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Apr 17, 2025 - World

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) appeared to grow frustrated when asked if President Donald Trump had plunged the country into a constitutional crisis. CNN's Dana Bash said on Thursday's Inside Politics, "The Trump administration is finding ways to defy the courts on a few fronts right now," citing the case of a Maryland father wrongly deported to an El Salvadoran prison, and the White House's refusal to allow the Associated Press to cover the administration. "Sir, I know that you have said that the president defying court orders would create a constitutional crisis. Are we there?" "Certainly, we're in a crisis across the board," Jeffries answered. "I mean, that is obvious for everyone to see. This is not normal. The president is assaulting the economy, assaulting social security, assaulting health care, assaulting the American way of life, and assaulting our democracy. None of this is normal. It is all a crisis." ALSO READ: 'Alarming': Small colleges bullied into silence as Trump poses 'existential threat' Jeffries said that regarding the case of Abrego Garcia, the man imprisoned on El Salvador, "The Supreme Court needs to take a close look at enforcing its orders, and that is generally going to involve not the president, of course, at this moment in time, but is going to involve cabinet secretaries and other administration officials who are responsible for the actual execution of these orders or the noncompliance." "How is that not a constitutional crisis?" Bash interrupted. "I said that we are in a crisis across the board!" Jeffries snapped. "We are in a crisis across the board in every way possible, including the assault on the democratic way of life. Now the courts are going to have to aggressively enforce its — we are in a crisis! We've apparently been in a crisis, I think, since January 20th, across the board. We're in an economic crisis, we're in a democracy crisis, we're in a crisis as it relates to the assault on health care, the assault on social security — none of this is normal." Watch the clip below via CNN.

Apr 17, 2025 - World

In a perfect world, Congress and the courts would keep President Donald Trump's executive branch in line by balancing out his portion of the country's power base. Absent their effectiveness, the financial markets may be the last line of defense to moderate Trump's behavior, according to new analysis in The Bulwark.Writer Matt Johnson posited that even as these vital institutions cave in to Trump's demands, "one important check remains: There’s nothing Trump can do to bend global financial markets to his will."As an example, Johnson wrote that Trump's tariffs and the resulting stock market chaos were somewhat quelled last week when Trump was "bullied into submission" by the bond market. Trump announced that he was backing off his trade war because people were "getting yippee," but a massive sell-off in U.S. bonds led a CNN analyst to call it a rare economic "red flag" that even Trump couldn't ignore.ALSO READ: 'Dictatorship, not a town hall': Families 'distraught' as MTG disruptors tased and jailedAllison Morrow, a senior writer for CNN Business, said last week that "Normally in times of economic turmoil, we would see stocks sell off and investors go to bonds. That didn't happen. We saw investors selling stocks and bonds. And that is really a red flag because it's only happened a handful of times in history and its a signal that investors can't really see which way the economy is going."In Johnson's Bulwark article, he called it "a sad commentary on the decay of America’s democratic institutions that the market is now the most powerful check on Trump. While financial markets are subject to manipulation and can be captured by both irrational exuberance and irrational fear, they are usually extremely efficient information processors."Johnson continued, "Markets are a proxy for what people really believe is true about the world—MAGA members of Congress can spout all the familiar pro-Trump slogans about a golden age for America, but the real measure of the public’s confidence in Trump’s economic stewardship is how they adjust their portfolios. Markets provide immediate feedback on Trump’s actions. They can’t be flattered or pressured. They can’t be swayed by alternative facts."Read The Bulwark article here.

Apr 17, 2025 - World

A new report in Politico claims that one of President Donald Trump's closest confidants, Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, is considered a pariah among MAGA supporters who "are openly trash talking him to the boss, hoping he gets canned."Reporters Rachael Bade and Megan Messerly wrote, "talk to almost any Trump ally outside the White House and you’ll hear scant praise for the Commerce secretary. He’s brash and impulsive, catering to Trump’s worst instincts on tariffs that could jeopardize the economy, they whisper. His loud mouth is equally matched by his bad judgment, they steam."But the complaints amount to little more than "wishful thinking," the report said, due to Lutnick's unusually close relationship with the president. Lutnick, himself, has referred to the 30-year friendship with Trump as his "superpower."ALSO READ: 'Alarming': Small colleges bullied into silence as Trump poses 'existential threat'In essence, Lutnick is protected by a shield of loyalty to Trump, even after a debacle like the "chaotic rollout of the president’s 'Liberation Day' tariff policies that might have doomed any other Commerce secretary," the reporters wrote.The ride or die relationship between the two New York billionaires revolves around "the two things Trump arguably values most: loyalty and money," the report said."When Trump turned into a pariah after Jan. 6, 2021, Lutnick still flew down to golf with him in Palm Beach," the report said. "During rocky parts of the 2024 campaign, people close to Trump say Lutnick 'stuck by the president' even on the grimmest days. Not to mention, he’s one of Trump’s biggest donors. He donated more than $10 million to Trump’s re-election, raising an additional $75 million for him by leaning on his Wall Street connections."Lutnick's critics describe him as the worst kind of sycophant: "a sounding board who won’t curb [Trump's] most reckless instincts" who "marches into the Oval Office and tells Trump whatever he wants to hear rather than providing an accurate accounting of possible blowback," the report said.However, "For all the kvetching among others close to Trump, Lutnick is the one who has a regular ice cream date with the president," which doesn't look like it will end anytime soon, the report concluded.Read the Politico article here.

Apr 17, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump's early morning rant against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, during which he called for Powell's ouster, drew quick response from political pundits.The strong reaction came after Trump posted to social media about the European Central Bank and Powell's refusal to cut interest rates."The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, 'Too Late' Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete 'mess!'” Trump wrote. "Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!"ALSO READ: 'Retribution or bust’: 'Secretary of Retribution' joins J6 leaders to demand mass arrestsAttorney George Conway posted a sarcastic response, writing, "President Donald J. Trump has filed a powerful (many strong men are saying, crying, “so powerful”!) pro se brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in support of UPHOLDING its decision in

Apr 17, 2025 - World

Noted investment expert Steve Rattner had nothing but bad news for billionaire Elon Musk and Wall Street investors who have been hanging onto their shares of Tesla stock as the value of the shares keeps spiraling downward.During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Rattner used enlarged charts showing a bevy of downward trends and directly linked the collapse –– dubbed "Tesla tanking" –– to Musk's highly unpopular relationship with Donald Trump.One major concern he noted, was that, at a time when EV sales are seeing a swing upward, Tesla sales are heading in the opposite direction.ALSO READ: 'We’ve made a mistake': Trump’s trade war sends GOP into frenzyPointing to his graphs, he began, "See here that Tesla in its early years had huge sales increases, as you would expect, very popular. One of the few makers of really good electric vehicles (EV) in the country. But beginning in 2025. its sales kind of stagnated, a combination of really two reasons. One, some competition, more competition from other people trying to get in the business, including domestic manufacturers and also the fact that people are getting their models Y and S, two of their most popular models, are getting a little bit long in the tooth, so to speak.""But look what happened here in the first quarter," he added. "In the first quarter, their sales went down 13 percent more than they've ever done before and that's across the world. If you look at just the U.S., you can see that all U.S. EV sales are actually up 11 percent and Tesla was down nine. And so what I think you are starting to see, and I'll get to this a bit in a second, you are starting to see Musk's unpopularity weigh on Tesla's sales."Asked by host Mika Brzezinski for more details about "Tesla tanking" he added, Tesla had a "...huge run up because people thought that Musk was simply going to be a great beneficiary of the federal government's largesse. And then you can see that, along with all the chaos and commotion and Trump's own personal issues, you can see Tesla stock's gone all the way back down."You can watch below or at the link here. - YouTube youtu.be