, Beckworth warned, in which the Fed would be forced to clean up the government's fiscal mess and abandon the bank's legal obligation to keep prices stable and unemployment low. 'Maybe we're not there yet, but we're getting close,' Beckworth said. 'If they push, push, push, and then at some point, the Fed loses independence … and it's no longer able to control inflation.' Trump griped Wednesday, hours before the Fed's latest hold, that he was unable to sway Powell into making major interest rate reductions. 'He's not a smart person,' Trump said of Powell. 'I think he hates me, but that's OK, you know, he should. He should. I call him every name in the book to get him to do something.' Powell brushed off several questions Wednesday about Trump's attacks and the potential debt impact of the president's agenda, but has implored the White House and Congress throughout his time as Fed chief to get the nation's finances on a sustainable track. Trump will be able to add 'former Chair' to his list of names for Powell come 2026, when his four-year term leading the Fed board lapses. Whomever Trump nominates to succeed Powell will almost certainly be more aligned with the president's thinking and face an easy path to confirmation in a GOP-controlled Senate. Even so, Powell is but one of 12 Fed officials on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) who vote to set interest rates — all of whom voted to keep borrowing costs steady Wednesday. 'Even if you got rid of Powell, you'd have to remake the FOMC with yes-men,' Beckworth said. Powell could also choose to stay on as a member of the Fed board through 2028. That would be an usual move for a former Fed chair, but Powell has not ruled it out. 'Powell has not budged, and the FOMC has not budged despite Trump's incessant ranting and pressure and whatever else he can throw at them,' Beckworth said. 'They're still sticking to their guns.'
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Senate GOP's Iran hawks hit the airwaves to support Trump's Saturday strike
Two of the Senate GOP's top Iran hawks — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton — passionately defended President Donald Trump's Saturday strikes on key Iranian nuclear infrastructure as the White House looks ahead to Tehran's response. Speaking with NBC's Kristen Welker on Sunday, Graham, who has long advocated forcefully targeting the country's nuclear capability, pushed back on the view that an assault on Iran would bear similarities to America's long, difficult war in Iraq. 'The country is in the hands of religious Nazis,' Graham said of Iran on 'Meet the Press.' 'They want to kill at the Jews. And they're coming after us. And they were set back. And to Steve Bannon and all those people, Iran is different. Nuclear weapons in the hands of the Ayatollah is a nightmare for the world.' Republicans largely sided with the President after he announced the attacks on nuclear sites Natanz, Fordo (also known as Fordow) and Esfahan on Saturday. Even some with isolationist tendencies, Vice President JD Vance among them, are supporting the idea of targeted strikes as a means to return to the negotiating table. But some Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, say that Trump didn't have the constitutional authority to launch the attack, and that he should have sought approval from Congress. 'We can't be the commander-in-chief,' Graham told Welker. 'You can't have 535 commander-in-chiefs. If you don't like what the president does in terms of war, you can cut off the funding. But declaring war is left to the Congress. We've declared war five times in the history of America. All of these other military operations were lawful. He had all the authority he needs under the Constitution.' Speaking with ABC's Jonathan Karl on Sunday, Cotton insisted the White House still holds the leverage ahead of any diplomatic talks or military escalation. 'We haven't targeted the supreme leader; we haven't targeted their energy infrastructure,' he said on 'This Week.' 'We haven't targeted other critical infrastructure. That's an implicit message that Iran still has things that they hold dear that neither the United States nor Israel has struck. Iran needs to heed President Trump's warning.'
