FRIDAY 3/24/23
(The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the ninth consecutive time since the beginning of last year. Chairman Jerome Powell, pictured, called the U.S. banking system “sound and resilient,” while signaling this could be the final increase in its efforts to reduce the inflation rate back to 2%, according to NPR.)
Border Deal to the North – President Biden announced a new rule that will allow Canada to turn back migrants who cross from the U.S. at unofficial, but popular, border crossings – and who cross them from Canada into the U.S. – NPR reports. Biden announced the rule, which takes effect Saturday and will be published in the Federal Register, to Canada’s parliament on Friday, the second day of his visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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Defense Was Down During Attack in Syria – The main air defense system was “not fully operational” at a coalition military base in northeast Syria attacked by a suspected Iranian drone Thursday, two U.S. officials told The New York Times Friday. An American contractor was killed and six other Americans were injured in the attack.
According to the report, it is unclear why the defense system failed, and whether the attackers had detected the vulnerability. U.S. forces have been on high alert since January 2021. There have been 78 such attacks by Iranian-backed militias since then, according to the NYT.
--TL
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THURSDAY 3/23/23
Oh, Canada – President Biden travels to Ottawa Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Haiti, with Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau (NPR).
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TikTok Testimony – Chew Shou Zi, CEO of the popular Chinese-owned social media site, testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce beginning 10 a.m. Eastern Thursday. Ahead of his appearance, Chew promised to wall off U.S. users’ data and make further safety and security improvements, Semafor reports.
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Trump Lawyers Must Turn Over Documents – A three-judge panel for the D.C. Court of Appeals rejected attempts by Donald J. Trump’s legal team challenging a court ruling last Friday that orders the former president’s own lawyers to turn over documents related to the Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe, according to The Hill. Last Friday’s ruling removes attorney-client privilege between Trump and Evan Corcoran as the former president is believed to have lied to his legal team over whether he returned all the documents from Mar-a-Lago.
Meanwhile: As we await potential Manhattan grand jury charges in another of the former president’s cases, the one involving a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, Trump has raised $1.5 million, MSNBC reports, for his 2024 presidential campaign after he said on his own social media site last Sunday that he would be arrested Tuesday.
As Trump’s GOP Lead Grows: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be facing a backlash against his veiled criticism of the former president. In Morning Consult’s latest poll on the 2024 GOP race, 54% of Republicans polled said they preferred Trump for president, versus 26% for DeSantis. Ex-Veep Mike Pence came in third at 7%, with Nikki Haley edging out former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), 4% to 3%.
A raft of other undeclared candidates all polled at 1% or less, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Woke, Inc.author Vivek Ramaswamy.
--TL
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WEDNESDAY 3/22/23
UPDATE: Fed Raises Interest Rate 0.25% -- Citing “modest growth in spending and production,” increasing job gains in recent months and inflation remaining elevated, the Federal Reserve raised its interest rate by 25 basis points Wednesday to a range of 4.75% to 5%.
Prior to the 2 p.m. (Eastern) announcement some economists had expected the Fed to stop raising interest rates for the first time since the beginning of 2022 after failures this month of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. But the Fed said in its statement following the increase “The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.
“Recent developments are likely to result in lighter credit conditions for households and businesses and to weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation. The extent of these effects is uncertain. The (Fed) Committee remains highly attentive to inflation risks.”
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Will They or Won’t They? – There’s nervous anticipation and angst among economists waiting to find out whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates Wednesday afternoon by a quarter-point, half of what was expected to fight inflation before banks began collapsing or whether it will wave off any increase for now. It began with the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank nearly two weeks ago and continued when America’s banking giants had to bail out First Republic Bank with more than $30 billion in emergency funds.
Cuffs for Trump? – Donald J. Trump has told his advisors he “wants to be handcuffed” for an expected court appearance before a Manhattan grand jury, according to The Guardian. The former president is willing to play political martyr for his small, vociferous group of hardcore MAGAtarians who remain sufficiently significant to maintain Trump’s status as the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination for president.
Trump reasons that if he needs to surrender himself to a Manhattan courthouse for fingerprints and mug shots anyway, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle.”
Uh, yeah, it could become a spectacle.
No Attorney-Client Privilege?: A district court judge has written that “compelling preliminary evidence” uncovered by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office – you know, the one investigating Mar-a-Lagogate – proves Donald J. Trump “knowingly and deliberately misled” his own lawyers about whether he returned all classified material uncovered at his Florida compound, thus removing attorney-client privilege, ABC News reports. U.S. Judge Beryl Howell wrote last Friday, March 17, before stepping down as D.C. district court judge that prosecutors in the special counsel’s office have made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations,” and orders attorney Evan Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena to testify on six separate lines of inquiry for which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.
The report cites “sources who described” the judge’s order to ABC News.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa