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Gas Prices, Mortgage Rates and Inflation Expose the Felon's/GOP's Economic Lies

You know Republicans are desperate when their main response to Democrat candidates is to describe them all with a broad brush as being "communists." Yet that is where the Felon's failed policies of tariffs and trade wars with one time allies and the ongoing Iran war - a war that may yet further restrict oil flow from the Middle East as the Saudis shut down a major pipeline - have revealed the Felon's lies about how he would fix the economy on "day one."  Gas prices are high and likely headed higher, mortgage rates are up and slowing an already cooling housing market, and inflation and other interest rates are putting further strain on American consumers and families.  Locally, we see incumbent Jen Kiggans - who lies as much as the Felon - claiming she gave everyday Virginians tax cuts and laughably claiming she focuses on bipartisan legislative efforts.  The truth is that the tax cuts she voted for largely benefited the very wealthy and votes close to 100% with the Felon. Kiggans is emblematic of many other Republicans who sold their souls to the Felon and now are left telling lies to constituents in the hope they can save their political careers. At some point even MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers cannot ignore the rising cost of virtually everything. A piece in the New York Times looks at economic reality:

With less than two months until the midterm elections, [the Felon] President Trump commenced a final push this week to preserve his Republican majority in Congress, arguing that the United States under G.O.P. control had brought prices “way, way down.”

But for many families and businesses, the economy appeared to be on far shakier footing by Friday. Fuel prices soared, mortgage costs climbed and inflation registered uncomfortably high, testing the public’s patience with Mr. Trump’s frequent assurances that the country is on the right track.

The contrast underscored the political and economic stakes for [the Felon] Mr. Trump, who may soon face the wrath of an electorate long spurned by promises in Washington to lower the cost of living. As November draws closer, prices have risen under the president’s leadership, driven largely by an agenda that has included two years of punishing trade brinkmanship and a prolonged war with Iran.

The consequences were evident in the latest gauge of the Consumer Price Index, released on Friday. The report showed that prices rose at an annual pace of 3.4 percent in August, which increased the odds of the Federal Reserve’s raising interest rates next week.

The data came on the same day that a separate, long-running survey from the University of Michigan found that consumer sentiment dropped sharply this month. In that report, Americans expressed new worries that the economy was sputtering, and that inflation would continue to rise.

Over two days of speeches at his party’s midterm convention in Dallas, the president labored to convince Americans that Republicans had achieved “tremendous economic success.”

For [the Felon] Mr. Trump, the fight with inflation has proved so pernicious that it has overshadowed even the few bright spots in the economy. Despite nearly two years of policy tumult, the labor market has remained strong, the economy is growing and the country is witnessing a boom around artificial intelligence, one that has generally delighted financial markets.

But those positives have not always been obvious or tangible to voters, who have suffered through years of compounding costs that peaked during the coronavirus pandemic. Those financial strains continued into August, when prices rose faster than hourly wages on a year-over-year basis for the fifth straight month.

“The economy is performing well, but this isn’t buoying consumer attitudes,” . . . “Rather, they’re squarely focused on rising prices and interest rates eating into purchasing power.” In an interview, Mr. Klachkin added that he did not see inflation “coming down at a meaningful pace any time soon.” He cited a range of risks, including uncertainty around the tariffs in Mr. Trump’s trade war and the war with Iran.

Both of those conflicts worsened this week, a period that was not captured in the latest inflation report. But Americans still felt the consequences. The return to hostilities in Iran, for example, sent the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, to $110 per barrel briefly on Friday.

Nationally, gas averaged nearly $4.30 per gallon by Friday, according to AAA — well over a dollar more than a year ago. Still worse was the cost of diesel, which topped $6 per gallon, setting a record that could deeply affect shipping and transportation.

But there was no sign this week that the war with Iran was close to finished. Even [the Felon] Mr. Trump acknowledged at one point that high oil and gas prices could persist until “right after the election,” though he predicted costs would fall quickly, contrary to warnings from economists.

The renewed energy shock created more headaches for the Fed and its new chairman, Kevin M. Warsh. As the Fed eyes a rate increase to bring inflation into check, [the Felon] Mr. Trump has redoubled his demands for significant rate cuts. Absent a steep reduction, the president even threatened last week that he could cut off all trade with countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. Rates are now in a range of 3.25 to 3.75 percent.

On Wall Street, the economic headwinds also helped to push up the cost of the government’s own borrowing all week. That came in the form of higher yields, which topped 4.9 percent on 10-year bonds, the highest level seen since 2023.

The rise carried significant implications, particularly for homeowners, since mortgage rates closely track yields on those bonds. The average rate on a 30-year loan reached around 6.8 percent last week, according to Michael Fratantoni, the chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, a 15-month high.

At the start of the year, Mr. Trump had promised an aggressive plan to lower housing costs. Since then, a confluence of factors has sent mortgage rates skyrocketing, and led Mr. Fratantoni to predict on Friday that it could reach “at or above 7 percent” soon.

Add to that [the Felon's] Mr. Trump’s new sales pitch to voters, promising $5,000 to Americans if Republicans prevail in the midterms — a plan that Mr. Loper estimated could cost $1.2 trillion.

That price tag, on top of existing fiscal woes, would probably “lead to greater inflation and higher interest rates,” he said.

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Trump’s Fantasy Dream World in Dallas

Attendance at the Republican mid-term convention was anything but a full house, but that did not stop the Felon from claiming convention hall was packed. As one would expect, the Felon lied more or less non-stop - CNN complied his 16 biggest lies - and the event was more or less a worship service for the Felon and his insatiable ego. The affair ignored the Felon's terrible poll numbers and the increased attacks in the ongoing war with Iran that have driven energy prices and gasoline prices at the pump to new highs.  Outside of the Kool-Aid drinking faithful and self-prostituting GOP elected officials, one has to wonder whether anyone else believes the endless lies.  For Democrats the event put the spotlight on the Felon and his unpopularity and the main task for Democrats is to turn out those who sat out the last two elections either out of laziness or an assumption that Democrats would win without their votes. The other wildcard will be whether the Iranians and their Houthis allies - who according to Reuters have gained control of the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that is at the mouth of the Red Sea - will take further actions to drive oil and ga prices even higher as election day approaches.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at the fantasy world on display in Dallas:

[The Felon] President Trump began his midterm-convention address last night by casting his spell on the crowd in Dallas. “This place is packed,” he announced from the stage, pointing to the back of the American Airlines Center, where everyone could see hundreds of empty seats. Those who looked up saw thousands more, whole sections without any people at all. But the crowd cheered anyway. A deal had been struck. Reality would be ignored.

After more than a decade in politics, Trump is facing his last great electoral test—his popularity is waning, his party is down in the polls, Republicans could lose control in the U.S. House and maybe the Senate. He demanded greater complicity minutes later, seeming to invent a person in the back of the room. “He’s leaving for the bathroom. He’ll be back in two minutes,” he said, pointing. “They’ll take a picture of his seat while he’s gone. And they’ll say Trump did not fill up the arena.”

Laughter joined with the cheers for their political wizard. It was working. Trump could say that he had passed “the largest tax cut in the history of our country,” even if that was not the case. He could claim to have won the presidency three times, when he’s actually done so twice. He could describe the recent past as “the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency,” despite six in 10 voters saying he had made the economy worse. He could promise to pay every adult U.S. citizen $5,000 if Republicans held both legislative houses, as if that sum did not amount to about 80 percent of the federal discretionary budget.

“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” he said. “I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. Just one more time.”

The night was all about Trump. He was the alpha and omega, the focus and the solution. Attendees wore pictures of the president on lanyards around their necks, the ticket for entry to the arena. VIP boxes were stocked with Trump was right about everything hats. Oversize photos of the president lined the hallways. . . . When each speaker dropped Trump’s name, it was cause for riotous celebration.

Until now, national political conventions have been held only during presidential-election years, when delegates from each state gather to select their nominee. In the 1970s, the gatherings shifted from smoke-filled rooms for party business to televised infomercials for the candidates. Trump this year created a simulation of a simulation.  . . . The convention-in-name-only was for, by, and about one man—who, importantly, cannot be a candidate for president again, according to the U.S. Constitution.

“The only way to keep dangerous, radical, weird out of the Senate is a united Republican Party standing with our president, Donald J. Trump,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, bellowed from the stage. “Stand for the president, Donald J. Trump. This is a battle for the heart of our nation.

No president has tried something like this before. None has had so much money to spend on themselves at this point in a presidency. None has chosen to make the midterms a referendum on themselves while polling so badly. . . . . The strategist in chief has bet that turning out Trump voters, the ones who typically stay home when he is not on the ballot, is the only path forward. This is why the first ads he bought for the cycle were not about any candidates who are running this year, but about himself. This was why his latest show was a celebration of the unlimited possibility of his incantations.

Outside Trump’s curated fantasy world, not everything has gone according to plan. Trump’s political strategist, James Blair, announced after the off-year elections in 2025 that the president would be “very, very focused on prices and cost of living.” White House aides told us in the new year that the pivot would come after Trump scratched his itch for another confrontation with Iran. By May, as that conflict dragged on, Trump advisers told us quietly that if it had not receded, along with gas prices, by Labor Day, there would be trouble.

Two weeks ago, multiple Trump advisers told us they expected the kinetic part of the Iran war to mostly cease in September, clearing the way for lower gas prices. None of that has happened. Missiles are still flying in the Strait of Hormuz. Since the 2025 elections, gas prices have risen 39 percent, from $3.08 to $4.28; 30-year mortgage rates have increased 8 percent; electricity prices have gone up more than 4 percent. Charlie Cook, a political analyst and the dean emeritus of legislative-election handicapping, says that Republicans should brace themselves for a tough result. “The worst-case scenario for the GOP and best for Democrats today would have sounded ludicrous eight months ago,” he wrote recently. “The most plausible today resembles Republicans’ nightmare scenario at the beginning of the year.”

[F]ew Republicans still pretend off-camera that they will be able to maintain control of the House. Narrow Democratic control of the Senate, once outlandish, could be within reach. On the sidelines of the convention in Dallas, strategists muttered about recent polling in House races that shows jump balls where Trump won by double digits in 2024.

The outstanding question is whether Democratic candidates can emerge from the dim shadow of President Biden. . . . .On the whole, Democrats are delighted by Trump’s strategy—to put front and center a man whose unpopularity fires up their voters and further alienates the newly skeptical. “If the Democrats have a great year, it will be because they got their base out to vote in large numbers,” Rich Thau, the moderator of the Swing Voter Project, told us. “It won’t be because they magically converted these swing voters into Democratic senatorial and gubernatorial voters.”

His economic approval rating this summer, according to Quinnipiac University, stood at 34 percent, down from 53 percent on the eve of the last midterm elections on his watch, in 2018. The 2024 presidential election hinged on the rising cost of living, and after Republicans won the trifecta—the White House and both chambers of Congress—the expectation was that Trump and his party would fix what many still view as Biden’s economy. “I want to emphasize that this wasn’t to just slightly improve things,” David Winston, a Republican strategist who works with congressional leadership, told us. “They viewed a substantive outcome as what they were looking for.” It has not come to pass.

But no comments mattered more than Trump’s. He talked for nearly two hours, a rolicking, weaving address that only occasionally stuck to the teleprompter. It ended where he began. “Please pretend that I’m running, and get out and vote on November 3 or sooner,” he said. “Because, in actuality, I really am running.” In actuality, he is not. Or maybe he is, in a way. His crowd remained in their seats to the end. The room, at times, felt packed to the rafters.

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Canada and Iran Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel

At the GOP mid-term "convention" in Dallas the Felon promisedthe  Iran war would be over immediately after the mid-term elections.  He also promised $5,000 checks to American citizens if Republicans maintain control of both houses of Congress. The first promise ignores the reality that the Iranians have a say as to if and when the war ends. The only way an immediate end to the war could come about would be for the U.S. to basically unilaterally concede defeat and try to move on. The second promise is ridiculous on its face, but no doubt the most fervent Kool-Aid drinkers will believe it.  Indeed, the Felon's behavior also ignores the reality that both Canada and Iran seem to recognize the Felon's Achilles heel: in both the U.S./Canada trade war and in the Iran war all they need to do is keep the price of oil and gasoline high or rising even more and, in the case of Canada, target states crucial to the GOP effort to retain control of Congress.  This leaves the GOP stuck with fear mongering against Democrats and bragging about tax cuts for the super wealthy. As a piece in The New Republic lays out both Canada and Iran have ways to hit back and cause economic pain that could drive voters to abandon the GOP and its insane leader.  Here are article highlights:

Canadian officials aren’t being coy about it: The retaliatory tariffs imposed Tuesday against the United States were deliberately chosen to hurt vulnerable Republicans before the midterm elections. “We are picking products that will target states in the U.S.,” Mélanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, said late last month while announcing the tariffs. “We’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure, and that’s why we think it’s ‌the right thing to do right now.” Canada, fed up with Donald Trump’s bullying since he returned to office last year, is hitting the president where he’s most vulnerable —namely the slim congressional majorities that have allowed him to govern with more or less total impunity.

The tariffs particularly focus on vehicles, fish, and dairy, and will hit states with key particularly hard in states with key elections, like Maine, Michigan, and Kansas. There are early indications that they’re working. Nearly two-thirds of voters in Maine and Michigan view the trade war negatively, according to a CNN poll released on Wednesday. . . . But they’re hardly surprising. Trump has repeatedly attacked the U.S.’s northern neighbor, a close ally and biggest trading partner, and even mused about making Canada the “51st state” (an odd riff, given it would almost certainly be a blue one).

These tit-for-tat tariffs are also just desserts, however. Trump has spent much of his second term flouting the longtime convention of U.S. administrations avoiding direct involvement in other countries’ elections. He has endorsed right-wing and far-right candidates and parties in Argentina, Hungary, Brazil, and, most recently, Germany. He has used sanctions against Brazil to try to help spring his his pal and former President Jair Bolsonaro from prison, and sent Cabinet officials to Hungary to aid Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s reelection  campaign. He has used tariffs to try to pressure voters to back his preferred candidates . . . Now, Republicans in tough races will face an even steeper climb—and they’ll have to deal with the kinds of headaches that Trump has tried to inflict on liberal candidates in other countries.

Canada is not the only foreign nation whose actions will affect the midterms. Although no Iranian official has made as explicit a comment as Joly’s, there has been speculation for months that many of the nation’s actions in the stop-start Iran war, particularly those that lead to spikes in already skyrocketing energy prices, are intended to damage GOP chances in the upcoming midterms. “The Iranians are not dumb,” longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove told Fox News in late June. “They know that the fall campaign starts in earnest on Labor Day. I would not be surprised to see them attempt to have an influence on the outcome by creating problems in mid-August and causing oil prices to rise and uncertainty to grow.”

That is exactly what has happened, with strikes resuming in recent weeks and Iran now looking to escalate further, according to The New York Times, which reported Wednesday that “Iran’s leadership believes that now may be the best moment to raise the stakes, ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November when an unpopular war could hurt Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.”

Still, Canada marks the most pronounced and deliberate—and Trumpian—attempt to punish Trump by targeting the midterms. The Canadians, too, seem to know that the fall campaign starts in earnest on Labor Day. And vulnerable Republicans are already reeling. “This is not China we’re dealing with; it’s Canada—our best friend, a country with whom our economy is completely intertwined,” Maine’s incumbent Republican senator, Susan Collins, said last month. . . . it’s hard not to see the entire issue as the president shooting his party in the foot—an avoidable debacle, like the Iran war. Now it’s one that may very well sink his party.

The irony of all of this is that much of Trump’s attempts at interference failed. He went all-in backing his close allies in Brazil and Hungary, and both failed to accomplish what he wanted—Bolsonaro is still serving a 27-year sentence for election interference, and Orban was defeated, ending a 16-year stretch in power. But Trump’s greatest faceplant may have come in Canada. Shortly after he won the 2024 election, he began to attack the nation’s liberal government, first with “51st state” mockery and then with tariffs. It failed spectacularly. Canadian voters had appeared ready to elect a conservative government, but instead kept the liberals in power. That backlash swept Mark Carney into power as prime minister, and he has emerged as a persistent thorn in Trump’s side—a vocal critic who is attempting to rally America’s estranged allies to be less dependent on the U.S. Now, Carney seems to be on the verge of doing something Trump couldn’t: Help to install a more favorable government abroad. 

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