Here’s Your Warning Sign: Inflation Just Spiked in Every Key Indicator

On the 2024 campaign trail, President Trump promised to “end inflation” and increase affordability, while touting economic proposals widely considered to be at odds with that promise. In April, he dubiously declared victory, saying, “We already solved inflation.”

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported an increase in the Federal Reserve’s go-to monthly inflation indicator for June, as Trump’s tariff threats start to hit consumers. The personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index shows that consumer prices rose 0.3 percent from May to June, up 2.6 percent from last June (whereas economists had forecast a 2.5 percent increase). This marks the highest annual increase in inflation since February.

“Core” prices, which don’t include the costs of food and energy, also increased 0.3 percent from May and 2.8 percent from a year ago.

The rising inflation helps account for the central bank’s ongoing resistance to Trump’s calls to slash interest rates. Things are only expected to get worse as the majority of the president’s tariffs are set to go into effect on Friday.

On Wednesday, the Fed kept interest rates steady for its fifth meeting in a row as it cautiously assesses the effects of Trump’s tariffs on the economy. “Increased tariffs are pushing up prices in some categories of goods,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said. “Near-term measures of inflation expectations have moved up on balance over the course of this year on news about tariffs.”

The central bank’s refusal to budge has frustrated Trump to no end, with the president calling Powell, whom he appointed in his first term, just about every name in the book, including, but not limited to, “numbskull,” “dumb guy,” “major loser,” and “Trump hater.”

Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s proposed bill banning stock trading by legislators has Republicans running around like chickens with their heads cut off—including the president. But Hawley is keeping his cool.

On Wednesday, Trump slammed Hawley on Truth Social, accusing him of playing into the hands of the Democrats with his legislation, which would prohibit members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from trading stocks.

“I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED, because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!” Trump wrote.

But Hawley was unbothered by the president’s digs, and laughed them off, according to The Independent. In fact, Hawley says that Trump is a supporter of the bill, reaffirming what the president said to reporters hours before his Truth Social rant.

“He and I had a nice visit this afternoon and he reiterated that he is in favor of a stock ban for members of Congress [and ] that he wants to see it passed,” Hawley said. “He thinks we need to move full speed ahead.”

The bill, which was originally called the PELOSI Act in a mocking tribute to the accusations of insider trading against Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband, made it through the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday, in an 8–7 vote, with Hawley as the sole Republican to support the act.

Though the bill does ban the president and vice president from trading or owning stocks, it includes a notable carve-out for Trump: That prohibition will only kick in for future administrations.

The family of Virginia Giuffre has spoken out after President Trump stated that deceased serial predator Jeffrey Epstein “stole” Giuffre from him.

“It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it,’” Giuffre’s two brothers and sisters-in-law told The Atlantic. “We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”

Giuffre had alleged that she was abducted in 2000 by Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where she worked at the time as a pool attendant, and was subsequently abused for the next two years. Giuffre committed suicide in April.

“Hired, by him, in other words—gone,” Trump said earlier this week when asked about Epstein and his “falling out.”

“Other people would come and complain, ‘This guy is taking people from the spa.’ I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people.’ Whether it was spa or not spa, I don’t want him taking people.”

“Did one of the stolen persons—did that include Virginia Giuffre?” a reporter asked.

“Um, I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa,” Trump said. “I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”

These comments and the immunity deal that the Trump administration may offer to Maxwell drove Giuffre’s family to make a statement.

“If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer, a woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position.”

Canada on Wednesday became the third close U.S. ally to announce its plan to recognize the state of Palestine in recent days, leaving President Donald Trump none too pleased.

“Preserving a two-state solution means standing with all people who choose peace over violence or terrorism, and honouring their innate desire for the peaceful co-existence of Israeli and Palestinian states as the only roadmap for a secure and prosperous future,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Canada’s decision follows an announcement from France last week that it will recognize Palestinian statehood. On Tuesday, the United Kingdom committed to do the same unless Israel fails to meet certain conditions to improve conditions in Gaza and commit to peace.

Canada’s decision, like the U.K.’s, comes with stipulations. Palestine must demilitarize, for example, and “hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part,” said Carney.

Trump lashed out in a Truth Social post, in which he threatened that the decision could hamper a prospective trade deal between the U.S. and Canada, which is to be reached by a Friday deadline lest hefty tariffs go into effect.

“Wow!” Trump wrote. “Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh’ Canada!!!”

The response to Canada, a country Trump seemingly has a penchant for intimidating, had more teeth than those to France’s and the U.K.’s announcements (on the former he said, “That statement doesn’t carry weight”; the latter, he said, would reward Hamas).

Trump seemingly hopes to use the impending trade deal deadline to bully Canada into backing down on its pledge to uphold statehood for Palestine (which is, under international law, “a right, not a reward,” according to the U.N.’s secretary-general).

Carney, for his part, has already noted that the U.S.-Canada trade deal may take some additional time to come to fruition. “We’re seeking the best deal for Canadians,” he said Wednesday. “We have not yet reached that deal. Negotiations will continue until we do.”

Trump’s fluid list of demands, per the National Post, has included Canada shelling out for Trump’s “Golden Dome” defense system and aiding Trump’s immigration agenda along the U.S.-Canada border.

With the help of 19 Democrats, the Senate rejected two resolutions Wednesday from Senator Bernie Sanders to block arms sales to Israel as it continues its campaign of mass starvation in Gaza.

The Senate rejected S.J.Res.34, which would have prohibited the sale of $675 million in weapons to Israel, such as 1,000-pound bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits used in airstrikes, by a vote of 27–70. Nineteen Democrats joined Republicans to block the measure.

Seventeen Democrats also voted against S.J.Res.41, which failed by a vote of 24–73 and would have prohibited the sale of fully automatic assault rifles to Israeli forces.

The resolutions had little chance of surviving the House, and President Donald Trump announced earlier on Wednesday that he would veto the measures if they reached his desk. But 19 Democrats still couldn’t support even a symbolic vote against Israel.

Notably, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against both resolutions, as did Senator Cory Booker, who represents New Jersey. In April, Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old Palestinian American from New Jersey, Amer Rabee.

Senators Ruben Gallego, Mark Kelly, and Elissa Slotkin did not vote for or against either bill.

The U.N. estimates that one in three Palestinians in Gaza haven’t eaten anything in days, as a result of Israel’s blockade and ongoing genocide. The World Health Organization has also said a “worst-case scenario of famine” has hit the region.

Here is the name of every Democrat who voted to keep arming Israel anyway, blocking at least one of Sanders’s resolutions:

1. Michael Bennett (CO)
2. Richard Blumenthal (CT)
3. Cory Booker (NJ)
4. Maria Cantwell (WA)
5. Chris Coons (DE)
6. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
7. John Fetterman (PA)
8. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
9. Maggie Hassan (NH)
10. John Hicklenlooper (CO)
11. Jon Ossoff (GA)
12. Alex Padilla (CA)
13. Gary Peters (MI)
14. Jack Reed (RI)
15. Jackie Rosen (NV)
16. Adam Schiff (CA)
17. Chuck Schumer (NY)
18. Mark Warner (VA)
19. Ron Wyden (OR)