CPI is 2.5% -- The Consumer Price Index fell to 2.5% in August, from a 2.9% rate in July, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The Fed’s Open Market Committee is expected to react to cooling inflation with a quarter- to half-point interest rate cut at its next meeting next Tuesday-Wednesday. [Chart: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

THURSDAY 9/12/24

Use the trackball on the far right to scroll down to Wednesday's coverage of Tuesday night's ABC presidential debate, including commentary in the left and right columns.

Between the House and a Hard Place – House Republicans consider Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) six-month stopgap spending bill too spendy and House Democrats will not vote for it with the SAVE Act as a rider. The SAVE Act, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and separately passed in the House, would require voters to present proof of citizenship in federal elections, just in time for November 5 and Johnson, a close Donald J. Trump ally calls it a “righteous” pursuit of election integrity. But his DOA bill will likely give way to a “clean” stopgap that would extend the budget deadline beyond September 30 into December, Punchbowl News reports. 

Johnson’s debate reaction … Asked about Trump’s Tuesday debate performance in a press scrum Wednesday, Speaker Johnson turned and walked away, into the House chamber. 

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Another Conspiracy – You might still be pondering Donald J. Trump’s repeat in Tuesday’s debate of a raging conspiracy theory, apparently begun by a white supremacist, that Haitian immigrants are eating neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. Trump misstated the animals involved in the conspiracy theory, claiming Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats rather than cats and ducks.

Meanwhile … The Trump camp has begun promoting a conspiracy theory that began among MAGA followers following the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, The Washington Post reports. After his right ear was grazed, Trump thanked local law enforcement for protecting him, offered condolences to the family of an audience member killed in the attempt and called for unity.

Now, he has begun promoting conspiracy theories calling the assassination attempt, by a registered Republican who has left no signs of a political motive, an “inside job” by government agencies or in fabricating Democratic ties to attorneys representing the shooter’s parents, according to the report. 

“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they say about me,” Trump said during the debate Tuesday.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa