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Economy
'Betrayal of the Working Class': Trump War of Choice in Iran Pushes Inflation to New 3-Year High
"This isn’t just ‘bad vibes’ about the economy," said one economist. "There is real pain."
Jun 10, 2026
President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign vowed to bring down the cost of living starting on the very first day of his presidency.
However, data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Wednesday showed overall prices in May posted a yearly increase of 4.2%, marking the highest rate of inflation since 2023. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, posted a yearly increase of 2.9%, the highest rate since September 2023.
Energy prices, which have skyrocketed since Trump launched an illegal war of choice with Iran in late February, were the primary driver of inflation last month, posting a 23.5% yearly increase from May 2025.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that inflation last month was "so high that it's erasing all wage gains," which posted a yearly gain of 3.4% in May.
"Americans are getting squeezed financially," Long explained. "This isn't just 'bad vibes' about the economy. There is real pain, especially for middle-class and lower-income households. It's tough because so many basic items are seeing sizable price increases: gas, electricity, food, medical care."
"Americans are getting squeezed financially," Long explained. "This isn't just 'bad vibes' about the economy. There is real pain, especially for middle-class and lower-income households. It's tough because so many basic items are seeing sizable price increases: gas, electricity, food, medical care."
New York Times economics reporter Ben Casselman similarly noted the impact that rising energy costs, which are a direct result of Trump's Iran war, have had on Americans' earnings.
"The recent surge in energy prices has wiped out more than a year's worth of wage gains," Casselman wrote in a social media post. "Average hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, are now back to exactly where they were when Trump returned to office."
Economist Steve Rattner posted a chart showing how energy prices exploded after Trump attacked Iran, which retaliated by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial shipping.
"An entirely self-inflicted wound caused by Trump’s war on Iran," Rattner remarked.
The inflation story in one chart: gas +40% y/y, energy +24%.
An entirely self-inflicted wound caused by Trump’s War on Iran. pic.twitter.com/LnM5AKkXeA
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) June 10, 2026
Charlie Bilello, chief marketing strategist at Creative Planning Investor, said the latest inflation numbers were so concerning that the US Federal Reserve "should be hiking rates" at its next meeting.
A decision to hike rates would likely anger Trump, who frequently pressured former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash rates.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) responded to the inflation report by taking a shot at Trump for his economic mismanagement, including his tariffs on imported goods that have raised costs for US consumers.
"Trump promised repeatedly that he would 'end inflation' starting on day one but by almost every measure, he's failed to achieve those goals," Beyer said. "And far from lowering costs, his tariffs have only made the affordability crisis worse for the American people."
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said the new data makes clear that "high prices are here to stay."
"This month’s CPI print offers no relief to working families, who are being forced to pinch pennies and tighten belts in Trump’s economy," said Jacquez. "Working Americans no longer have any breathing room in their budgets and are dipping into their savings while the president spends millions in taxpayer funds to attend the NBA Finals. Trump’s betrayal of the working class has done lasting damage to our economy.”
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Former Governors Call Trump SNAP Cuts a 'Ticking Time Bomb' as Hunger Surges
"SNAP participation is already declining at alarming rates, with over 3.5 million people leaving" the program since the passage of the GOP budget law, the Democratic senators said.
Jun 09, 2026
Several US senators who formerly served as their states' governors on Tuesday warned that the cuts to food aid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are a "ticking time bomb" for millions of Americans.
In a joint statement, Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Angus King (I-Maine) drew on their experiences as governors to outline how the changes made to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the GOP's 2025 budget law would soon handcuff state governments' ability to deliver essential assistance.
"Starting October 2027, most states will be required to pay 5% to 15% of SNAP benefit costs for the first time," the senators said. "The Congressional Budget Office projects this will shift more than $35 billion from the federal government to states between 2028 and 2034, with states expected to respond by cutting another $7 billion in food assistance."
The senators said that the GOP's SNAP cuts mean states "will be forced to raise taxes, cut education, healthcare, or transportation, or restrict access to SNAP itself," with some being "forced to drop the program entirely."
They then pointed to numbers showing that "SNAP participation is already declining at alarming rates, with over 3.5 million people leaving" the program since the passage of the GOP budget law.
The senators' warnings about the impact of the SNAP cuts came shortly after a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showing food insecurity in the US reaching its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New York Fed researchers said their study found "a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children,” as well as “a contemporaneous increase in pessimism among the same groups, along with a sharp decline in job-finding expectations."
Despite this, Trump-appointed US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins last month described millions of people losing their access to SNAP as a positive sign that "America is back in business."
When confronted by Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) about this during a House Agriculture Committee hearing last week, Rollins baselessly claimed that all of the people who had been removed from SNAP had been added to the program fraudulently, including “200,000 dead people.”
