The Death of Charlie Kirk

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I don’t have much to share on the death of Charlie Kirk beyond what I suspect is obvious. We want a society where political participation and activism, even things we disagree with or find despicable, can take place without the threat of violence. This isn’t just a general belief that we don’t want people to be hurt or die by violence. It’s the basis of the society and political order we want to live in and which at this very moment is under a graver threat than at any time in our lifetimes.

Right-wing violence, both of an organized paramilitary sort and by radicalized loners, has become such a scourge in recent years that on the extremes you hear voices for things like armed versions of Antifa and the like as some sort of counter. My point is not to equate the two. It is to note that when elections, speech and non-violent political activism give way to paramilitary and political violence the forces of civic democracy have already mostly lost the battle. Fascists do civil violence better than civic democrats. It’s a foundational element of their political philosophy. It’s the verdict of logic and history.

Continue reading “The Death of Charlie Kirk” →

Why the Spike in Black Unemployment Is an Alarming Sign of What’s to Come

Posted on by Layla A. Jones

Troubling and unusual unemployment numbers for Black Americans are signaling that the U.S. is on its way to a potential recession, economists tell TPM.  

The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed an increasingly negative employment situation for Black workers, one that has rapidly deteriorated over the last four months as a result of policy decisions from the Trump administration. But the relative lack of unemployment rate movement for every other racial group — and even a miniscule improvement over the same time period for white workers, means if conditions don’t change — this economic downturn could look different than the 2008 global financial crisis.

This time around, Black middle-class Americans are bearing the brunt of the initial impact “because the federal workforce is specifically being targeted,” Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Between May and August, the Black unemployment rate jumped from 6% to 7.5%. That’s the highest it’s been since 2021, and the highest Black unemployment rate outside of the COVID-related economic crisis since January 2018.

At the same time, white unemployment ticked down ever so slightly from 3.8% to 3.7%, while unemployment for Asians stayed flat at 3.6% and rose slightly for Hispanics from 5.1% to 5.3%. Experts clocked the dismal employment situation for Black people even before last week’s BLS data dropped, noting the impacts of federal government job cuts by the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency, and the Trump administration generally, on Black women employment. Combined with Trump’s legitimate threats to and attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion work within the public and private sectors, and the Supreme Court’s decisions weakening affirmative action, experts told TPM it’s not surprising that Black employment has taken such a hit. But it is an unnerving sign of where we are, and what’s to come.

“I’m one in general to be not alarmist,” Ajilore, said. “But I am really alarmed.”

The American Federation of Government Employees has tried to get racial data about workers who have been fired or accepted separation plans, “and they are just not giving us any of this information,” said AFGE spokesperson Brittany Holder. Holder pointed out that Black people make up more than 18% of federal workers, despite being only about 13% of the population.

Said Ajilore, Black people’s economic situations are often a barometer for the rest of the nation. If Black unemployment is up, that forecasts a potential economic downturn in general. But early job loss often hits low-wage workers first. It’s unique, Ajilore said, for the Black middle class to be impacted so sharply, and first.

It’s also unusual, said labor and race researcher Algernon Austin, to see such a dramatic spike in unemployment for just one group. During the pandemic-induced downturn, for instance, everyone was hit hard and fast. Over the months leading up to the 2008 recession, unemployment rates for white and Hispanic workers fluctuated more dramatically, even if not in lockstep, alongside that of Black workers, according to BLS data.

Four months into the steady rise in Black unemployment, that trend isn’t happening.

As the job market is getting worse (employers added just 22,000 new jobs in August compared to 142,000 at the same time last year), Black people appear to be trying to re-enter the labor force at higher levels than other racial groups. It sounds counterintuitive, but it could be a very early warning that people just need money.

“There is more economic hardship in Black America now than a year ago,” said Austin, who directs the Race and Economic Justice center at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “People have to pay their student loans again, the unemployment rate is going up, people are being laid off, wages are stagnating… Economic hardship can pull people who are not working into the labor force, either by leading them to get a job or simply to try to get a job.”

In response to a TPM inquiry, the White House touted Trump’s “America First” policy priorities.

“President Trump is committed to fostering an economy that creates opportunities for all Americans,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email. “His America First agenda has created more than half a million good-paying jobs in the private sector and American-born workers have accounted for all of those job gains since the President took office in January.”

