Inflation Hits New High as Trump’s War With Iran Escalates

The U.S. annual inflation rate is the highest it’s been in three years—a clear consequence of President Trump’s widely unpopular, very expensive war on Iran, which drags on even as he constantly claims that he’s close to a deal.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 0.5 percent last month, with energy costs accounting for 60 percent of that increase. The annual inflation rate is at 4.2 percent—the highest since April 2023.

“Americans are getting squeezed financially by inflation that’s back at a three-year high,” Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long told CNBC. “The frustration for many Americans is that so many of the basics are up in price right now—gas, food, electricity, and medical care are all clear pain points that are above 3 percent inflation. Ending the war in Iran will help to moderate inflation, but the worst is likely still to come for rising food prices.”

Trump, for his part, has claimed that Iran will “pay the price” for not making a deal. But it’s clear at this point that Iran is willing to draw this conflict out so that American’s pockets hurt more and more every day. It’ll be a difficult sell to midterm voters with inflation at a three-year high and a cost-of-living crisis that was already dire—two issues Trump ran on solving. And it’s entirely his fault.

President Trump is losing his mind over a New York Times report detailing how the White House panicked over Jeffrey Epstein in multiple instances.

Early Wednesday morning, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough mentioned the report on his show, Morning Joe. Less than an hour later, Trump attacked Scarborough on Truth Social, calling him “one of the most inaccurate detailers of truthful facts on television.”

“His serious case on Trump Derangement Syndrome, often referred to as TDS, has made him a laughing stock among those who know what is going on in the ‘Wonderful World of Television,’’’ Trump posted.

Scarborough’s show was still going on after Trump dropped his post, and the hosts called him out for basically confirming the Times’ reporting that mentioning Epstein triggers the White House.

“Sometimes I go talk to you in the White House, and we disagree on things, but nothing deranged here, sir, unless you’re deranged,” Scarborough said to Trump. “If there’s any derangement, it would have to be on your side of the relationship, because I’m not deranged. Not about you. I just state the facts, and maybe that makes you deranged.

“Ohhhh, that actually sort of affirms the reporting that this is something you cannot mention around the president of the United States,” Scarborough added. “We just read what Maggie and Jonathan wrote about Epstein. Is that what that was?”

The Times article is a detailed look at how Trump’s inner circle met in the Situation Room to handle each development regarding Epstein and the government’s files on the billionaire sex offender. Shouting matches, arguments, efforts to get different officials fired, and clashing strategies are all outlined in the article, which is based on reporting from the forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. The main thesis of the article is that Trump could not make the public forget about Epstein, no matter what he did, and he continued to prove that Wednesday morning.

President Donald Trump is spiraling over Iran’s latest military strikes, which undermine his claims that their military has been obliterated.

Hours after the United States and Iran exchanged their latest series of military strikes Tuesday night, Trump insisted yet again that Iran’s military was all but destroyed.

“Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore—They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday morning.

“The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”

It’s not evident that Iran’s military has been defeated. U.S. officials said Iran downed a U.S. Army Apache helicopter Monday using a drone. It is not clear if the drone attack was deliberate, as Iran has not yet claimed responsibility for the strike. Tehran said it responded to U.S. retaliatory strikes with 21 attacks against American military targets in the Middle East.

Trump has been insisting for weeks that Iran’s military capabilities have been obliterated—despite reporting suggesting Iran has been rebuilding its arsenal. Now even Fox News is starting to doubt the president’s word about Iran’s military capability.

Trump’s warning that Iran would “pay the price” caused the price of oil to rise 2 percent, after the strikes had already caused stock futures to slide sharply. In a subsequent post, Trump touted the effectiveness of the U.S. military blockade and insisted that energy was flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Fake News Media refuses to report how EFFECTIVE the U.S. Naval BLOCKADE is, the most successful Blockade in the history of Naval Warfare. NOTHING GETS THROUGH unless we want it to. IT IS A STEEL WALL! Iran is doing ZERO business, not paying their military, or any of their bills, and quickly becoming a FAILED NATION! Lots of oil is getting out.” Trump wrote.

But it seems that the president’s lies about the war may be finally catching up to him.

Donald Trump’s deportation agenda will now have billions of dollars to play with thanks to Republican handiwork.

The House GOP eked out $70 billion in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection Tuesday evening through the budget reconciliation process, bypassing the need for any Democratic support. The Secure America Act’s final vote was 214–212. The president is poised to sign the bill into law Wednesday.

The final draft of the bill grants $38 billion to ICE, $26 billion to CBP, and $5 billion for additional contingency costs that are to be doled out at Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s discretion. It is expected to fund Trump’s aims of one million yearly deportations through the end of his term.

The package is the result of a four-month stand-off between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of regulating the two violent and apparently unbridled agencies. That issue was sparked nearly half a year ago, when federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens during an ICE crackdown in Minnesota: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Liberal lawmakers argued that agents should be mandated to meet the minimum standards expected of other law enforcement agencies, such as requiring them to identify themselves, operate without masks, and obtain judicial warrants before forcing their way onto private property.

That was apparently too great an ask of the Republican caucus, which vehemently opposed the measure and, ultimately, found a way to force the funding package without its Democratic colleagues.

But even this stopgap may not be enough to avert another potential government shutdown: Both parties will need to work together in the coming months to pass government funding measures by a September 30 deadline. Otherwise, they risk stalling federal options mere weeks before a fateful midterm election—a threat that both parties are attempting to use to their advantage.

Yet the massive spending bill is effectively supplemental funding: Last summer, Congress provided nearly $140 billion in immigration enforcement funding for the two agencies via Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act. That virtually tripled ICE’s budget, jumping its appropriations from roughly $9.6 billion to $30 billion (at cost to programs such as Medicaid, which was gutted in the same stroke).

Prior to Trump’s second administration, the annual budgets for both agencies totaled about $17 billion.

The Trump administration is restricting which reporters are allowed to cover June 14’s UFC fight on the White House lawn, giving the mixed martial arts company control over who can get in.

The White House Correspondents’ Association told its members in an email last week that only the White House press pool was allowed, with other outlets barred from the White House grounds unless the UFC gives them press credentials, The Washington Post reports.

“The WHCA has been pushing back on this, but we have been told there will be various Secret Service access points across campus and that the [White House North Lawn] is being used as a staging area for the fighters and UFC filming zone, and the [White House] is standing firm,” WHCA President Weija Jiang wrote in the email.

Jang also said that the UFC was only allowing a “very limited number” of journalists to be on the South Lawn during the fight. Other journalists would have to watch the fight on viewing screens at the Ellipse Park outside the White House or at the JW Marriott hotel. Reporters won’t be able to access their work spaces, the White House briefing room, or “Pebble Beach,” an area on the lawn used for TV appearances during the fight.

“If you have not received a UFC press credential, you will need to utilize other public spaces in the area for any live shots,” Jiang wrote in the email.

The move is very unusual, as the White House has historically handled press credentialing for larger events. But a circus on the White House lawn is also unprecedented, with taxpayers footing the still-untold bill to entertain an audience full of Trump’s friends, the UFC’s guests, and military personnel, who have to pay their own way. The whole thing is an expensive spectacle for Trump’s birthday.