Hey everybody, happy Tuesday. The stories we are covering today all point in one direction. Things continue to get worse for the Trump administration, with inflation soaring to a three-year high and the President's approval rating in the gutter. Plus, Pete Hegseth is investigating a sitting senator (again), the Trump phone is starting to look like a $59 million scam, and a Republican senator just introduced a bill he called "one of the dumbest things he ever heard of" three years ago.
Ok, let’s get to it.
1. Inflation Just Hit 3.8 Percent, the Highest It’s Been in Three Years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday morning that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.6 percent in April and 3.8 percent over the past twelve months, the highest annual reading since May 2023.
Energy drove the spike. The BLS reported that energy prices alone rose 3.8 percent in April and accounted for more than 40 percent of the monthly increase. Food prices climbed another 3.2 percent on the year. The underlying cause is not a mystery. Gas prices are up roughly 50 percent since the Iran war began on February 28, and Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has kept roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply offline for more than two months.
This is the first taste of what the war is costing Americans at home. Bank of America announced after the report that it no longer expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at all in 2026, pushing its first rate cut forecast all the way to the second half of 2027. That means continued high borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, and credit cards through the rest of this year and likely well into next.
Inflation is now the top concern of American voters, and 63 percent of them blame President Trump directly for the price spike. Sixty-nine percent disapprove of his handling of inflation overall.
Last week, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 48.2, the lowest reading since the survey began in 1952. That is worse than the 2008 financial crisis, worse than the depths of the pandemic, and worse than the post-Covid inflation spike. Here is how the President’s top economic advisor explained that on CNBC:
So, to translate: Americans are not actually struggling. They are just overwhelmed by the sheer pace of winning. I’m sure that makes you all feel better about things, now doesn’t it?
Trump leaves for a state visit with Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, where Iran will be central to the agenda. Watch whether oil prices respond to anything that comes out of that summit, because nothing else on the table is going to fix this in the short term.
Kevin Warsh is set to be confirmed by the Senate this week to take over the Federal Reserve from Jerome Powell. The administration spent the better part of a year pressuring the Fed to cut rates. The Fed is now boxed in by a war the same administration started, and the new chair is going to inherit the worst inflation reading in three years on his first day.
2. Don Jr. and Eric Trump Took $59 Million in Deposits For Golden Trump Phones Last Summer. Now Customers Are Furious At Them.
In June 2025, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump stood on stage at Trump Tower and announced Trump Mobile, a new wireless company built around a gold-colored smartphone called the T1.
Eric Trump went on Benny Johnson’s podcast to tell supporters exactly what they were paying for: a phone that would eventually be built in the United States, backed by an all-American customer service operation:
But the “Made in the USA” language quietly disappeared from the Trump Mobile website, replaced with vague phrases like “designed with American values.” By February, company executives confirmed that the phone would actually be manufactured overseas, with only final assembly of about ten components happening in Miami. Industry analysts have since identified the likely manufacturer as Wingtech, a Chinese company owned by Luxshare.
Now the third shoe has dropped. Last month, Trump Mobile quietly updated the fine print on its preorder page to say that the $100 deposit “does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase.” In plain English, the company that took $59 million from customers just confirmed in writing that they may never get a phone, may never get their money back, and have no binding contract to enforce.
Watch the FTC, because Elizabeth Warren and ten Senate Democrats already asked the agency to investigate this in January, and the FTC has been notably quiet under this administration. Watch state attorneys general, who do not need federal permission to act. And watch the customer base, because the people who paid for a gold Trump phone are the most loyal supporters this President has, but he is just blatantly ripping them off.
3. Josh Hawley Just Introduced a Bill He Called “One of the Dumbest Things I’ve Ever Heard Of” Three Years Ago
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced the Gas Tax Suspension Act on Monday, legislation that would pause the federal gas tax for 90 days, just hours after President Trump told CBS News he wanted Congress to do exactly that.
In 2022, when Democrats proposed the same idea under President Biden, here is what Republicans, including Hawley himself, had to say about it:
The only thing that changed is which party is in the White House. Republicans spent four years building a political brand on Biden’s gas prices, and now that Trump’s war with Iran is driving prices through the roof, they are endorsing the exact policy they ridiculed just a couple of years ago.