Rogers also highlighted the “record-low” Black unemployment rate under the first Trump administration. Black unemployment did reach historic lows under Trump I before the pandemic hit, but it had been declining steadily under former President Obama’s two terms. And it declined more slowly during Trump’s first two years — from 7.5% in January 2018 to 6.4% in January 2020 — than during Obama’s final two years — from 10.3% in January 2015 to 7.5% in January 2017, according to BLS data.

The Republicans’ new megabill fans the flames, said Ajilore. By defunding large swaths of social safety net programs like SNAP, Medicaid and unemployment insurance, “what they’ve done is basically make that less useful so that if we do hit a downturn,” he said, those support systems are less available. 

That safety net was already eroding. U.S. Census Bureau data measuring poverty between 2023 and 2024 found poverty rose slightly year over year. After pandemic-era boosts to programs like SNAP were clawed back by GOP legislators in 2023, the Census Bureau report found a now-familiar trend: Black people were harmed while everyone else’s situation remained relatively stagnant.

Black poverty jumped more than 2% between 2023 and 2024, while staying level for Hispanic, Indigenous, and white individuals. 

A White House official said policies included in the hallmark Trump II megabill, like “no tax on overtime and on tips” (both of which come with income and industry limitations) will eventually benefit working-class families.

But Ajilore said this tax-and-spending bill, which further slashes social welfare programs to pay for permanent billionaire-boosting tax cuts and federal defense funding, will only exacerbate inequality.

“More people are going to fall through the cracks of the safety nets,” he said, “because they’ve created bigger cracks.”

The Unspoken Dimension of the Shutdown Fight

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Kate Riga and I just finished recording this week’s edition of the podcast. We’ll add a link when it’s published. We devoted most of the episode to the coming budget showdown, what should happen and what’s going to happen (not necessarily or perhaps likely the same things). There was one point we discussed that I wanted to share with you here.

We have a whole debate about what Democrats should to with this continuing resolution. A lot of that debate centers on what even Democrats would be trying to achieve — make a point, get specific policy concessions. But there’s an entirely different question that informs a lot of it for me. What kind of Democratic leadership you have right now is the best indication of the type you’ll have in divided government in 2027-28 if Democrats win control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterms. It’s the best indication of what kind of governance we’d see in a Democratic trifecta in 2029, if such a thing came to pass.

Continue reading “The Unspoken Dimension of the Shutdown Fight” →

A Possible Gov’t Funding Deal Comes Into View — As Trump’s Lawlessness Looms

Posted on by Emine Yücel

With about three weeks remaining in the current fiscal year, senators are scrambling to find a way to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2026.

A short-term continuing resolution (CR) continues to be the most realistic option for Republicans — who have the majority in both the House and Senate — to avoid a government shutdown. No matter how they decide to move forward, Senate Republicans will need some Democratic votes to fund the government.

Aware of the dynamics, Democrats are pushing for a deal to extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of 2025, in exchange for their support for a short-term CR. Despite some signals from Democrats in August that they might use this negotiation to push back on the Trump administration’s lawless disregard for Congress’ power of the purse, it is unclear if an Obamacare deal would address that. 

“They will be a major part of the negotiation for the bipartisan deal that we need to strike,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, told TPM on Tuesday, referring to the ACA subsidies. 

Republicans “were willing to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest,” Kaine continued, alluding to the so-called “Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill congressional Republicans passed earlier this year. “Why not extend support for everyday people who need to afford health insurance?” 

Indeed, many Republicans appear to be finding themselves in support of at least a one-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies, which raises a new question that hangs over the negotiations: why are Democrats only publicly leveraging this single issue in exchange for helping Republicans fund the government? Especially considering the White House’s ongoing undermining of Congress’ power of the purse. It’s a question that has prompted strenuous pushback from some in the Democrats’ base and from influential journalists (including some at this publication).

“We passed a CR in March and the President didn’t pay any attention to it. The budget, whether it’s a CR or not, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if the President is going to act illegally and refuse to spend the money that’s in it,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters on Tuesday, giving voice to the concern that he raised repeatedly over the summer.

It’s a dynamic that will hang over Capitol Hill for the next few weeks. 

The Obamacare subsidies

The ACA enhanced subsidies were first put into effect as a part of the American Rescue Plan, the COVID-19 relief package signed into law in March 2021 by President Joe Biden. The enhancements worked in two major ways. It increased the amount of financial help available to those who were already eligible for assistance under Obamacare by lowering the amount individuals pay for their health insurance. And it expanded the eligibility of the subsidies to middle income families, eliminating the ACA’s “subsidy cliff.” Later, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law under President Biden in August 2022, extended the enhanced subsidies and the expanded eligibility through the end of the 2025.

Experts warn if Congress fails to act before the subsidies are set to expire almost everyone who gets individual health insurance through the marketplace is going to see dramatic increases in their premiums.

“If Congress does not take action, everyone in the marketplace will see their premiums increase dramatically — that’s both people who receive the premium tax credit and people who don’t,” Claire Heyison, senior policy analyst on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ health insurance and marketplace policy team, told TPM.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if enhanced premium tax credits are left to expire, 4.2 million people will drop their ACA marketplace coverage, largely due to the increased cost, and become uninsured.

Congressional Republicans already added a significant amount of red tape to the process for those trying to access the subsidies as a part of their recent reconciliation bill. The so-called “Big Beautiful” bill made it so that people who enroll in marketplace coverage cannot get the premium tax credit until they verify certain personal information. This change won’t come into effect until 2028 but Heyison told TPM “it’s expected that many people will not jump through those hoops” and in turn “not get the health insurance that they’re eligible for.” 

Many congressional Republicans seem to be on board

Several Republicans, from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to Josh Hawley (R-MO), have already indicated they would get behind efforts to protect or extend the Obamacare subsidies.

“We’re gonna have to do something on that front, because if we don’t, premiums are gonna absolutely skyrocket,” Hawley said on Monday, according to The Hill. “I’m open to suggestions, but one option that will absolutely not fly is do nothing. We just can’t. People won’t be able to live, they won’t be able to see a doctor.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters Monday she also wants to see the subsidies extended.

Meanwhile, eleven GOP House members co-sponsored a bill, led by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), last week that would extend the subsidies for another year — effectively punting the expiration to after the 2026 midterms.

Even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently showed some interest around the issue.

“I don’t love the policy, OK? But I understand the political realities and the realities of people on the ground. And this is real to folks,” Johnson told Punchbowl last week. “I don’t think we should be subsidizing high-income earners. It was a Covid-era issue, and so that’d be a big thing for the Republican Party to continue or advance that. At the same time, we don’t want anyone to be adversely affected by that.”

What about Congress’ power of the purse?

Looming over the negotiation, of course, is the White House’s ongoing undermining of Congress’ power of the purse.

The Trump White House and Russ Vought’s Office of Management and Budget have already been lawlessly impounding funds, according to several decisions from the Government Accountability Office. And in late August, they sent an illegal “pocket rescissions” request over to Congress, triggering staunch criticism from many lawmakers.

Some Democrats did acknowledge to TPM this week that even if they can come to a deal to fund the government in exchange for extending the Obamacare subsidies, the Trump administration’s lawlessness may continue.

“We don’t like doing a deal and then have him saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll sign that now. I’m taking all the money away tomorrow,’” Kaine told reporters as he walked up to the Senate floor on Tuesday.

The Virginia Democrat added that he suspects the ACA subsidies would be part of a separate, full year funding deal.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not in the initial short-term CR — if we’re extending for a month or 45 days to reach a deal,” Kaine said. “I think it would be part of the ultimate deal, rather than part of the short term CR, but we’ll see.”

But one important fact complicates the timeline and a possible deal. 

“Open enrollment for marketplace coverage begins on November 1,” Heyison told TPM. “So if the enhancements were to be extended after November 1 — while it would still be much better for American families than if they weren’t — it would be confusing. The premiums people are seeing when they’re shopping for coverage would change. Marketplaces would probably need to do some kind of outreach campaigns to try to get people who had already seen the premium spikes to come back.” 

Heyison added ideally it’s not enough for the enhancements to be extended before November 1 “but with sufficient time for marketplaces, insurers and states to be able to make the adjustments that are needed.”

Murphy also pointed to the timeline issue, saying people will see their premiums going up before the end of the year. 

“You do a 30 or 40-day, 45-day CR, that doesn’t stop the fact that people are going to be getting nightmarish increases in their premiums,” Murphy told reporters. “So, we don’t have time to wait here. There’s going to be a meltdown in our health care system this fall and we have to act with some urgency.”

Judge Blocks Trump’s Firing of Lisa Cook From the Federal Reserve Board

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Biden Appointee Reinstated … For Now

In a late-night ruling, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of Washington, D.C. blocked President Trump from firing Lisa Cook as a member of the Federal Reserve Board.

In the closely-watched case over whether Trump’s jihad against independent agencies will take down the Fed, too, Cobb ruled that his purported “for cause” firing of Cook was unlawful.

