Senator Warren highlighted the data in her statement last Friday:

“President Trump’s failing economic agenda is weakening the labor market. Today’s data confirms the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Since Trump took office, the economy has added only 28,000 jobs per month on average – far below the 120,000 jobs the economy added on average each month in 2024. Job growth in May and June was revised down by more than 100,000 jobs, job openings have fallen, and more people are out of the labor force than at any time on record. And wage growth slowed, straining families’ paychecks even more as they struggle to keep up with Trump’s inflation.” – Senator Warren

1. Job growth is stalling under President Trump.

Source: @byheatherlong

The U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, and job growth in May and June was revised down by a combined 103,000 jobs from what was initially reported. Monthly job growth has averaged just 28,000 since Donald Trump took office.

2. Americans’ wages are failing to keep up with Trump’s inflation.

Source: FRED

Wages were growing at nearly 4% when Trump took office in January 2025. Since then, nominal wage growth has steadily slowed. According to last week’s data, nominal wage growth fell below 3.2% in July, the slowest pace in five years. With inflation climbing at the same time, workers’ paychecks are stretching less and less each month. Indeed real wage growth has been negative or flat in each of the last three months.

3. More people are out of the job market than at any time on record.

Source: FRED

The number of Americans not in the labor force has climbed past 106 million, and the participation rate has dropped to 61.4%, the lowest rate since February 2021 and down from 62.6% in January 2025. While some of that reflects more Americans retiring, it also reflects a lower participation rate among young Americans and means hundreds of thousands of people have stopped looking for work altogether. When people stop searching for work, it’s often because they’ve concluded the search isn’t worth it.

4. Health care is propping up job growth, as other industries shed jobs under Trump.

Source: @mtkonczal

Health care has driven nearly all job gains under President Trump. In fact, excluding health care, the economy would have lost nearly half a million jobs since January 2025. Sectors including government, financial activities, information, and manufacturing have all shed jobs in the last 12 months. Manufacturing jobs alone are down 62,000 jobs since Trump took office.

5. Since President Trump took office, the number of employed Black Americans has fallen by more than 400,000

Source: FRED

Black workers continue to face a higher unemployment rate than white workers. In July, the unemployment rate for Black workers was 6.3% – higher than when Trump took office – representing nearly 1.4 million unemployed Black workers. The labor force participation rate for Black workers is more than a percentage point lower than when Trump took office, and more than 460,000 fewer Black Americans are employed today than when he took office.

Annual inflation in June increased 3.7% according to new Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) data. Although prices rose less in June than they did in May, inflation remains much higher than it was when Trump took office in January 2025 when annual inflation was 2.5%. Additionally, President Trump’s decision to resume bombing Iran after his failed ceasefire will likely fuel greater inflation. It has already caused global oil prices to surge again and the average price of gas in the U.S. is back above $4 per gallon.

The data also showed that families continue to pay more for health care, housing, and food in June. Indeed, since January 2025, households have spent 9% more on health care, nearly 6% more on housing, and nearly 4% more on food.

As Americans are spending more to keep up with rising costs, they are increasingly dipping into their savings. According to the data, the personal saving rate fell to a nearly four-year low of 2.7% in June.

2. Families will pay nearly $4,000 per child this coming school year

According to new data from The Century Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative, the upcoming school year will cost families nearly $4,000 per child – 10.7% more than last year. Some of the most essential school supplies are dramatically more expensive than they were a year ago: notebooks are up 23%, pencils are up 6.1%, binders are up 5.1%, markers are up 4.6%, and a new lunch box is up a whopping 26.8%. As noted in the report, Trump’s chaotic tariffs are largely to blame for the price hikes. For example, “Newell Brands, the company behind familiar classroom products, including Sharpie, Paper Mate, Expo markers, and Elmer’s glue… raised prices repeatedly in 2025 as it faced $174 million in tariff costs and expects tariffs to cost another $130 million in 2026.”

And it’s not just school supplies, but popular school lunch items too. President Trump’s failed agenda continues to drive up the costs of groceries. His chaotic and unlawful tariff policies have raised the cost of food and his reckless and illegal war with Iran is pushing those costs higher still, as rising transportation and fertilizer costs put additional pressure on food prices, production, packaging, and supply. For families, that means the cost of filling those pricey new lunch boxes will be another hit to their budgets. Blueberries are up 47.7%, a loaf of sandwich bread is up 21.8%, apple juice is up 20%, animal crackers are up 15.7%, and a box of raisins are up 4.7%.

3. Mortgage rates hit a one-year high under Trump’s failed economic agenda

Rising inflation under Trump’s failed economic agenda is also delivering a significant blow to housing affordability, pushing 30-year fixed mortgage rates to a one-year high of 6.66%. Mortgage rates have risen for four consecutive weeks, largely as a result of President Trump’s doubling down on his illegal war with Iran. The conflict has kept energy prices elevated, stoking inflation fears that have pushed investors to demand higher yields on U.S. Treasury bonds. Indeed, the 10-year Treasury yield “hit an 18-month high last week due to rising oil prices.” And since 30-year mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield, borrowing costs for homebuyers have climbed right along with them. This only adds to the economic pain families are feeling, with “[t]he Iran war . . . costing the average U.S. household over $1200, as the cost of gas and groceries rises and mortgage rates hit levels not seen in a year.”

4. Economic growth slowed as Trump’s agenda weighs on the economy

The economy grew more slowly than expected in the second quarter of 2026. New data show the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased 1.5% in the second quarter despite one of the President’s top economic advisors Kevin Hassett predicting economic growth to be at 4%. Instead, it’s down from 2.1% in the first three months of the year and brings average growth to 1.9% under Trump. Rising costs from Trump’s failed agenda weighed on growth. Additionally, a widening trade deficit – despite Trump’s promise to shrink it through tariffs – subtracted 1.01 percentage points from GDP growth.

5. Inflation keeps Fed from cutting interest rates as Fed Chair Warsh’s credibility takes a hit

Trump’s agenda has fueled inflation and stands in the way of lower rates for American families. The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady again last week. Notably, three Fed members dissented in favor of a rate hike. These Fed members have been warning about the risks of rising inflation – first from tariffs and now from the energy shock caused by Trump’s war in Iran.

June inflation cooled more than expected, bringing annual inflation down to 3.5%. But prices are still rising faster than when Trump returned to office, and the improvement was driven largely by falling global gas prices. Core inflation was unchanged, while families continued to pay more for groceries and utilities.

And the forces pushing prices higher are multiplying as Trump’s illegal war with Iran threatens another increase in energy and food prices. The IMF now expects global inflation to rise to 4.7% this year — and that forecast was issued before Trump backed out of the deal with Iran, continuing his war that will only raise costs more.

Trump’s failed economic agenda continues to raise prices and increase uncertainty. It’s clear that only one man is standing in the way of relief for hardworking families: Donald Trump.

II. Kevin Warsh remains secretive and unaccountable

Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh delivered his semiannual monetary policy testimony to Congress. While he continues to try to prove he is acting independently from Donald Trump, he refuses to publicly share his views on the economy. Not only is he secretive about his core responsibility as the head of the Federal Reserve, he also refused to disclose how he divested $100 million in investments before being sworn in. Meanwhile, other Federal Reserve officials have signaled that they view higher interest rates as appropriate, creating more financial pressure for hardworking American families. All because of Trump’s failed economic policies.

III. Russell Vought doubles down on selling out American consumers

In another hearing this week, Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Russell Vought testified to the Senate about his efforts to destroy the agency. The minority staff of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs published a new report that shows Vought’s actions to gut the CFPB cost American consumers up to $26.5 billion.

Ranking Member Warren pushed Vought to explain the CFPB’s decision to drop enforcement actions against companies after donating to President Trump. When asked how many of these companies donated to Trump’s inauguration, all he could muster was a weak “I have no idea.” As Donald Trump continues to profit off the Presidency, American consumers have been left without any recourse against corporate malpractice.

IV. The AI boom is crowding out the rest of the economy and raising costs

AI data-center growth and AI investment is a growing concern for the broader economy. According to the Wall Street Journal, data-center construction spending rose 23% over the past year while construction spending on manufacturing buildings fell 22%. Data centers are consuming scarce workers, electrical equipment, and building materials, making it difficult and expensive for other projects to come online. As AI spending now accounts for more than 25% of U.S. GDP growth, the economy is becoming more and more reliant on a single industry.

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, former White House economic adviser Jennifer Harris warned that the $1 trillion AI buildout is diverting critical resources away from housing, manufacturing, startups, and upgrades to the electrical grid. That is turning the AI boom into an affordability problem as new analysis from the Federal Reserve notes that historically, technology-investment booms have raised import prices and widened the trade deficit. The AI boom may be boosting headline data, but underneath the surface, there are growing risks to consumers and the wider economy.

V. Brazilian Tariffs continue Trump’s failing economic agenda

Donald Trump has chosen to continue his indiscriminate and inflationary tariff agenda. The Trump Administration announced a new 25% tariff on Brazilian imports beginning July 22, prompting Brazil to prepare retaliatory tariffs in response. Trump slapped a tariff on sugar when Brazil is the United States’ largest sugar trading partner and Brazilian sugar accounts for a quarter of total U.S. sugar imports.Considering that the U.S. ran a nearly $37 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year, the rationale is questionable to say the least.

This news is concerning considering how Trump’s tariffs have been raising prices already. Earlier this summer, Dallas Fed researchers estimated that Trump’s tariff agenda added an additional 0.8 percentage points to twelve-month core PCE inflation. And more inflation may be expected to materialize as new analysis from the New York Fed found that in the next six months, 47% of service firms and 44% of manufacturing companies that directly paid tariffs still plan to raise prices. Trump’s latest escalation will raise prices for American families even longer.

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President Trump’s illegal war in Iran and the resulting chaos at the Strait of Hormuz blew gas prices through the roof. The current average is around $3.85 a gallon, nearly $0.90 more than when the war started on February 28th. The higher prices will hit Americans particularly hard over the Fourth of July holiday, when an estimated 61 million people are expected to take road trips. Americans use roughly 375 million gallons of gasoline each day, meaning that over the three-day holiday weekend, the nation will burn through approximately 1.1 billion gallons. With gas $0.67 more expensive per gallon than this time last year, that translates into roughly $750 million in additional fuel costs for drivers over the course of the holiday compared to last 4th of July.

For those looking to avoid the road, other forms of travel do not appear to be any cheaper. Airline fares continue their sky-high increases and are now 26.7 percent more expensive than last year. Mass transit prices are up 4.6 percent from a year ago, highlighting how widespread Trump’s inflation problem is.

On top of the $16 million Trump is forcing taxpayers to cough up for his renovations to the reflecting pool that will not even be cleaned up in time, Americans will be paying more for many of the staples that make the 4th of July a cherished tradition. According to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and The Century Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative, the price of prepared potato salad has jumped 23.0 percent over the past year, while ice pops are up 22.3 percent, and strawberries cost 19.8 percent more. Families baking desserts will pay 14.4 percent more for canned cherry pie filling, and those at the grill will face higher prices for beef roasts (15.3 percent), beef steaks (14.8 percent), and chicken drumsticks (12.5 percent). Other holiday essentials have become more expensive, with sunscreen up 8.0 percent, soda up 3.9 percent, and beer up 2.9 percent. Some towns have even had to cancel their marquee fireworks celebrations this year as fireworks prices have skyrocketed by as much as 400%.

As more Americans cut back from what has already been an expensive summer, the best celebration Trump can provide on our nation’s birthday is to put an end to his disastrous economic policies.

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• Inflation is at its highest level in 3 years as families are paying more for health care, gas, groceries, and utilities.

• Real wages are negative for the second month in a row.

• The Federal Reserve is now forecasting higher inflation, higher interest rates, and slower growth than it was just a few months ago.

And on Wednesday, President Trump refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act after it passed the Senate and the House with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill included provisions from every member of the committee, to build more homes, bring down housing costs, and rein in corporate landlords. One of the hearing’s witnesses, Mr. Kevin Brown, President of the National Association of Realtors, called it the “most consequential housing legislation in decades.” The bill is also the first piece of legislation to stop private equity from buying up single-family homes — a provision Mr. Brown later voiced support for during the hearing.

But President Trump doesn’t seem to care. He is dismissing Americans’ concerns, calling inflation a ”hoax made up by Democrats.” The Ranking Member asked the witnesses — Republicans and Democrats — whether they agreed with Trump that affordability is a political hoax. Not a single witness raised their hand.

Below are six must-watch clips from the hearing demonstrating Trump’s policies are deepening the affordability crisis.

1. Senator Warnock: Trump and Republican’s One Big Beautiful Bill is is driving up health care costs

Senator Warnock asked how the Trump Administration is raising health care costs. Dr. Julie Morgan, President of the Century Foundation, pointed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Medicaid cuts and Trump and Republicans’ refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits as the culprit. The Congressional Budget Office projects that in 2026, an additional 3.4 million people will be uninsured. Recent research also shows that ACA Marketplace deductibles have increased 37% to reach a record high of $3,786. Finally, voter polling reveals that: 36% of respondents saw their employer-based insurance premiums increased; 31% saw their co-pays for doctor’s visits or prescription drugs rise; and 27% saw their deductible or out-of-pocket maximum increase.

2. Senator Van Hollen: Overturned overdraft rule costs Americans $5 billion a year

Senator Van Hollen highlighted how bank overdraft fees boost bank profits by charging customers the equivalent of up to 16,000% APR. In 2024, the CFPB under President Biden issued a rule capping overdraft fees at $5 — but the Trump administration and congressional Republicans overturned it. The rule had been projected to save Americans up to $5 billion annually, including an average of $225 per affected household.

3. Senator Smith: Trump’s chaotic tariffs and illegal war in Iran are devastating American farmers and raising grocery costs

Senator Smith shared concerns from her Minnesota constituents that Trump’s chaotic policies are harming the farm industry. Earlier this year, the American Farm Bureau Federation reported that agriculture bankruptcies increased 46% in 2025 — driven in part by higher input costs, including fertilizer prices that spiked after Trump’s April 2025 tariff announcement (they were later exempted). The war in Iran has only added to these cost pressures, after it effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint for roughly one-third of global fertilizer trade. Since the war began, 70% of farmers have reported that they cannot afford their full fertilizer needs. And all of this means that farmers are facing higher import prices and, with less fertilizer, producing less output — ultimately resulting in higher grocery prices for American families. Dr. Julie Morgan also highlighted that millions of Americans are skipping meals to make ends meet.

4. Senator Cortez Masto: A weaker CFPB means Americans are still paying more junk fees

Senator Cortez Masto asked how cuts to the CFPB are undermining affordability by letting big corporations continue to get away with charging junk fees. The CFPB’s most recent semiannual report shows that Trump has gutted its enforcement capabilities, citing the closure of “40 of the CFPB’s pending investigations.” In one rule alone, the CFPB rescinded 67 Biden- and Obama-era measures designed to protect consumers from unfair practices like lending discrimination, harassment in debt collection tactics, and surprise junk fees. In 2024, before being gutted, the CFPB’s actions would have saved Americans over $24 billion in junk fees. Last month, Democrats took over the Senate floor and forced a series of votes to overturn Trump and Republicans’ rescission of the 67 rules — but Senate Republicans blocked them all, leaving Americans vulnerable to shady practices from big corporations.

5. Senator Blunt Rochester: Trump’s attacks on the CFPB are weakening consumer protections for servicemembers and veterans

Senator Blunt Rochester raised similar concerns about a weakened CFPB, specifically how it harms servicemembers and veterans. Among the 67 Biden- and Obama-era measures that Trump and Republicans overturned was the Military Lending Act, which protects active duty members from harmful lending practices. Trump’s CFPB also withdrew its $95 million case against Navy Federal Credit Union for illegally issuing surprise overdraft fees to servicemembers and their families. In the end, the credit union got to keep $80 million it was supposed to refund its customers. As Dr. Morgan warned, “financial readiness is a critical component of military readiness.” Servicemembers should not have to worry about being denied security clearances due to debt collections they should not owe.

6. Ranking Member Warren: Trump’s broken promise to cap credit card interest rates is costing American families $368 million each day

Senator Warren pressed Lindsey Johnson, President and CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association, on Trump’s failure to cap interest rates at 10%. In January, President Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates, asking the biggest banks to voluntarily put a one-year, 10% cap in place by January 20th. Not a single bank complied. And Trump’s broken promise is costing families $368 million every day — which, between January 20 and Tuesday, totalled more than $57 billion. When asked if she knew how much excess interest customers were paying without the interest, Johnson said she did not know how much more families were paying.

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Trump’s agenda is increasing inflation – and he loves it

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released two closely watched economic indicators: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI). Both told the same troubling story – inflation is re-accelerating and unlikely to slow soon.

Annual consumer inflation, measured by the CPI, rose to 4.2% in May 2026 – the highest rate in three years, and much higher than the 3% rate recorded when President Trump took office in January 2025. The drivers are broad-based and hitting American families across essential goods and services:

• Gasoline: +40.5%

• Airfares: +26.7%

• Electricity: +5.9%

• Medical care services: +3.6%

• Housing: +3.4%

• Groceries: +2.7%

The wholesale price picture was even worse. PPI – which measures what businesses pay before costs are passed to consumers – rose 1.1% in May alone and 6.5% year-over-year, the largest annual jump since November 2022.

This suggests that higher prices are still making their way through the supply chain and on to consumers. Indeed, new survey data from the National Federation of Independent Businesses shows more small businesses are reporting supply chain disruptions, and the share planning to raise prices has hit its highest level in nearly four years. In other words, surging PPI likely means that CPI isn’t likely to fall sharply anytime soon.

What’s causing higher prices? Trump’s overlapping economic failures: chaotic tariffs, the war in Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and drove up energy costs, and an AI-driven demand surge the administration has done nothing to address.

Trump’s response? “I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”

Workers are falling behind in Trump’s economy

The most concerning consequence of rising inflation is what it’s doing to American paychecks. Nominal wage growth came in at 3.4% annually in May – but with inflation running at 4.2%, prices are rising faster than paychecks. Real wages (nominal wages minus inflation) are now negative.

From January 2025 through May 2026, average real wage growth is essentially flat. Despite nominal raises, American workers have seen no actual gains in purchasing power. The math is simple and painful: your paycheck buys less than it did last year. Grocery staples, gas, electricity, medical care – the essentials are all outpacing wages.

What about an Iran deal?

Trump has again signaled a possible deal with Iran, which could eventually lead to the Strait of Hormuz reopening. Prolonging a conflict that Trump should have never started in the first place would only extend pain for American consumers, to say nothing of the human cost and destruction in Iran.

But even optimistic scenarios offer limited near-term inflation relief. Most consumer goods are transported by diesel-powered trucks, and fuel costs flow through the supply chain with a lag of weeks to months. Similarly, the closure of the Strait has increased fertilizer prices and decreased supply, affecting the price of agricultural products planted today but not sold until later. Today’s elevated diesel and fertilizer prices will still be baked into goods hitting store shelves in late summer, even if prices at the pump fall tomorrow. And even if the Strait reopens this week, shipping traffic is unlikely to return immediately to pre-war levels. Relief, if it comes, will be gradual – and, of course, the economic pain was avoidable all along.

Trump is standing in the way of lower interest rates and lower costs

This is Fed Chair Warsh’s first FOMC meeting. Inflation is accelerating. Real wages are stalling. And a growing number of Fed members have publicly signaled that inflation – not labor market weakness – is their primary concern, language that typically signals openness to rate increases. That would mean higher borrowing costs across the board for American households: credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages – which are already elevated as Trump’s war in Iran and economic uncertainty push up long-term rates.

Despite Trump having said in the past that he expects Warsh to cut rates, it is very unlikely Trump will get his wish for lower interest rates this week. Secretary Bessent even blessed the Fed in April to hold off on cutting rates for now, saying that “if [the Fed] want[s] to wait for some clarity [on inflation], I understand that.”

As Ranking Member Warren has made clear: there is one man standing in the way of lower interest rates and lower costs for American families – and that is Donald Trump.

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1. What is private credit?

Private credit is a fancy term for loans made by nonbank financial institutions, instead of traditional banks. Whereas banks fund loans with deposits, private credit lenders – which include asset managers, private equity firms, and business development companies – generally use investor capital to fund loans. Private credit firms are not regulated like traditional banks. They are not subject to the same type of loan underwriting standards, disclosure requirements, supervision, and regulatory safeguards. Private credit offers fast, bespoke financing structures for businesses, but with less transparency. The loans also often carry greater risk than loans made by traditional banks. Private credit borrowers typically include private equity portfolio companies and other highly leveraged small-to-midsized businesses that generally cannot access corporate bond markets or traditional bank loans on such favorable terms.

Private credit has drastically grown over the past decade and is increasingly interconnected with the banking system, as private credit funds have increased their reliance on bank loans to fund their own lending. The private credit market is concentrated, with the top 20 global private credit fund managers holding more than one-third of available uncommitted capital. Some of the largest private credit lenders include private equity firms such as Apollo, Blackstone, and Blue Owl Capital, while major banks such as Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase reported at least $100 billion of exposure to private-credit firms.

2. What’s going on in the private credit market?

The private credit market is under stress, driven by rising borrower default concerns, heightened investor redemptions, and capped withdrawals. The 2025 bankruptcies of auto companies First Brands and Tricolor, which had significant private credit borrowings, demonstrated serious vulnerabilities within the private credit market marked by aggressive lending, weak underwriting standards, and complex and opaque debt structures (discussed in greater detail below). Current economic conditions are also playing a role in the recent disruption. As private credit borrowers face a range of challenges, including potential exposure to software companies disrupted by AI and economic turbulence from the war in Iran, investors are “rush[ing] trying to pull their money from private credit funds.” In the first quarter of 2026, investors “attempted to pull more than $20bn from a litany of the largest…popular private credit investment vehicles.” In response to surging redemption requests, private credit firms have capped quarterly withdrawals at 5%. Other investors, if able to sell in the public markets, have found “a gulf has opened between what lenders say shares in their funds are worth (the [net asset value]) and what investors are willing to pay for them on the stock market (the share price).” Even JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned, “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more," on rising private credit risks. He added that a credit-led recession would be "worse than people think."

3. What are the implications of the private credit turmoil for our financial system?

The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated the destruction that nonbank financial institutions, such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and AIG, can wreak on our economy. Private credit has rapidly embedded itself within the broader financial system. That means that when private credit experiences stress, it can have cascading impacts for other financial institutions and the economy more broadly. Still, President Trump’s Wall Street regulators have attempted to downplay the potential systemic risks from a private credit downturn, as they roll back critical post-2008 financial crisis safeguards. For example, SEC Chair Paul Atkins recently dismissed concerns stating, private credit is “not a systemic risk.” But red lights are flashing across several key indicators:

• The private credit market has expanded dramatically: Private credit has “emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of non-bank financial intermediaries” over the last decade. Since 2007, global private credit assets under management (AUM) have since grown over tenfold. As of early 2025, private credit has grown to over $2 trillion AUM and is forecasted to double by 2030.

• Private credit players have prioritized explosive growth over sound risk management: As noted above, high-profile bankruptcies and rising defaults have intensified scrutiny of private credit underwriting standards. For example, First Brands’ collapse revealed more than $11 billion in total liabilities with private credit funds, including funds sponsored by Jefferies and Millenium, being the largest creditor. The problem only appears to be getting worse, with analysts forecasting that private credit default rates will likely double to 9%-10% this year.

• Borrower- and fund-level leverage makes private credit especially fragile: Private credit firms lend to highly leveraged, high-risk companies. Some private credit borrowers carry debt equal to about six times their annual earnings. In an economic downturn, these companies may struggle to service their debt—triggering defaults and potentially substantial losses for the funds. For example, private credit lends to the riskiest segments of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. Over the next two years, private credit is projected to provide $800 billion in financing for data center buildouts. AI companies have not yet demonstrated that they can drastically increase the revenues needed to repay their massive debt loads.

  Private credit lenders themselves are also leveraged. These firms take on debt from big banks and other financial institutions to make more loans and juice investor returns. A private credit fund may struggle to repay its own lenders if its borrowers default. The lack of transparency in this lightly regulated market makes it very difficult to gauge its resilience or fragility.

• Private credit is inherently opaque, obscuring risk: Private credit lenders are under no obligation to disclose detailed financial information. Therefore, regulators and investors lack sufficient information on fund portfolios to assess true risk exposure. In addition, private funds are generally not publicly traded and therefore, they are not subject to the same valuation standards as the public market. Private fund managers typically use discretionary, internal models to determine valuations. This opacity can allow for stale pricing, where loans are valued at or near par even as borrower quality deteriorates, masking an asset’s true value. Additionally, private credit is typically tailored to companies’ specific needs. This often results in convoluted and fragile debt financing structures which further obscures risk.

• Traditional banks and other financial institutions are increasingly exposed to private credit risks: According to the Federal Reserve, “As private credit continues to grow, its increasing interconnectedness with other financial institutions—such as banks, insurance companies, and traditional asset managers—is reshaping the landscape of credit markets.” Traditional banks have significantly increased lending to private credit funds. For example, according to the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s 2025 annual report, banks’ loan commitments to private credit funds totaled $445 billion as of the second quarter of 2025. As banking and private credit become more intertwined, turmoil in one can trigger contagion in the other.

  The collapse of Tricolor demonstrated that traditional banks also function as critical infrastructure for private credit. Major banks, such as JPMorgan, Fifth-Third, and Barclays, acted as bridges to the private credit market providing Tricolor warehouse financing and securitizing the loans. When Tricolor failed, these firms collectively lost roughly half a billion dollars.

  Private credit has also become intertwined with the insurance companies. By some estimates, nearly $1 trillion of life insurance and annuity companies, of a total $6 trillion, is in private credit investments.

4. What is the Trump Administration doing to address private credit risks? (Spoiler: It’s making it worse.)

The cracks in the private credit market could deteriorate into a systemic crisis if regulators fail to act, and taxpayers will once again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s recklessness. Globally, some regulators, such as the Bank of England and European Central Bank, are taking these threats seriously and stress testing these private credit firms. Trump’s Wall Street regulators, however, have: (1) deregulated the traditional banking system, making it more fragile and exposed to private credit risks, (2) expanded loopholes that push risky funds onto everyday investors, (3) reduced systemic risk reporting requirements; and (4) proposed weakening the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (FSOC) primary tool for subjecting risky nonbanks to stronger regulatory and supervisory standards.

Instead of laying the groundwork for a private credit shock to turn into a full-blown financial crisis regulators should take the following actions:

• FSOC should work with the Office of Financial Research (OFR), which supports FSOC in monitoring systemic risk, to design and conduct an exploratory stress test of nonbank financial institutions engaged in private credit activities. This exercise would assess their susceptibility to financial shocks and estimate the impact of stress in the private credit market on U.S. financial stability and the broader economy. (See Sen. Warren’s letter to FSOC Chair Scott Bessent on private credit stress testing here.)

• FSOC should rescind its proposal to weaken its ability to identify and designate large, complex, and interconnected shadow banks as systemically important, subjecting them to more rigorous safeguards and oversight.

• OFR should collect information from private credit firms on an ongoing basis, including loan-level data, leverage, performance, valuation, portfolio composition, and redemption terms, among other data.

• Bank regulators should strengthen capital requirements to ensure that a private credit-related shock does not imperil the banking system, strengthen underwriting requirements for private credit loans, and establish concentration limits for bank lending to nonbank financial institutions.

• The SEC should establish protections for investors by increasing transparency, such as through standardized disclosure, limitations for loans, and valuation requirements.

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No grocery staple illustrates the impacts of Trump’s policies more than tomatoes. Indeed, one economist calls the higher prices “a perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.” Tomato prices jumped more than 15% in March, then another 15% in April. Over the past year, they’ve surged nearly 40%.

In July 2025, the Trump administration withdrew from a longstanding trade agreement with Mexico, slapping Mexican tomatoes with a 17% tariff. Since the U.S. relies on Mexico for a majority of our tomato supply, “any changes in trade policy can have a large impact.” Now that tomato season is in full swing, we’re seeing the biggest impact of Trump’s July 2025 decision.

And the war in Iran added a second blow through higher fuel costs. Diesel – which powers the trucks, trains, and farm equipment that move food across the country – now averages nearly $5.40 per gallon, up from $3.67 before the conflict escalated and above $5 for the first time since 2022. As a result, “the price of transporting tomatoes is more expensive.”

Between tariffs and the war, tomato costs are up throughout the supply chain. One Chief Operating Officer told PBS NewsHour that cases of tomatoes went from costing $27 to $93 in the span of a year – adding more than $1.7 million in annual costs for his company alone. And those costs get passed onto consumers. The result? Buying basic and fresh groceries is becoming a financial burden for American households.

With tomato prices surging nearly 40% and grocery costs climbing across the board, your BLT has never been more expensive – and Trump’s policies are only driving prices higher still. Indeed, annual price increases for bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo are all outpacing overall inflation and annual wage growth – so your paycheck isn’t growing as fast as the cost of your BLT.

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I. Americans are dipping into savings as incomes fail to keep up with rising costs

New data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that American families are drawing down their savings to keep up with their ballooning costs. In April, inflation-adjusted consumer spending increased 0.1 percent from the previous month while disposable personal income fell 0.5 percent. Under Trump’s chaotic policies, Americans are spending more, but not because they have more money coming in.

These data points contribute to the worrying trend in household savings. Last month, the personal saving rate continued to fall as it reached its lowest point since 2022, 2.6 percent. That means families have less money to deal with an unexpected bill, or thanks to the Trump Administration, another round of price increases.

II. Even lower economic growth and consumer spending

Economic growth in the first quarter of 2026 was lower than initially reported. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, annualized Gross Domestic Product growth in Q1 of this year was revised down from 2 percent to 1.6 percent. This is a far cry from the “economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen” that Trump has repeatedly promised and significantly less than the Biden Administration’s final year in office—2.8 percent in 2024.

A major reason for the revision was weaker consumer spending. Consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of the economy, was revised down from 1.6 percent to 1.4 percent annualized growth. With tariffs, higher gas prices from the war with Iran, and overall business uncertainty, consumer spending and economic growth could slow even more in the coming months.

American families are cutting back and the economy is weakening. Trump’s policies arehurting the economy and ultimately costing Americans’ wallets.

III. America’s Teens Are Getting Shut Out of the Summer Job Market

Youth unemployment is surging. Workers ages 16–19 saw their unemployment rate jump 2.6 percentage points under President Trump—from 11.8 percent in January 2025 to 14.4 percent in April 2026. For Black teens, the picture is even grimmer: unemployment has more than doubled since Trump took office, from 9.8 percent to a staggering 22.7 percent. Job openings remain low, and young workers—often the first casualties of weakening labor demand—are bearing the brunt.

New reporting from theWall Street Journal suggests this summer could be the worst for teen employment since the federal government began tracking the data in 1948. Inflation and higher fuel prices are squeezing the small businesses and restaurants that typically hire young workers, driving a sharp pullback in seasonal hiring. Leisure and entertainment—sectors that together account for a large share of teen summer jobs—have announced plans to fill 70 percent fewer roles than in 2025. The consequences extend well beyond inconvenience: teen unemployment has been linked to elevated crime rates and weaker long-term earnings, and for families already strained by rising costs, the loss of that supplemental income is an immediate hardship.

IV. Families Are Raiding Their Savings Just to Buy Groceries

Americans aren’t just worried about rising food costs—they’re draining their savings accounts to cover them. A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York report documents increased food insecurity, hitting lower-income households, less-educated families, and homes with young children especially hard. More than 30 percent of households are now dipping into savings to afford groceries, up from October 2025.

The culprits are no mystery. President Trump’s failed agenda is driving up the costs of groceries—including his chaotic tariffs, inhumane immigration policies shrinking the labor force, and his reckless and illegal war raising transportation and fertilizer costs. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that he signed into law in July 2025 has stripped SNAP benefits from hundreds of thousands of children. A new Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report finds that more than 700,000 fewer children receive SNAP food assistance today compared to when that bill was signed. And that’s based on data from only 12 states. Trump’s policies are a one-two punch of higher costs and fewer resources, leading to increased food insecurity among American households.

V. Trump’s Policies Are Locking Families Out of the Housing Market

Trump’s war with Iran continues to drive up inflation and is delivering a significant blow to housing affordability, pushing 30-year fixed mortgage rates to a nine-month high of 6.65 percent. The conflict has kept energy prices elevated, stoking inflation fears that have pushed investors to demand higher yields on U.S. Treasury bonds. Since 30-year mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield closely, borrowing costs for homebuyers have climbed right along with them.

The broader inflation picture makes things worse. Core PCE—the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge—rose 3.3 percent year-over-year in April. This is the highest reading since November 2023 and, excluding COVID, the highest since 1992. Rising inflation has prompted a growing number of Fed officials to contemplate rate hikes rather than cuts, a reversal from late last year, when a series of Fed reductions had briefly brought 30-year rates down toward 6 percent.

The effects of higher mortgages from Trump’s war are already playing out. Mortgage applications fell 8.5 percent in a single week. And a persistent “rate lock-in” effect—homeowners with lower existing rates refusing to sell their homes and take on today’s higher costs—continues to choke off supply, leaving buyers squeezed on both ends: sky-high borrowing costs and almost nothing available to buy. As Ranking Member Warren has said repeatedly, there is one man standing in the way of lower rates and lower costs for American families: Donald Trump.

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Gas prices have surged more than $1.50 per gallon since Trump started his war in Iran, costing Americans over $1 billion more at the pump this Memorial Day weekend compared to last year.

President Trump promised to lower energy costs. Instead, his war in Iran has sent gas prices soaring. The national average now sits at more than $4.50 per gallon – over $1.50 more than it was on February 28, before Trump began the conflict, and $0.75 more than this time last year.

The math is stark. Americans consume nearly 375 million gallons of gas per day. Over the four-day Memorial Day weekend – when nearly 40 million Americans plan to drive at least 50 miles – that adds up to roughly 1.5 billion gallons of gas consumed. At $0.75 more per gallon than last year, Americans will spend over $1.1 billion more on gas this Memorial Day weekend than they did last year. But Trump says that’s “peanuts.”

And for those flying, it’s no better. Airfare is up more than 20 percent from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has made clear that prices aren’t coming down anytime soon, saying “[t]he longer consumers pay these prices and airlines get used to this revenue stream, the more likely it is (to hold).” And those paying more will have fewer options: airlines have cut over two million seats and 12,000 flights globally in recent weeks, an unprecedented level of cancellations.

Trump’s failed economic agenda is making your Memorial Day cookout more expensive.

President Trump’s failed agenda is also driving up the costs of groceries. His chaotic and unlawful tariff policies have raised the cost of food, a fact the Administration implicitly conceded in late 2025 when President Trump signed an Executive Order exempting coffee, tea, tropical fruits, beef, and other agricultural products from reciprocal tariffs. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law is compounding the harm by stripping SNAP benefits from millions of families who depend on them to put food on the table. The Administration’s deeply troubling and inhumane immigration policies are shrinking the labor force, including in agriculture sectors, in ways that will drive food input costs higher – costs that will ultimately be passed on to consumers. And President Trump’s reckless and illegal war with Iran is pushing those costs higher still, as rising transportation and fertilizer costs put additional pressure on food prices, production, packaging, and supply.

New data from The Century Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative highlights what families are facing at the checkout line. A burger and its fixings – a staple of a Memorial Day cookout – are dramatically more expensive than they were a year ago: ground beef is up 20 percent, tomatoes up 22 percent, lettuce up 19 percent, ketchup up 14 percent, pickles up 12 percent, and hamburger buns up 4 percent. And if you’re serving corn on the side? You’ll pay nearly double what you did last Memorial Day.

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Last week, average national gas prices rose to $4.30 per gallon, the highest level in four years because of President Donald Trump’s Iran War. Skyrocketing energy prices sent inflation in March to its highest level in nearly three years. According to the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, annual inflation in March rose to 3.5 percent – up from 2.8 percent in February. The report shows that consumers’ spending on gasoline and other energy goods increased 20 percent in the month of March alone.

But it’s not just energy prices on the rise. Excluding energy and food, annual core inflation rose 3.2 percent in March – up from 2.6 percent when Trump took office in January 2026. The data also show that families spent more on other essentials, like health care and food. And, yes, Trump’s tariffs are still pushing prices higher for American families. Core PCE goods prices – which include items that tariffs likely have the biggest impact on like clothes, furniture, and school supplies – are rising at the fastest pace since 2022 and rose 2.8 percent over the last year, compared to -0.04 percent one year ago, in March 2025.

Trump’s tariffs and war with Iran are a one-two punch to American’s pocketbooks. And paychecks aren’t keeping up. Last week’s PCE data show monthly change in spending outpaced income growth. As we wrote about in early April, if inflation continues climbing faster than income growth, families could soon find themselves falling behind in real terms, with less purchasing power in every paycheck than the month before.

