Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.
War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November. The only question is how much.
Madison Hoff at Business Insider:
US annual inflation accelerated to 4.2% last month, new consumer price index data showed, as expected. That adds to the recent trend of inflation speeding up, reaching the highest rate since April 2023.
Inflation outpaced wage growth for the second straight time. Average hourly earnings increased 3.4% in May from a year ago. Real earnings fell 0.7% over the year and 0.1% over the month.
Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, expects inflation to remain elevated in the near term because of supply chain disruptions in the Middle East, which could mean the trend of inflation surpassing wage growth persists.
"The dividing line between the haves and the have nots is dictating whether consumers are able to keep with rising price levels," Hamrick said in an email to Business Insider. He pointed to the Fed's May Beige Book, which said consumer spending is "increasingly bifurcated across income groups amid affordability pressures," with higher-income households less affected.
Nicole Bachaud, an economist at ZipRecruiter, said wage growth falling short of inflation is putting financial strain on middle-income households. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City echoed that sentiment in the May Beige Book, noting one firm said that "middle-income households are squeezing more life out of every dollar before deciding to spend it."
March 1: Trump said in a speech that "combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved." When The New York Times asked him how long the United States and Israel would continue the attacks, Trump said: "Well, we intended four to five weeks."
March 2: Trump said at a White House ceremony: "We're already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, it's OK." He repeated that the initial projection was "four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that."
In a press conference, Hegseth said, "This is not Iraq. This is not endless. ... This is the opposite. This operation (has) a clear, devastating, decisive mission: destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes."
Hegseth added: "Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back.
March 5: Trump said at an event to celebrate soccer champions Inter Miami CF: "The United States military, together with the wonderful Israeli partners, continues to totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule and at levels that people have never seen before."
Hegseth said, "Our munitions are full up, and our will is ironclad, which means our timeline is ours and ours alone to control as long as it takes to ensure the United States of America achieves these objectives."
March 7: Trump told reporters on Air Force One, "We're winning the war by a lot. We've decimated their whole evil empire. It'll continue, I'm sure, for a little while."
He called it "a short excursion."
When asked how long he expected the attacks to continue, Trump didn’t directly answer the question. "Well, I think we've accomplished more in one week than anyone thought possible."
On Truth Social he said victory already occurred. "We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!"
The list goes on, but you get the idea.
