Late last year, the White House announced that President Donald Trump would kick off 2026 by touring the nation to promote his economic agenda, with a focus on affordability. Instead, he launched a war attacking Iran — driving gas prices higher and pushing overall inflation up even further.

Now, with major campaign promises unfulfilled, and six months to go before the midterms, Trump’s economic agenda is collapsing.

He never lowered prices “on day one,” and Americans’ electric bills were not cut in half within his first six months. Six in ten Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy.

The price of gas has increased roughly 45 percent from when Trump was sworn in as president last year, but the White House is trying to spin that as a positive. The national average hit $4.55 per gallon on Thursday, per AAA, up from $3.13 the week he was inaugurated.

On Wednesday, Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, declared that rising consumer spending — including on gasoline — proves the economy is thriving, even as Americans put those costs on their credit cards. Despite Hassett’s claims that Americans “have so much more money in their pockets,” late last month, Gallup reported that 55 percent of Americans say their finances are getting worse.

Trump’s in-office economic proposals have not fared any better.

READ MORE: Top Republican Warns Against Turning Supreme Court Justices’ Testimony Into a ‘Circus’

“The biggest piece of housing legislation in a generation has languished on Capitol Hill because of lawmakers’ objections to a provision negotiated by the White House,” Bloomberg News reports. Trump has also abandoned a proposed 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates, following backlash from banks and skepticism from economists.

Bloomberg notes that “two executive orders, one aimed at easing access to mortgage credit and another that seeks to streamline regulations for builders, are not yet fully implemented and experts say they would only help marginally.”

A White House official told Bloomberg there are plans to try to bring down the price of some grocery store items, and said that the administration is negotiating with drug manufacturers to lower prices.

The administration also touted a “major housing announcement” related to new credit-score models for housing, but, Bloomberg notes, “those changes won’t translate to significant savings for consumers, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum.”

“The cost of credit scores as a part of the purchase price of the house is nothing,” he said.

The cost of buying a home has increased. By buying $200 million in mortgage bonds, the administration briefly brought mortgage rates down to below 6 percent, but Trump’s Iran war escalated those costs, and today the interest on a 30-year mortgage is 6.3%.

Trump last year floated 50-year mortgages as a means to lower interest rates, but that proposal also went nowhere.

With six months until Election Day, the Iran war still in focus and gas prices still rising, voters say Trump has yet to deliver.

READ MORE: ‘Outrageous’: DOJ’s Push in $83 Million Carroll Case Fuels Cries of Corruption

Image via Reuters 

For the first time in seven years, Congress is asking Supreme Court justices to testify on their budget request, but the top Republican is warning against turning the appearances into a “circus.”

The Court wants an additional $14.6 million for security, and is slated to have a budget of $207 million — an increase of nearly $44 million, according to Punchbowl News. That comes on top of a last-minute $30 million appropriated in January for security, Bloomberg Law reported.

Punchbowl News’ Dave Clark reports that the hearings “used to be routine.” Citing “political tensions,” Clark says these are now “more intense.”

The request for justices to appear is bipartisan. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government panel chairman, is working to schedule appearances for the justices. The Committee’s Ranking Member, Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), has been calling for the justices to testify.

READ MORE: ‘Major Fireworks’ Ahead — Alito and Jackson Sniping Rocks Supreme Court: Report

Rep. DeLauro says that Justice Elena Kagan “told her the justices are open to appearing,” Punchbowl reported, but the Committee’s chairman, Tom Cole (R-OK), wants to ensure the justices are not put on the spot,” Punchbowl reported.

“It would be good for the American public, and I think it’d be good for the two parties, but not if one side or the other turned into some sort of circus,” Cole said.

In 2019, the last time justices testified on the Supreme Court’s budget, Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan appeared, SCOTUSblog reported, noting that “they also fielded questions about cameras in the courtroom, law clerk diversity, partisan attacks on the judiciary, and the #MeToo movement.”

READ MORE: ‘Outrageous’: DOJ’s Push in $83 Million Carroll Case Fuels Cries of Corruption

Image via Shutterstock

MS NOW producer Steve Benen says the FBI faces serious questions following the reported raid on the offices of Virginia Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, because “the hyperpartisan leaders of the Justice Department and the FBI have made it impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Benen finds multiple issues with the execution of what is reportedly a search warrant, including that Fox News was on the scene reporting almost immediately — an issue raised by online commentators as well.

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein quipped: “some pretty remarkable instincts by Fox News to have its London correspondent placed in Portsmouth, Virginia right in time for the FBI raid of Louise Lucas.”

The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol warned of an “awful lot of credulous quoting of ‘federal law enforcement’ sources in the coverage of the Louise Lucas matter. Given the manifest politicization of Trump’s DOJ and FBI, why should media agree to quote any of these sources on background?”

“Not to put too fine a point on this,” Benen continued, “but this is why we don’t politicize federal law enforcement. Because even if the underlying case is legitimate, it’s impossible to avoid the larger context and the degree to which this looks like a retaliatory investigation against a Democrat, launched by a weaponized department known for its retaliatory investigations against Democrats.“

READ MORE: ‘Major Fireworks’ Ahead — Alito and Jackson Sniping Rocks Supreme Court: Report

Benen slams both the FBI and DOJ, saying they “have, over the last 16 months, set their collective credibility on fire, corrupting federal law enforcement to a degree unseen in generations. There have simply been too many abuses, launched too often, against too many Trump targets.”

He notes that Senator Lucas is the face of the Democrats’ successful redistricting of Virginia. Benen calls it “something very different, although possibly related.”

Benen also points to an Associated Press report:

“Though the exact nature of the investigation was unclear, the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump.”

He adds that he has “not seen or heard a word about any of the evidence against Lucas, if such evidence exists,” but allows that it is “entirely possible that investigators have worked in good faith.”

READ MORE: White House: Credit Card Spending on Gas ‘Through the Roof’

Image via Reuters