2. Slowing economic growth as consumers pull back from spending

The economy grew slower than expected in the first quarter of 2026. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows the Gross Domestic Production (GDP) increased 2 percent in the first quarter – far slower than 5 percent growth Commerce Secretary Lutnick promised. Combined with the stalling 0.5 percent growth from the previous quarter (the final quarter of 2025), the economy grew at just 1.25 percent in the last six months – much slower than the average 4.1 percent growth in the sixth months through the second and third quarters of 2025.

Sluggish consumer spending is one reason for the slowdown in growth. In the first quarter of this year, consumer spending increased just 1.6 percent – down from 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2025. And higher costs from Trump’s tariffs are a big reason why spending growth is slowing. The data show that consumers are pulling back where prices are increasing the most – most notably in core goods like clothing, furniture, and sports equipment.

Not only did the economy grow more slowly than expected, it’s also being propped up by AI investments that are masking other weaknesses in the economy. One economist estimates that “AI investment seems like it accounted for about half of the overall GDP growth in the first quarter.” The biggest tech companies – including Meta, Google, and Amazon – are predicted to spend $725 billion on AI this year. That’s the type of investment that led to the 10.4 percent increase in business investment in the first quarter, which boosted overall GDP growth – all while consumers pulled back.

3. Consumer sentiment reaches lowest level on record

According to the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, consumer sentiment in April reached its lowest level on record, dating back to 1946. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the most recent data released last Monday, “shows that perceptions of the economy are darker now than even during previous crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2008-09 financial meltdown and the relentless inflation of the late 1970s.” And it is no surprise that Americans are feeling pessimistic about the economy: costs continue to soar while job growth stalls under Trump.

The data also show that Americans expect the job market to get worse: “64% of survey respondents think that unemployment will be higher in a year than it is now, up from 61% in March and approaching the 69% registered in November. In June 2022, that figure was just 32%.” These figures underscore how negatively the American people view the Trump economy and how it is likely to get worse: “A family feeling skittish about the future might think twice about buying a house or starting a small business… A company might pause hiring… If enough people hold back, those choices can ripple through the economy.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has mocked Americans’ economic concerns, claiming that, “the consumer, while they may be sounding grim, is actually quite buoyant” and that Americans “in their heart of hearts, they feel good.” Ranking Member Warren wrote to Bessent last week about his comments to better understand why his perception of the economy differs so greatly from what Americans are actually experiencing and the Trump Administration’s plans to lower costs.

4. Skyrocketing health care costs are eating up family budgets and workers’ paychecks

Rising health care costs are putting significant pressure on both household budgets and worker paychecks. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index (ECI) – which measures how much more (or less) employers are paying for workers in both wages and benefits – employers’ spending on health care benefits in March increased 5.7 percent over the last 12 months. As Employ America points out, this is the fastest pace since the early 2000s, and employers project even steeper increases of up to 7.6 percent this year. What might this mean for workers? A New York Fed survey found that many firms responded to the increase in health care costs by raising wages less – estimating raises would have been 0.9 percentage points higher had health costs held steady. In short: rising “health care costs are eating into wages.”

5. Trump continues to stand in the way of lower interest rates

The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady last week. Notably, three Fed members made clear that they “did not support inclusion of an easing bias in the statement at this time,” signaling that it may even be appropriate for the Fed to increase interest rates at their next meeting. These Fed members have warned about the risks of rising inflation – first from tariffs and now from the energy shock caused by Trump’s war in Iran. As Ranking Member Warren said last Wednesday, “One man continues to stand in the way of lower interest rates and lower costs: Donald Trump. First, his chaotic tariffs and reckless economic policies hammered the job market and raised prices. And now, his war with Iran is driving costs even higher. The President is boxing out the Fed – and American families are paying the price.”

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Under President Trump, the CFPB is failing to protect consumers. Ranking Member Warren and Senate Democrats are fighting back. In the last few months alone, they’ve opened investigations into the five following areas harming American consumers:

1. “Zombie Mortgages” and Exploitable Foreclosures

Thousands of Americans could face foreclosure based on so-called “zombie mortgages”: second mortgages popular in the leadup to the Great Recession that homeowners had good reason to think were no longer active. In numerous cases, homeowners had gone years without receiving a statement, received tax documents saying the mortgage was cancelled, or had the loans removed from the credit reports—only to now learn that the loan is still active. Debt collectors bought up millions of dollars of these zombie mortgages at rock-bottom prices and are now trying to exploit the increase in home values to cash out at a price peak.

Despite the predatory and potentially illegal actions of many of these debt collectors, under Acting Director Vought, the CFPB hasn’t lifted a finger to stop this exploitation of American consumers. The CFPB under President Biden and then-Director Rohit Chopra had been preparing cases against multiple parties involved in zombie mortgages, including one enforcement action it planned to bring in early 2025. The Trump CFPB has seemingly abandoned these efforts as Americans lose their homes.

In December, Ranking Member Warren wrote to the monitor of the National Mortgage Settlement requesting documents about extinguished second mortgages. Earlier this month, she wrote directly to Acting Director Vought highlighting how the CFPB has failed to act to address this issue.

2. Excessive Credit Card Interest Rates

Credit card companies are charging Americans the highest interest rates in thirty years.

Credit card annual percentage rates (APRs; i.e., interest rates) are rising faster than the federal funds rate (the interest rate that banks pay to borrow money)—and are doing so despite the fact that chargeoffs (when a creditor declares a debt unlikely to be collected and writes it off as a loss) have been relatively stable for the last ten years. So, it appears that credit card companies are hiking up interest rates on consumers without an economic reason to do so—and are profiting handsomely off the sky-high rates.

Rather than take any action—and despite the fact that President Trump has repeatedly campaigned to cap credit card interest rates at 10%—the Trump CFPB is rolling back protections for consumers. The Trump Administration refused to defend a CFPB rule in court that would have capped credit card late fees at $8, which would save consumers an estimated $10 billion annually.

Earlier this year, Senator Warren wrote to Acting Director Vought to press him on his failure to use the CFPB’s tools to lower credit card costs. Acting Director Vought has yet to act. This week, Senator Warren also wrote to bank regulators, pressing them to confirm if enforcement actions against big banks are coming given the President said those that fail to comply with his call for a 10% credit card rate cap would be in violation of the law—or if these agencies view the President’s directive as fake and unnecessary to enforce.

3. Predatory Car Repossessions

One of the clearest signs that Americans are suffering under the current economy is the historic number of auto repossessions. Auto repossessions in 2024 and 2025 were the highest on record since 2009, during the Great Recession.

During the Biden Administration, the CFPB had conducted extensive supervisory work to crack down on unlawful repossessions and issued warnings to the industry about its findings. Now, the Trump CFPB is seeking regulatory rollbacks that would “potentially eliminate all oversight of subprime lenders” and would cause the CFPB to cease supervising all but the five largest auto lenders. As the economy continues to deteriorate for working Americans, it’s more important than ever that the CFPB does its job as the financial cop on the beat supervising the auto lending industry for anti-consumer practices.

Ranking Member Warren launched a probe into the auto lending and repossession industries, sending a dozen letters to major players requesting information about errors in their repossession practices. She followed up her initial oversight with a second round of inquiries directed at auto lenders following a report that service members were paying higher interest rates on auto loans than civilians.

4. Inaccurate Credit Reports

Medical debt is a crushing burden on tens of millions of Americans, leading many to empty their savings, delay education, and cut back on buying food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials. This debt can also end up on consumers’ credit reports, limiting their abilities to access affordable credit—even though nearly half of medical bills contain an error. Experts have found that medical debt is a poor predictor of whether a consumer will repay other forms of debt, while simultaneously leading to thousands of mortgage denials.

The CFPB had finalized a rule during the Biden Administration that would have removed medical debt from consumer’s credit reports, leading to an estimated $49 billion of medical bills removed from the credit reports of 15 million Americans. But under Acting Director Vought, the CFPB joined with industry groups to ask a federal court to vacate the rule, and hasn’t done anything to help Americans struggling with medical debt.

Senator Warnock, Ranking Member Warren 28 other senators wrote to Acting Director Vought demanding a rationale for the CFPB’s decision to ask a court to vacate its rule.

5. Buy Now Pay Later Loans

Americans are increasingly taking out Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) loans and using these short-term credit products to pay for groceries, medical or dental care, or other debt payments. In a recent survey, 54% of BNPL users said that without BNPL loans, they couldn’t make ends meet. Concerningly, nearly half of BNPL users in the last year were late at least once, compared to 34% in 2024.

BNPL is a relatively new form of consumer credit, and under this anti-consumer Administration, it’s unclear how credit reporting companies, other lenders, and regulators will monitor these products. Rather than take steps to help consumers navigate this rapidly changing and growing market, the CFPB has instead rolled back consumer protections affirmed under the Biden Administration for users of BNPL credit, putting consumers even more at risk in an underregulated industry.

Ranking Member Warren, joined by Senators Blumenthal, Booker, Duckworth, and Hirono, wrote to several major BNPL providers to better understand the risks to consumers and economic impacts of BNPL products.

As the Trump Administration continues to put consumers last, Ranking Member Warren will put them first. She will use her role on the Senate Banking Committee to push back against bad actors who seek to profit at the public’s expense.

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At his nomination hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Warsh failed to show that he’d be independent if confirmed to be the next Chairman of the Fed.