Trump used bogus mortgage fraud allegations from a toady of his as a pretext to fire Cook and undermine the Feds’ independence. While the statute gives the president the power to remove Federal Reserve Board members for cause, Cobb concluded that Trump likely violated the statute:

The best reading of the “for cause” provision is that the bases for removal of a member of the Board of Governors are limited to grounds concerning a Governor’s behavior in office and whether they have been faithfully and effectively executing their statutory duties. “For cause” thus does not contemplate removing an individual purely for conduct that occurred before they began in office.

Cobb also found that Cook was likely denied due process. Cook had argued she was entitled to notice and a hearing before she could be removed for cause.

Cobb ordered the Fed to reinstate Cook and prohibited it from treating her in any way as having been removed. The next Fed meeting is Sept. 16-17, which made a timely decision from Cobb urgent.

In granting Cook’s request for an order blocking her firing, Cobb issued a preliminary injunction that is immediately appealable. Expect the Trump administration to immediately appeal on an emergency basis and for this case to remain on a fast track until the Supreme Court weighs in.

Bill Pulte Makes Some GOP Enemies

It’s not just Treasury Secretary Scott ‘I’m Gonna Punch You in Your F—ing Face’ Bessent who is put out with Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who has spearheaded the mortgage fraud witch hunts against Trump adversaries. Some GOP members of Congress are shitting all over him to Politico — though none would do so on the record.

Another Rough Day in Court for the Anti-Trump Forces

Despite the temporary win for Lisa Cook, it was a day of more setbacks for those trying to rein in the rogue president:

  • Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay, pausing a lower court order that had required the Trump administration to begin the process of dispensing $4 billion in long-frozen foreign aid funds.
  • The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit by 20 blue states seeking to challenge the firing of thousands of probationary federal employees, ruling that the states couldn’t sufficiently show they were harmed by the Trump administration’s actions.

READ: Trump Agreement With El Salvador for AEA Detainees

The agreement between the United States and El Salvador for it to accept the Alien Enemies Act detainees who ended up at CECOT was made public this week for the first time, in litigation over the controversial arrangement.

Among the terms of the agreement:

  • The Trump administration gave El Salvador a grant of $4.76 million for “law enforcement and anticrime needs.”
  • That money could be used to cover the “costs associated with detaining the 238 TdA members recently deported to El Salvador.”

The agreement was dated March 22, about a week after the administration rushed the Alien Enemies Act removals to avoid court scrutiny.

Quote of the Day

“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there’s only two genders … and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.”–unidentified Texas A&M student, objecting to LGBTQ content in a university course in a viral video that led to the removals of a dean and department head and the firing of a professor

Michigan Fake Electors Case Dismissed

A state judge in Michigan ruled that the fake electors from the 2020 election were so completely bamboozled by Trump’s Big Lie that they lacked the requisite intent to sustain fraud charges and ordered the criminal case against them dismissed.

A First for NATO

Polish and Dutch fighters shot down Russian drones that had penetrated deep into Poland’s air space overnight. It was the first time that NATO fighters had engaged enemy targets in allied airspace.

Together at Last …

Former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, 81, and his one-time secretary Fawn Hall, 65 — of Iran-contra fame in the 1980s — have married, Michael Isikoff reports.

They reportedly renewed their acquaintance in November at the funeral of North’s wife of 56 years.

North’s adult children were apparently unaware of their father’s Aug. 27 marriage to Hall.

“We were not at the wedding because we didn’t know it was happening,” his daughter Sarah Katz told the NYT on Tuesday night. “And mostly we hope it won’t impact our relationship with our dad because we do love him and we’re still in the process of mourning our mother.”

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Missouri House Advances Gerrymandered Map for Trump

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Republicans in the Missouri state House passed a map, gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, in a 90-65 vote, advancing President Trump’s nationwide attempt to pressure Republican state legislatures around the country to force House seats that have typically gone to Democrats in their states to flip.

Continue reading “Missouri House Advances Gerrymandered Map for Trump” →

Supreme Court Gives Early Thumbs Up To Trump’s Theft Of Congress’ Power

Posted on by Kate Riga

The Supreme Court on Tuesday froze a lower court judge’s decision ordering that foreign aid money already approved by Congress be spent. The ominous move may signal a coming embrace of the Trump administration’s radical “theory” that a president can choose to withhold appropriated funding. 

Continue reading “Supreme Court Gives Early Thumbs Up To Trump’s Theft Of Congress’ Power” →

Judge Lets Michigan Fake Electors Walk Because They ‘Sincerely Believed’ 2020 Big Lie

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

A group of Michigan fake electors learned on Tuesday that believing the 2020 election was stolen can still pay off: a state judge dismissed a criminal fraud case against them after finding that they “sincerely believe” there were irregularities in President Trump’s defeat that year.

