Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Mike Johnson built his reputation in Congress arguing that lawmakers, not the White House, should control the nation’s trade weapons. His past push to claw back tariff authority from the executive branch now sits awkwardly beside his role as House speaker, where he is under pressure to protect President Donald Trump’s expansive use of those…
Republican criticism of President Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine is no longer confined to quiet grumbling in closed-door meetings. It has broken into the open, with one GOP lawmaker warning that Trump’s choices now risk staining the very legacy he has tried to build on strength and resolve. That warning, coming from inside his own…
Senator Rand Paul is issuing one of the starkest warnings yet to President Donald Trump, arguing that a single misstep on economic and legal principles could cause the populist coalition around the president to fracture. At the heart of his critique is a belief that Trump’s movement is powerful but fragile, and that it depends…
Ron DeSantis has turned a wonky gripe about local levies into a sharp populist line, arguing that property taxes function less like civic contributions and more like rent payments to the state. By casting homeowners as perpetual tenants of government, he is trying to reframe a familiar bill as a fundamental threat to ownership, and…
Alt5 Sigma, a partner in President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI) crypto venture, may have violated SEC rules by failing to properly disclose a CEO suspension in its filings. The issue centers on the suspension of Alt5 Sigma’s CEO, which was not reflected in required SEC documents, raising questions about transparency in the Trump-linked…
President Trump is promising every household a $2,000 “tariff dividend” check, casting it as a simple way to return trade-war proceeds to the working class. Senate Republicans are instead signaling that the plan is going nowhere fast, treating it as a political gamble that collides with their stated concerns about debt, inflation, and the basic…
President Donald Trump has now publicly confirmed that the United States will move ahead with a sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, locking in one of the most consequential arms deals of his presidency. The decision elevates the kingdom’s air power, deepens its security ties with Washington, and raises fresh questions about…
Texas Republicans are mounting a coordinated push to claw back more than $10 billion they say the state has fronted for border security, arguing that Washington should reimburse what they frame as federal responsibilities. Their demand, led in Washington by Senator Ted Cruz and backed by a bloc of Texas GOP lawmakers, turns a long…
Talk of a federal shutdown tends to fade once Congress cuts a deal, yet the political and structural forces that nearly close the government rarely disappear. They accumulate, like pressure behind a dam, until the next deadline brings the same arguments roaring back. That is why the latest wave of shutdown chatter feels less like…
The shutdown-ending deal that reopened the federal government did more than avert missed paychecks and shuttered offices. It quietly steered nearly $1 billion in fresh money toward the US Air Force’s next-generation bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile, locking in new momentum for two of the Pentagon’s most expensive nuclear programs. The move underscores how budget…