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... Tomorrow, the clock runs out on the two-week window that Trump gave Russia to reach a cease-fire with Ukraine. The president has been upset by his inability to end the war. Without an agreement, he has said, he will impose sanctions on Russia. But doing so would represent the first time in his decade in politics that he has truly punished President Vladimir Putin. ...
The other deadline is Trump's latest vow on tariffs, which go into effect today for 60 nations, with rates ranging from 10 to 41 percent. This time, Trump appeared to relish declaring that there would not be another TACO moment, writing on social media last night, "IT'S MIDNIGHT!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TARIFFS ARE NOW FLOWING INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!" Since the panic triggered by Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement in April, Wall Street has learned to shrug off Trump's scattershot statements.
But the economy has shown new signs of weakness, with stubbornly high prices potentially set to rise again because of the tariffs and, most potently, a recent jobs report poor enough that Trump lashed out against the bureaucrat who compiled it; last week, he fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, claiming, without evidence, that the jobs numbers were bogus.
That unprecedented act of petulance risks undermining Wall Street's confidence in the economy and undercutting Trump's campaign pledge to give the United States another economic "golden age."
Those geopolitical and economic headwinds have been joined by forceful political ones. Since going out on August recess, Republican lawmakers have been heckled at town halls while trying to defend the president's signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill.
And some of those same Republicans, in a rare act of rebellion, have questioned Trump's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, a scandal that the president, try as he may, simply has been unable to shake. ...