The math here is rough. Pausing the gas tax for 90 days saves the average driver about $2.21 on a 12-gallon fill-up while costing the federal Highway Trust Fund roughly half a billion dollars a week.
And the actual cause of the price spike, Trump’s war with Iran, is not going anywhere. Trump just called Iran’s latest peace offer a ‘piece of garbage.’ The bill doesn’t fix the problem. It just lets Republicans tell their constituents they tried.
4. Pete Hegseth Is Investigating Senator Mark Kelley. Again.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Pentagon legal counsel will investigate Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona for “blabbing on TV” about a classified Pentagon briefing on U.S. weapons stockpiles in the Iran war, marking the second time Hegseth has formally targeted Kelly since taking office.
Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former NASA astronaut who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Face the Nation on Sunday morning that it was “shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines,” referring to the U.S. stockpile of key munitions that we have burned through with the Iran war. Within hours, Hegseth posted on X that Kelly had “violated his oath” and the Pentagon would review his comments.
Senator Kelly responded by posting a video of Hegseth talking about this very issue, publicly, just a few weeks ago:
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill that Hegseth’s attack on Kelly is ‘the national security equivalent of going ad hominem on a debate opponent when you’re poorly matched on knowledge, ability and content.’ He added that Hegseth’s choice to bicker over classification rather than address Kelly’s actual argument ‘suggests Hegseth simply can’t argue on the facts.’
The Defense Secretary is using the Pentagon’s legal authority to investigate a fellow veteran and sitting senator for saying out loud what the Pentagon has already said in public. That is not how this country is supposed to function, and every member of Congress who served in uniform should be saying so this week.
5. Trump’s Approval Rating Just Crashed to the Lowest Point of His Second Term.
A wave of polling released over the last two weeks shows President Trump’s approval rating sinking to between 32 and 37 percent across major surveys, the lowest reading of his second term, with the steepest drops coming on inflation, the Iran war, and the cost of living.
The most telling number is not coming from a left-leaning outlet. It is coming from Fox News, the network the President watches and quotes daily, which now has his disapproval rating at 59 percent, the highest reading they have ever recorded for him in either term.
The collapse is being driven by the issues Americans actually live with every day. Gas at $4.52 a gallon, the highest grocery bills in three years, and a war that nobody asked for with no end in sight.
And look, this is a White House that has spent months telling Americans that the things they are seeing are not happening, that they are happening for good reasons, or that the people noticing them are the problem.
The political consequences are now starting to show up where they matter. Republicans in tough districts and tough states are getting nervous, and they are quietly looking for ways to put distance between themselves and the President wherever they can find it.
November is six months away, which is a lifetime in politics. But the trajectory is the trajectory, and right now it is pointing in one direction.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
The President Is Spending $13 Million to Paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Blue. President Trump announced last month that he would resurface the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in a color he is calling “American Flag Blue.” The work is now underway, and the President drove across the drained pool last week to inspect it personally. Trump said the project would cost about $2 million when he announced it on April 23. The New York Times reported this week that the contracting firm is actually being paid more than $13 million, and that the contract was awarded without competitive bidding. The Reflecting Pool was built in 1922. It has been a defining feature of the National Mall for more than a century, and the dark stone basin was specifically designed to create the illusion of depth and a more profound reflection between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
A Court Just Struck Down Trump’s Tariffs. Again. The Trump administration filed a motion Monday asking the US Court of International Trade to pause its own ruling that the President’s 10 percent global tariffs are unlawful, while the government appeals the decision. In a 2-1 ruling last week, the trade court found that Trump’s use of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose the tariffs was invalid. The administration’s motion would let US Customs and Border Protection keep collecting the tariffs from importers during the appeal, which could take months. This is the second time in three months that a federal court has invalidated a major Trump tariff program. The Supreme Court struck down the President’s earlier IEEPA tariffs in February, and roughly $166 billion is now being refunded to importers as a result.