Continue reading “Judge Lets Michigan Fake Electors Walk Because They ‘Sincerely Believed’ 2020 Big Lie” →

Conservative Justices Declare Racial Profiling Just Fine If Trump Asks For It

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes. 

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority issued an order that allows federal immigration agents in Los Angeles to resume arresting Latino people en masse simply because they are Latino. The conservative justices did not sign the order in Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo; the public only knows who is responsible because Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the two other liberal justices. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence, but no other justice joined it—perhaps they reasoned that it was better to remain silent and be thought a racist fool than to speak, as Kavanaugh did, and remove all doubt.)

Because there is no majority opinion, there is no way of knowing which, if any, of the legal arguments advanced by the Trump administration on appeal the Court actually found convincing. What we do know, from Sotomayor’s dissent and from the lower court opinions that the conservative justices tossed aside, is that people are going to get hurt.

One plaintiff, for example, an American citizen and Latino man named Jason Gavidia, was accosted by masked men with guns as he was working on his car in a tow yard. The agents demanded to know if he was a citizen, and Gavidia told them at least three times that he was. Then the agents asked him what hospital he was born in. When he didn’t immediately remember, Sotomayor recounts in her dissent, “the agents racked a rifle, took Gavidia’s phone, pushed him up against the metal gated fence, put his hands behind his back, and twisted his arm.” The agents only released Gavidia after he handed over his ID card.

“The Government…has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction,” Sotomayor wrote. For Gavidia, that ID card can’t even protect him any longer—the agents never gave it back to him. 

Gavidia’s arrest is only one of thousands made by federal agents in the Los Angeles area on President Donald Trump’s orders. Other run-ins with immigration agents have involved “even more force and even fewer questions,” Sotomayor said. “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” 

But that is the fate to which the Court is condemning a fearful populace. The Trump administration is waging a sickening assault on Latino residents and foundational constitutional commitments, and as the judicial arm of the Trump administration, the Court is equally culpable.

Trump’s siege of Los Angeles started on June 6, and people impacted by the mass deportation campaign sued in federal court soon thereafter. Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong found a “mountain of evidence” showing that roving patrols of immigration agents were indiscriminately arresting and detaining people without reasonable suspicion and then denying them access to lawyers, in violation of both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. On July 11, the trial court issued an order indicating that the administration “may not rely solely on” four factors—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, presence at a particular location (like a bus stop or a day laborer pickup site), or the type of work—to “form reasonable suspicion for a detentive stop, except as permitted by law.”

The administration asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the trial court order. Curiously, the administration did not actually argue that the lower court’s findings were wrong. Instead, they argued that plaintiffs had no right to secure future relief because they were unlikely to be hurt in the future, and that the court’s order was impermissibly vague. The Ninth Circuit modified the order slightly, clarifying that the administration could not make arrests based “solely” on these factors. Basically, no one is saying the government can’t arrest a Latino person at Home Depot whom it has reason to believe is committing a crime. The court is just saying the basis for the government’s belief cannot be simply that a Latino person is at Home Depot.Then, the administration asked the Court to block the order—a “once-extraordinary step,” said Sotomayor, that the conservative justices have made entirely commonplace, whenever the Trump administration declares that its desire to do harm right now constitutes an “emergency.” Sotomayor called the Court’s bucking of the normal process that exists “to consider these troubling allegations” as “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket.”

Without a majority opinion, one can only assume that the Court’s conservatives agree that immigration agents should be able to rely on the four prohibited factors, and that racial profiling is reasonable—despite the facts, as Sotomayor points out, that nearly half of the region’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and a third speak Spanish at home. Being Latino and speaking Spanish is not probative of anything but being Latino and speaking Spanish. The only way the Court could conclude otherwise is if it thinks being Latino is incompatible with innocence.

The Supreme Court’s order in Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo is best viewed not as law but as plain old white supremacy. White people are not the ones being hounded for their freedom papers. They’re considered citizens by default, and, also by default, nonwhite people are considered others who do not belong in the country, and to whom the country could not possibly belong.

The Court’s conservatives have given their blessing to wanton racial profiling, without so much as a word of reasoning. And as a result, no one—not the lower court judges applying the law, or the people oppressed by the law—has any idea if people of color have any constitutional rights which the Trump administration is bound to respect.