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Sanders Makes Clear That He and Trump Have Different Ideas When It Comes to AI
"Do I have great confidence that Trump will do that right thing? No, I don't."
Jun 09, 2026
With President Donald Trump seemingly open to the idea of having the federal government take a stake in major artificial intelligence firms, Sen. Bernie Sanders emphasized on Monday that he and the president have two very different visions when it comes to regulating AI.
During an interview at the National Press Club, CBS News' Robert Costa asked Sanders (I-Vt.) to comment on Trump last week showing interest in the government partially owning Big Tech firms whose AI models could potentially disrupt American society in the coming years.
Sanders credited Trump with having sharp political instincts on the matter, theorizing that he understands the deep unease and anxiety that people feel about AI, particularly the fear that it could put millions of Americans out of work while benefiting Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
"So as a politician, I think that's where he's coming from," Sanders said. "Do I have great confidence that Trump will do the right thing? No."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders): "Trump is many things, but he is a good politician." pic.twitter.com/2iGu0kXZBa
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 9, 2026
Trump so far has only hinted at plans for a public stake in AI firms and hasn't released any concrete plans.
In contrast, Sanders earlier this month wrote an editorial for The New York Times in which he proposed creating an AI-based sovereign wealth fund that would impose a one-time, 50% tax on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI behemoths, paid in the form of stock.
Sanders argued that the wealth fund was necessary to "give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology” and “guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us—not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer."
Noting that AI companies' large language models (LLMs) were only made possible with the inputs of centuries' worth of human knowledge and writing, Sanders said that it's only reasonable that the public have a strong degree of control over how such technology is used.
"When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth," Sanders wrote. "The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit."
Progressive economist Dean Baker on Tuesday pushed back on Sanders' idea for an AI sovereign wealth fund, in particular arguing that it may be unwise for the government to create a wealth fund based on what might be a wildly overvalued asset.
"Most likely the AI sector is in a massive bubble," cautioned Baker. "An AI sovereign wealth fund is likely to end up being a mechanism to shovel yet more money to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of the right-wing billionaire gang. We have already given this crew enough money."
Instead, Baker proposed handling the potential negative consequences of AI disruption through a mix of higher corporate income taxes, stricter antitrust enforcement, and shorter average work weeks.
"We have all the tools needed deal with an AI productivity boom; we just lack the political will to use them," Baker concluded. "The sovereign wealth fund idea is a massive leap in the wrong direction."
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GOP Blasted for 'Handout to the Superwealthy' Private Jet Owners Slipped Into Air Safety Bill
"Oh look—Republicans helping private-jet billionaires avoid paying taxes," said one Senate Democrat. "If only they worked that hard for consumers."
Jun 08, 2026
Nearly a year after congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump made private jets tax-deductible in last summer's budget package, they're again trying to push through legislation that would benefit people rich enough to own personal planes.
Members of Congress have been working on an air safety bill since a military helicopter collided with a passenger plane over the Potomac River last year, killing dozens of people. Early Monday, Politico reported on "a little-noticed" provision on private jets that was slipped into legislation passed by the House of Representatives in April, but not included in the Senate version.
The debated provision stems from the Federal Aviation Administration's 2020 requirement that aircraft adopt a satellite-based tracking technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out.
"Private aircraft owners go to great lengths to hide their aircraft from us," Jeff Prang, the assessor for California's Los Angeles County, told Politico. "This data helps us to identify where those aircraft are located."
Prang said that since the beginning of the year, the data has helped his office find an additional 1,000 aircraft in the county, with a total assessed value of $3.5 billion. Private jets in California are subject to sales tax and a 1% annual property tax, so "that's $35 million in local property taxes that aircraft owners had been avoiding," he explained.
The House provision states that the data "may not be used by any person, government agency, or other entity to identify aircraft for the purpose of obtaining revenue from the owner or operator of such aircraft" without permission.
If passed, billionaires will "get to fly private and pay NO taxes," Americans for Tax Fairness Americans warned on social media Monday. "This is a handout to the superwealthy—and we're going to pay for it."
Also responding to reporting, John Loftus, editor at large of the right-wing Daily Caller, suggested the policy could harm Republicans who are at risk of losing control of one or both chambers of Congress in the November midterm elections.
"It's annoying and wrong that private jet owners dodge taxes. This is a great political issue for Democrats because they like to portray those with money as responsible for all ills in American society—$35 million in tax revenue for California is a drop in the ocean (and would likely get wasted anyway)," Loftus wrote. "Republican lawmakers trying to carve out this loophole in a midterm election makes them look sneaky and unconcerned with the issue on 99% of the population's mind: inflation."
Although Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is not up for reelection this cycle, he, too, noted the reporting: "Oh look—Republicans helping private-jet billionaires avoid paying taxes. If only they worked that hard for consumers."
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