Five Things You Should Know

Today’s top headlines.

Good morning, everyone! No top story for you today, but here are five headlines you should know about as you start your Tuesday…

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1. Inflation holds steady. Consumer prices rose 2.7% in July compared to a year earlier, according to a Labor Department report this morning, remaining at the exact same level as was recorded in June.

Some categories did see notable price increases, including eggs (up 16.4% since last July) and roasted coffee (up 14.8%), although they were partially balanced out by a drop in gas prices (which are down 9.5% from a year earlier).

President Trump’s latest round of tariffs went into effect on August 7, which means they wouldn’t be reflected in this report.

Speaking of Labor Department data…

2. Trump’s BLS pick. Trump announced Monday that he plans to nominate conservative economist E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer earlier this month.

Antoni, who is the Heritage Foundation’s chief economist and contributed to the organization’s Project 2025 agenda, has been a leading critic of the BLS, particularly of the agency’s practice of revising its jobs numbers. Trump ally Steve Bannon was promoting Antoni for the post, which will require Senate confirmation.

Read Friday’s newsletter for more details on how the BLS jobs numbers are put together, and why they’re so frequently revised:

Should You Trust the Next Jobs Report?

3. Another China pause. Tariffs as high as 145% were set to snap into place against China today — until Washington and Beijing agreed on yet another reprieve from their ongoing trade war. After multiple rounds of negotiations in Stockholm, President Trump signed an executive order Monday delaying the heightened China tariffs from going into effect for another 90 days. The new deadline is November 10.

4. The latest from DC. President Trump took to the White House briefing room on Monday to announce his plans for Washington, D.C., including taking control of the local police department and deploying National Guard troops as part of a plan to reduce crime in the city.

According to the Washington Post, the administration is considering a broader plan to deploy National Guard troops to American cities, through a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” that would be composed of 600 troops who would be on standby at all times, so they could deploy to a city facing civil unrest in as little as one hour. It is unclear how serious the proposal is, or whether top officials have reviewed it yet.

5. Trump in the courts. I wrote last month that President Trump has largely proved successful in his attempts to expand his “vertical” powers (his authority to fire personnel and change policy within the executive branch), which had mostly received approval from the Supreme Court.

But when Trump has racked up losses in his efforts to increase his “horizontal” powers (impinging on the authority of the other branches of government), he mostly hasn’t filed emergency appeals with the Supreme Court — skewing his win-loss record before the court to seem more favorable than it is, because most of his most aggressive attempts to expand executive power have yet to come before the justices.

Where Is The Supreme Court’s Red Line?

In the last few days, we’ve seen two more examples of Trump being dealt losses in the “horizontal” realm — both by Republican-appointed judges, again suggesting that this category of power grabs won’t necessarily be regarded as kindly as his attempts to wrest control of the branch he already leads.

On Saturday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Trump administration to restore a public database — mandated by law — outlining how federal funding is distributed. “To grant the Executive [the relief it sought] in this separation-of-powers standoff would effectively cut the Congress’ purse strings,” Judge Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote in her opinion.

Then, on Monday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich — a Trump appointee — ordered the Trump administration to disburse funds that had been congressional appropriated to the National Endowment for Democracy. “Record evidence clearly shows that the defendants are withholding funding for impermissible policy reasons,” Friedrich wrote.