A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Tired of Winning Yet?
President Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has notched a new accomplishment for the bumbling autocrat: drawing the ire of economists that businesses rely on to forecast the broader economic environment and plan their operations.
On Friday, the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), which describes itself as the “premier professional association for business economists and others who use economics in the workplace,” denounced Trump’s move, calling Erika McEntarfer’s removal “baseless” and Trump’s accusation of her manipulation of jobs data “unfounded.” The organization defended McEntarfer’s credentials and BLS’s professionalism. “This unprecedented attack on the U.S. statistical system threatens the long-standing credibility of our economic data infrastructure,” its statement read.
Friends of the BLS, a partnership of the American Statistical Association, the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, and the NABE, similarly warned the McEntarfer firing “undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers.” One of the Friends of BLS co-chairs, William Beach, McEntarfer’s predecessor who Trump had nominated for the post in 2017, took these warnings to national television.
Yesterday, Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the real estate company Redfin, posted a video on social media explaining why “economists are freaked out right now” because “trustworthy data is crucial for business decisions.”
“In my entire career, I’ve never seen economists this upset,” she said.
It is hard to imagine another presidential action that would trigger otherwise obscure professional associations of data economists to alert the public of an “unprecedented attack” on the “gold standard” of official government statistics, or to the ability of American companies to conduct business.
But the McEntarfer firing was a third rail for the business community, a constituency that Trump absolutely cannot afford to cross. Americans already worried about the state of the economy are not going to want to hear that economists, including those analyzing the real estate market, are “freaked out.” Trump can hardly use his standard line of attack — that his critics are “radical left lunatics” — when the business community says he is sending American companies into turmoil.
While many Republicans were characteristically compliant and fell into lockstep with Trump’s latest meltdown, Democrats are out front making the case that prices are up, and Trump’s tantrum tariffs, recklessness, and stupid policies are to blame.
The MAGA Evangelical Running Human Resources at the State Department
It’s almost hard to be shocked anymore by the characters Trump has tapped for top positions in federal agencies, but at Puck News, this Julia Ioffe profile of Lew Olowski, who is running human resources for the State Department, is a stunning cascade of bizarre revelations.
Once a member of the legal team for convicted Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadžić, Olowski had been a first-tour foreign service officer since 2017 when Marco Rubio summoned him to Washington from an overseas assignment in January. He alarmed department veterans by giving weird speeches about God, prayer, the Bible, and dolphins.
“He quickly made a name for himself at Foggy Bottom by marching into the office of the ombuds and telling everyone that they were being put on administrative leave, and that their office was being dissolved,” Ioffe writes. “The office’s employees later discovered that they had been transferred to the Office of Civil Rights, whose chief counsel was Heather Olowski, Lew’s wife, and the minister of a church that the couple runs.” From there, Olowski set about rooting out all supposed DEI “by changing the way the State Department recruits and promotes people, including by introducing the concept of ‘fidelity’ as an attribute that diplomats should be graded on.” Fidelity to Trump, that is.
DHS Promptly Reverses Threat to States’ FEMA Funds Over Possible Israel Boycotts
On Friday, the Trump administration threatened states’ FEMA funds should they adopt any policy supporting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The reason, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Reuters, was that the BDS movement is antisemitic, and the department is very committed to enforcing “all anti-discrimination laws and policies.” By Monday afternoon, though, the department had reversed course, with a spokesperson issuing a statement that “FEMA grants remain governed by existing law and policy and not political litmus tests.”
The Art of Blowing Up the Deal
This weekend, Trump sabotaged bipartisan negotiations for the Senate to vote on Trump nominees in exchange for restoring billions of dollars in federal funding. With the Senate then recessing for the summer, Trump ended up with “nothing,” Igor Bobic reports at HuffPost.
Bondi Directs DOJ to Convene Grand Jury, Apparently to Go After Obama
Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly ordered Justice Department prosecutors to convene a grand jury to present evidence of supposed wrongdoing in the 2016 “origins” of the Russia investigation. This dangerous development in the retribution campaign against Democrats appears to be based on Trump’s chaotic effort to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal; Trump is baselessly accusing former President Obama of treason and unsuccessfully trying to tie Hillary Clinton to the probe against him.
Warning Signs Are Flashing Bright Bright Red on Texas Redistricting Gambit
Former U.S. Attorney General under Barack Obama Eric Holder tells Mother Jones’ Ari Berman that Trump’s “authoritarian move” to direct the Texas legislature to redraw its congressional maps to favor Republicans “needs to be opposed by any means necessary.” It also has some swing district Republicans worried.
Musk Is the Gift that Keeps on Giving…to Trump
New lobbying and campaign finance disclosure filings reveal that Elon Musk’s X gave a $1 million in-kind contribution to Trump’s inaugural committee, Anna Massoglia reports at Influence Brief. What’s more, Musk continued to donate to Trump-aligned political action committees, even after their supposed falling-out this spring.
Republican Attorneys General Take Aim at Interstate Sale of Abortion Pills
The Republican attorney general of Arkansas, Tim Griffin, is threatening to sue websites that provide information about medication abortion, part of a broader GOP effort to threaten the accessibility of abortion pills across state lines, Susan Rinkunas reports at Autonomy News.
Make Everyone Hate America Again
The State Department is proposing a requirement that foreign travelers seeking business or tourist visas be required to post up to a $15,000 bond.
Two Storied Institutions Deconstructed in the Trump Era
At the Columbia Journalism Review, Jon Allsop takes stock of the slow-motion demise of the Washington Post since the takeover by owner Jeff Bezos and publisher Will Lewis. In New York magazine, Noah Shachtman tells the inside story of how the Anti-Defamation League, founded to fight antisemitism and discrimination, began aligning with Trump, and made equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism central to its mission.
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