I. Warsh refused to say Trump lost the 2020 election.

When Ranking Member Warren asked the simple question, “did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” Warsh refused to answer directly, hiding behind a claim that he wanted to stay out of politics, before eventually offering a common refrain popularized by election deniers: “this body certified that election many years ago.” This isn’t a political question – it’s a factual one. That Warsh didn’t have the modicum of independence and courage necessary to simply say, “yes” shows that he’s passed Trump’s loyalty test and will submit to Trump’s warped reality.

II. Warsh couldn’t name a single thing he disagrees with Trump on.

After failing the 2020 election question, Ranking Member Warren asked Mr. Warsh to name just one aspect of President Trump’s economic agenda with which he disagrees. Again, Warsh came up empty. With consumer sentiment at record lows, inflation rising, and job growth stalling, an independent Fed chair needs to be willing to acknowledge what American families are experiencing. Instead, Warsh made a joke about how he doesn’t think he’s as good-looking as the President does. It’s clear that Mr. Warsh is auditioning to be President Trump’s sock puppet – which is a slap in the face to every American household paying more and earning less because of Trump’s policies.

III. Warsh couldn’t say when or how he would divest $100 million in secret assets.

Warsh, who – along with his wife – is reportedly worth more than $2 billion, would be the wealthiest Fed Chair in history if confirmed. However, he has not disclosed key sources of his wealth, particularly over $100 million dollars in two opaque investment vehicles – the Juggernaut Fund and THSDFS LLC – and has not detailed how he would divest his assets after being pressed by Senator Reed. Warsh’s refusal to disclose his financial assets, and how he plans to divest them, poses significant concerns as Congress and the public have no way of knowing what entities he is invested in, including potential companies affiliated with President Trump, money laundering, or other conflicts of interest. The public would have every right to question Mr. Warsh’s motives as Fed chair if a billionaire investor cut him a $100 million check to cash him out of these investments as he takes the oath of office.

IV. Warsh wouldn’t come clean on whether Trump asked him to commit to lower interest rates.

Senator Gallego challenged Mr. Warsh over conflicting accounts of his White House job interview. A Wall Street Journal report stated that President Trump pressed Warsh on his commitment to cutting interest rates – something Warsh flatly denied under oath. When pressed on the contradiction, rather than address whether Trump was being untruthful, Warsh attacked the reporters’ sources and journalistic standards. If Warsh won’t even acknowledge a factual conflict between his own testimony and the President’s account, there’s little reason to believe he’d stand up to Trump when it matters most – on the economic security of American families.

V. Warsh has “no regrets” about his disqualifying record as a Fed Governor before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis.

As a Fed Governor in 2006-07, Warsh ignored clear warning signs of mounting consumer and financial stability risks posed by subprime mortgages, derivatives, and a fragile financial system. Rather than using the Fed’s powerful supervisory and regulatory authorities to address these risks, Warsh downplayed them and even explicitly promoted some of these products. When these products blew up our financial system, Warsh stepped in to rescue his friends on Wall Street, arranging numerous multibillion dollar bailouts.

Senator Cortez Masto gave Mr. Warsh the opportunity to acknowledge, in hindsight, that he would have done something differently. But Mr. Warsh says he has no regrets. Warsh’s refusal to reckon with his own record suggests he won’t just be President Trump’s sock puppet, he’ll be doing the bidding of Wall Street too.

VI. Warsh wouldn’t defend a Fed Governor being illegally fired.

Trump has attempted to illegally fire a Fed Governor appointed by President Biden, Lisa Cook. His Justice Department, including former Fox News Anchor and current U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, has opened bogus criminal investigations into Chair Jerome Powell and Governor Cook in an attempt to jail or at least intimidate them. When Sen. Alsobrooks asked if he would stand up to Trump and allow Governor Cook to continue her work, Mr. Warsh refused to provide a straight answer and said “the Fed should stay in its lane,” signalling that he won’t push back on Trump’s attempts to illegally fire Fed Board members and replace them with loyalists.

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At the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s The Looming AI Crisis event on April 22, 2026, Ranking Member Warren warned that the debt-driven AI bubble may pose significant risks to our economic and financial stability. She drew parallels to the 2008 financial crisis and underscored that a crash in the AI sector could hurt households and workers across the whole economy. She laid out her ideas for reform and called on Congress to have the courage to get it done.

These remarks follow Ranking Member Warren’s calls for the Trump Administration to investigate AI debt-related financial and economic risks.

Watch her remarks here and above.

Read the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s paper, After the AI Crash, here.

Below are the Ranking Member’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you to the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for organizing today’s event to discuss a possible crash triggered by artificial intelligence and how to rebuild if it hits.

Let me first say that artificial intelligence has enormous potential. I cannot say what the future of this technology will hold—what new inventions or expanded capacities will bring. But the impact on our economy is not so hard to see. I know a bubble when I see one.

The parallels to the 2008 financial crisis are striking: the reckless behavior of a few billionaires and Big Tech CEOs has turned a promising technology into a structural risk to our financial system.

We need to prepare now for a possible crash by putting in place simple structural reforms to protect American families, workers, and small businesses.

We’ve seen this movie before. Washington spent the 1990s and early 2000s slashing the financial safeguards implemented following the Great Depression. The goal was to free Wall Street from any and all “constraints” so that financial innovation could flourish.

I – along with many experts and consumer advocates – rang the alarm, especially as evidence grew that lenders were tricking unsuspecting families into dangerous subprime mortgages. Foreclosure rates started picking up. But rather than pulling back, banks, and their private lending counterparts in the shadows of the financial system, sliced and diced these risky loans and offloaded the risk throughout the financial system in complex and opaque ways. Policymakers ignored warning signs, even as risk heated up. On the surface, the economy looked good, and a flood of campaign cash flowed from Wall Street to Washington—a flood that dampened any enthusiasm to rein in the billionaire’s party.

Eventually, the music stopped and the whole economy came crashing down. Nearly $20 trillion in household wealth vanished. Millions of people lost their jobs, lost their homes, and lost their savings. Congress quickly authorized a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, while homeowners got pretty much nothing. No big bank CEO or executive went to jail—not one.

Lawmakers were flatfooted. Instead of restoring simple, structural reforms, they passed mostly modest and complicated technocratic reforms that failed to address the systemic flaws and inequities entrenched in our financial system. One exception was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – but that was only possible because we had developed and built some support for the agency before the crash hit.

Big Tech and other AI companies are on track to spend trillions of dollars to be the dominant AI player. They justify this spending on the speculative premise that demand for AI services and products will meet their wildly aggressive revenue projections. To justify the cost of these investments, the industry will need to generate roughly $2 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. Let’s put that in context. In 2025, the industry generated $20 billion in revenue—about 1% of what they will need to earn in four years just to break even. Sure, the industry is growing, but the mismatch between investment and demand is spectacular—and not in a good way. According to analysts, the AI bubble is already 17 times the size of the dot-com frenzy and four times the size of the housing bubble.

The AI companies have a growing addiction to debt. They are borrowing staggering sums to finance trillions of dollars of spending on data centers, chips, and other AI infrastructure. To fund their habit, these companies have turned to shadowy lenders, like private credit funds, and started using convoluted debt structures. Giant banks are also helping finance AI companies both directly through their own loans and indirectly through lending to private credit funds that lend to AI.

This toxic combination creates a dizzying web of interconnected banks and shadow banks and deliberately obscures both how much risk is building in the system and exactly where those risks will fall when a crash comes.

The complexity itself could trigger that crash. If AI companies are unable to increase revenues with lightning speed, they won’t be able to service their massive debt loads, and because of shady accounting strategies, the first big stumble will have everyone running for the exits – potentially triggering destabilizing losses in the financial sector and another 2008-style financial crisis.

To make matters worse, all of this is developing against a backdrop of two other destabilizing initiatives from the Trump Administration. First, deregulating Wall Street and Wall Street banks so that there is less oversight and less confidence in the stability of these giants, and second, trying to stuff these toxic financial products in Americans’ retirement accounts so any downturns will be felt even more broadly through the economy. The Trump moves will leave both the financial sector and retirement savings increasingly fragile at the worst possible moment.

An AI industry crash threatens our entire economy. Retirement savers could see their life savings evaporate in a flash and, if the banking sector is imperiled, credit in other sectors will dry up, so that workers in industries completely detached from AI could face layoffs and small businesses could experience difficulties accessing credit.

AI companies are aware of these risks—very aware. Instead of reducing their borrowing, slowing their rate of growth, and cleaning up their balance sheets, they are making the classic billionaires’ move: they are quietly lining up for a handout. They have already lobbied the Trump administration for taxpayer funding and guarantees to cover themselves if things go south. As these firms lay the groundwork for future bailouts, we need to lay the groundwork for future reform now, including:

• Restore simple structural guardrails to prevent the Wall Street debt machine from imperiling our economy once again;

• Create a new digital regulator to enforce antitrust, consumer protection, and data privacy laws so a few Big Tech giants cannot wield their outsized market power to raise costs for consumers, lessen innovation, and stifle competition;

• Ensure Big Tech pays its fair share in taxes so we can invest in lowering costs and creating good jobs;

• Move manufacturing jobs home, so creating the chips that power AI creates jobs in America, not elsewhere; and

• Establish accountability for those who help orchestrate the next crash—no more bailouts that leave American families holding the bag.

American families and workers cannot afford another economic catastrophe. They are still picking up the pieces left by the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. This time around, Congress needs to be ready with a durable reform agenda to prevent the next big crash and the courage to get it done.

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Despite the fact that both investigations remain open, Mr. Warsh’s nomination hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow, April 21, 2026. Ahead of Mr. Warsh’s hearing, the Banking Committee Minority Staff conducted a review of Mr. Warsh’s publicly available financial disclosures and ethics agreements. That review revealed the following.

1. Kevin Warsh has not disclosed key sources of his wealth and income and has not provided key details about his planned divestitures. According to paperwork he filed with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), Mr. Warsh has not disclosed the underlying assets of over $100 million worth of holdings. Furthermore, Mr. Warsh has not provided key details regarding his plans to divest his assets once he is confirmed, including information on who will redeem his holdings.

2. Mr. Warsh made his fortune at the expense of workers and families. Mr. Warsh served as a Federal Reserve Governor from 2006 to 2011. During the financial crisis, Mr. Warsh played a central role in helping to arrange numerous multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded bail-outs for big banks. While Mr. Warsh played middle-man for policymakers and Wall Street during the financial crisis, ultimately, 10 million Americans lost their homes and nearly $20 trillion in household wealth vanished; meanwhile, Mr. Warsh’s reported net worth today is $200 million. And on top of his record during the financial crisis, a review of Mr. Warsh’s financial disclosures reveals that he has made his millions through investments in companies and firms that have harmed the public.

3. Mr. Warsh’s wealth appears intricately tied to a billionaire investor whose investing strategy is driven, in part, by his predictions regarding Fed monetary policy. Mr. Warsh’s disclosures reveal his extensive investments in opaque investment funds run by billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, whose investing strategy has often been tied to his predictions regarding the future monetary policy actions of the Fed and other central banks – including a current reported bet against the U.S. dollar.

4. Mr. Warsh’s name appears in the Epstein files, and his financial disclosures raise additional unanswered questions regarding potential links to Mr. Epstein. On January 30, 2026, the DOJ released a slew of documents, images, communications, and other records and materials related to the investigation and prosecution of the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. As multiple sources have reported, Mr. Warsh’s name appears to be included in these files. Furthermore, Mr. Warsh’s financial disclosures also reveal additional potential links to Epstein, including through his association with Vicarage Stable LLC and Golden Tree Asset Management LP.

Without transparent information on his holdings and divestures, there is no way for the public to have confidence that Mr. Warsh is making decisions based on what is in the best interest of our economy, instead of his own bottom line or the interests of Wall Street.

Read the full analysis here.

Read coverage in the Wall Street Journal here.

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It was clear to then-Senator Marco Rubio that the United States had a shell company problem.

Our own country—not just “offshore” jurisdictions—had become “one of the primary facilitators of anonymous shell companies.” Experts warned that “[a]nonymous companies are the vehicle of choice for the criminal and the corrupt to launder illicit funds with impunity,” and that “[d]rug cartels, human trafficking rings, purveyors of counterfeit and pirated goods, rogue nations evading sanctions, corrupt officials concealing bribes and stealing from state coffers, and others use anonymous corporate structures to move and hide illicit wealth.”

Experts also warned that the United States had become an especially attractive place for bad actors to try to launder their funds. Register a company in the United States, and it can apply for a bank account and access our financial system. The Financial Action Task Force flagged that we lagged behind partners and allies in closing a “very significant” vulnerability: U.S. law enforcement had no effective way to identify the true or “beneficial” owners of companies registered in the United States. This made our jurisdiction a more attractive place to launder the proceeds of crimes committed both at home and abroad.

Luckily, after more than a decade of work and extensive negotiations between Congress, the first Trump Administration, law enforcement officials, and advocates, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) in January 2021. The law required certain companies, including domestic shell companies, to report basic information to the Treasury Department about their true owners.

The first Trump Administration supported this bipartisan law. One of the CTA’s most enthusiastic advocates was none other than President Trump’s current national security advisor and Secretary of State, then-Senator Marco Rubio:

• “Excellent investigative reporting on how dirty $ flows through real estate using shell companies… I have proposed a bipartisan law to prevent individuals from using anonymous shell corporations to engage in illicit activities.” —Sen. Rubio, July 19, 2018

• “My ‘Corporate Transparency Act’, the most significant anti-corruption & money laundering law in decades & which forces anonymous shell companies to disclose their true owners is going to pass as part of the end of year defense bill.” —Sen. Rubio, December 9, 2020

• “Sen. Rubio & colleagues urged @USTreasury to fully implement his Corporate Transparency Act.” —Sen. Rubio, May 10, 2022

• “[T]he CTA is the product of a sensitive and painstaking legislative process, and its passage represents perhaps the most important anti-money laundering reform in two decades. ‘For years, experts routinely ranked anonymous shell companies—where the true, ‘beneficial’ owners are unknown—as the biggest weakness in our anti-money laundering safeguards.’” —Sen. Rubio and four other senators, March 15, 2023

• “The Corporate Transparency Act was a pet project of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who raised alarm at over $1 billion connected to top Venezuelan officials flooding the real estate market in Miami… ‘Shell companies involved in shady activities are a big problem, especially throughout South Florida,’ Rubio told the Miami Herald in 2018, as he began pushing for the law.” —Daniel Rivero, WLRN Public Media, December 29, 2023

Yet the Treasury Department abruptly reversed course last year under the second Trump Administration.

On March 2, 2025, Treasury announced that it would “not enforce” the CTA against “U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies or their beneficial owners.” Treasury’s decision means that more than 99 percent of companies covered by the law’s definition are exempted from reporting to law enforcement.

This sudden reversal led The Daily Caller to say, “Trump Admin May Have Accidentally Empowered Cartels To Flood America With Fentanyl, Republican Legal Experts Warn.” It made no sense to law enforcement groups, which sounded the alarm about making it easier to “smuggle drugs into our communities” and “enable hostile regimes to move money into the U.S. financial system.” Indeed, there has been ample evidence for years that criminals and foreign adversaries—like Sinaloa Cartel operatives, Iranian sanctions evaders, and those stealing technology for China’s military—exploit shell companies in the United States. That’s why Congress passed the CTA in the first place.

Surveys of the American people show “overwhelming” support for the CTA, with 81 percent of respondents agreeing that “[a]sking some small businesses to do 20 minutes of paperwork identifying their true owner is a small price to pay for keeping our communities safe from drug trafficking, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.”

But the richest man on the planet seemed to have a different view.

Just one day before the Treasury announced its plan to roll back the CTA, Elon Musk—then serving as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—promised to “look into” the requirements. At the time, it looked like Mr. Musk was simply responding to an online commentator criticizing the CTA’s beneficial ownership requirements.

But new reporting has now revealed that Mr. Musk controls a “secretive network” of “more than 90 companies and other legal entities in Texas,” including a significant number of limited liability companies “designed to shield owners from legal and financial risks, as well as public scrutiny.” The reporting explained: “Whatever Mr. Musk’s intent, the effect of using these companies has been to disguise how he is spending his money.” Had Treasury continued to enforce the CTA as required by law, those secretive companies may have been required to report their true owners. Instead, Treasury permitted entities like that to continue operating in obscurity.

Ironically, after Treasury’s rollback, the Government Accountability Office published a report indicating that providing beneficial ownership information—the purpose of the now-gutted CTA—would have helped fight fraud in federal government programs, including procurement-, grant-, and eligibility-related fraud. Despite Treasury’s “raising the alarm” last year about how Chinese money laundering networks are helping drug cartels move huge sums of money through our financial system, the Trump Administration itself published several documents showing that those very networks use shell and front companies to launder those funds. And new reports indicate that Jeffrey Epstein, already known to have used dozens of shell companies, exploited U.S. Virgin Islands-registered shell companies to facilitate sex trafficking after bank officials raised concerns about his constant cash withdrawals. Treasury’s decision to roll back enforcement of the CTA means shell companies based in the U.S. Virgin Islands can stay anonymous.

Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren and her colleagues are demanding answers. She recently joined Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services, in sending a letter to Treasury Secretary Bessent requesting documents and information.

Read more in the New York Times here.

Read the letter here.

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In January, the Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs released a report highlighting how American families paid $2,120 more in 2025 because of inflation under Trump – driven, in part, by the President’s chaotic and illegal tariffs. But President Trump’s tariffs aren’t the only thing driving up expenses for Americans.

The Minority Staff of the Banking Committee conducted a review of some of the key efforts by President Trump to roll back federal rules, abandon enforcement actions, and slash programs across the government. Alongside his efforts, with support from Congressional Republicans, to eliminate key tax subsidies, these Trump Fees are costing Americans more than $86 billion each year.

By eliminating critical tax credits, dismantling programs designed to save Americans money, and rescinding key rules, President Trump has effectively deprived the American public of billions of dollars in savings. The table below summarizes the estimated aggregate annual costs tied to key policies examined in this report.

Table 1. Trump Fees Cost Americans $86 Billion Annually.1

For individual households, the recurring costs identified in Table 1 pile up quickly. Adding up some of the recurring annual losses – including ACA premium increases (~$1,016), student loan interest (~$3,600), overdraft fees (~$225), above-cap credit card late fees (~$220), tax prep costs (~$160), and lost overtime protections (~$350) – a single affected family could face more than $5,500 in additional annual costs thanks to President Trump.

The report also describes additional Trump fees that will make life less affordable for American families, including: the Department of Transportation’s decision to withdraw its proposed rule requiring airlines to automatically compensate passengers for flight delays and cancellations; the Federal Trade Commission’s decision to abandon its noncompete rule; the Administration’s plan to push student borrowers onto its Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP); and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s decision to reverse its medical debt rule.

President Trump has broken the biggest promises he made to bring down costs. Instead of delivering relief, the President and his Administration have dismantled the very programs, rules, and tax credits that put money back in the pockets of working families. And Americans are paying the price – more than $86 billion every year – all while Trump and the Administration are enriching billionaires and the wealthy.

To read the full report, you can click here.

To read MeidasTouch’s coverage, you can click here.

Today’s data revealed that January and February jobs numbers combined were even worse than expected, with February now reported to be the worst single month of job losses since the height of the pandemic. Since Trump’s “Liberation Day,” the U.S. economy has added only a weak 15,000 jobs per month on average. In 2025, annual job growth was the weakest since 2003, outside of recessions. For comparison: 1.46 million jobs were added in 2024. As Donald Trump’s economic agenda hammers the labor market, Americans are also facing skyrocketing costs on everything from health care to groceries to utilities.

Senator Warren highlighted the data in her statement this morning:

“Since Trump announced his chaotic tariffs a year ago, job growth has stalled. Job openings are falling, and hiring in February sunk to its weakest pace in 15 years outside of the pandemic. And Trump’s dragged the United States into a war with Iran that could slow job growth and raise costs even more. It will be American families who pay the price.” – Senator Warren

Continuing to zoom out to the changes in the labor market over the last 12 months, most sectors – from manufacturing to transportation – have shed jobs.

And under the hood, there are other key flashing warning lights:

I. More people are giving up on the labor market

The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) fell to 61.9 percent in March 2026, down from 62.5 percent a year ago. That six-tenths of a point drop may sound small, but it represents hundreds of thousands of Americans who have stepped back from the workforce entirely – no longer employed, no longer looking, and no longer counted in the unemployment rate. When people stop searching for work, it’s often because they’ve concluded the search isn’t worth it.

The trend is hitting young people hardest. For workers ages 20-24, participation has dropped 1.4 percentage points over the past year. For teenagers ages 16-19, it’s fallen even further – 1.7 percentage points. These are the workers who were supposed to be just starting out, building experience, and beginning careers. Instead, they’re sitting on the sidelines. As we noted last jobs day, young workers are typically the first to feel a labor market weaken. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged the reality this week, telling a group of students: “[t]here’s no denying that it’s a challenging time to enter the labor market.”

Similarly, the Employment-to-Population Ratio – which measures how many people in the population actually have jobs – also fell this month and is down 0.7 percentage points over the past year, meaning a smaller share of Americans are working.

II. Nominal wage growth slowed to lowest since May 2021

Wages rose less than expected in March – up 0.2 percent for the month and 3.5 percent from a year ago. The annual increase was the lowest since May 2021. This could mean that real wage growth, while still positive, is losing its cushion fast. If nominal wages keep slowing while inflation keeps climbing – driven in part by Trump’s war with Iran pushing up prices on gas, groceries, deliveries, and more – workers could soon find themselves falling behind in real terms, with less purchasing power in every paycheck than the month before.

III. Hiring in February hit a 15-year low

On Tuesday, BLS released February Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data, which showed that job openings continued to fall and hiring fell to its lowest rate since 2011, outside the pandemic. The data aligns with the “low hire, low fire” job market we’ve seen for months under Trump, with the labor market in stasis. This is driven in large part by Trump’s chaos, which has increased uncertainty and deters businesses from hiring.

Fewer job openings and a falling hiring rate means that workers who lose jobs have fewer places to land, those looking to switch careers or climb the ladder have fewer opportunities to do so, and – as discussed above – young workers entering the market for the first time face a much narrower door. With fewer job opportunities and diminished mobility, the labor market is stagnating in ways that will ultimately reduce both productivity and worker power.

IV. Trump’s war with Iran is expected to further slow job growth and increase unemployment

Trump’s war with Iran is adding a new layer of risk to an already stagnant labor market. Higher energy prices are driving up production and transportation costs and squeezing consumer budgets – meaning many businesses could delay or cancel hiring plans as they wait to see how costs and consumer demand are affected. According to Reuters, some employers are already responding: Unilever, which owns Dove and Vaseline, announced a three-month hiring freeze, citing “macroeconomic and geopolitical realities, especially in the Middle East conflict.” Goldman Sachs analysts warn the unemployment rate could climb to 4.6 percent by September, with arts, entertainment, hospitality, and food services among the hardest-hit sectors as consumers pull back on discretionary spending.

In short: Today’s jobs data does not change the reality working families face across the country under Trump’s failed economic policies: stalled job growth, rising costs, and fewer opportunities.

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Read the FT Op-Ed here

Almost a month into Donald Trump’s war with Iran, two things are clear. First, the president has sparked a global conflict that has resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen US service members and wounded hundreds more, while killing thousands of civilians in the region and displacing millions more. Second, Trump’s war threatens to deliver a gut punch to a teetering American economy. If he does not end his war immediately, he risks a recession that will shutter small businesses and toss millions of workers out of their jobs — all while more American troops arrive home in coffins.

The costs of Trump’s war are staggering. The most consequential is the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused global oil prices to rise at the fastest rate since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The average gasoline price in the US is now $3.98 — nearly $1 higher than just a month ago. For the average household, the pain at the pump could add up to nearly $750 in extra costs this year.

A supply chain crisis will adversely affect the US economy in two crucial ways. First, higher prices. The costs of heating or cooling American homes will go up, adding further pressure to utility prices that have already soared by more than 10 per cent under Trump. Jet fuel costs are also rising, and airline CEOs have already announced that they are passing those costs on to passengers. Diesel prices are climbing too, driving up the cost of transporting every good that moves on a truck. Skyrocketing fertiliser costs are hitting just as US farmers prepare for the planting season, which means food will get more expensive for families.

Higher prices on everything from groceries to furniture to clothes will tear a hole in family budgets at a time when more Americans already report skipping meals, delaying medical care, or dipping into their retirement savings to make ends meet. The response from Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, was that consumer pain caused by the Iran war is “the last of our concerns right now”.

Out of touch? Certainly. But there is a second dangerous economic effect of Trump’s war: a surge of inflation and uncertainty hitting just as an entire dashboard of economic indicators has started flashing red. The Federal Reserve will be less likely to cut interest rates. Fed chair Jay Powell said last week that the energy shock will push up inflation, but warned that in the long run “we don’t know what the effects of this will be. And, really, no one does.” That uncertainty also has a price. Investors are demanding higher returns on US debt, driving up borrowing costs, including higher mortgage rates.

Inflation, by the Fed’s preferred measure, has crept back up to its highest level in almost two years. Trump knocked 15mn Americans off their healthcare plan and doubled health insurance premiums. Delinquencies are rising on auto loans and credit cards, which are at their highest levels since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Job growth has stalled. If unemployment ticks up, we are likely to see a cascade of defaults.

All told, the war is making the American economy worse — at enormous, avoidable expense. Just the first six days cost taxpayers more than $11bn — enough to pay for a full year of health insurance for more than a million Americans. Estimates suggest the Trump administration is currently spending at least $1bn a day. And reporting indicates the White House will soon request a whopping $200bn more from Congress. For those keeping track, that’s more than $2,300 for every American family.

Before more people die and the US economy staggers into a recession, Congress should step up and reverse course. If the president refuses to stop the war and seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflagration he has sparked, Republicans must join Democrats in Congress to cut off authorisation for the war. And if hoping for Republicans to grow a spine is too tall an order, every Democrat should oppose supplemental funding. Republicans who want to continue it may respond by choosing the unprecedented route of jamming through funding using a simple majority, party line procedure instead of the normal bipartisan Senate funding rules. But if they do so they will make it clear to voters that they are willing to bend the knee even as this conflict drives up costs all across this country.

Trump campaigned for the presidency on avoiding foreign wars and lowering costs “on day one”. His promises are now in tatters. The human cost of this war is unconscionable. The economic cost is dangerous and growing. The president should end this war today.

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Step is a fintech app designed “to provide the next generation with financial tools for today’s modern-day banking needs and to promote financial literacy for the future.” Step allows users under 18 to access a secured credit card, trade securities, and earn rewards, and has a history of advertising its planned expansion into risky investments in cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly to teenagers.

On Monday, Senator Warren wrote to Beast Industries with questions about the company’s potential foray into crypto and financial services aimed at children.

1. Beast Industries Has A Loyal Following That Includes Children And Teenagers

Jimmy Donaldson is arguably the most famous YouTube star – MrBeast is the most subscribed-to YouTube channel in the world, with videos that regularly receive over 100 million views. His videos feature extreme challenges and competitions and are very popular with teenagers and young adults. Outside of YouTube, Mr. Donaldson has launched a series of products popular with children, including a competitor to Lunchables, chocolate bars, and toys for kids as young as five years old. Fans of his videos are exceptionally loyal and the CEO of Beast Industries stated, “We have the opportunity to launch multiple business [sic] on the backs of that center of reach and distribution.”

2. Beast Industries Prepares to Enter Fintech Space

Beast Industries now appears to be looking to provide financial services with a focus on crypto offerings:

• In October 2025, Beast Holdings filed for the “MrBeast Financial” trademark, and it was reported that the “company plans to provide cryptocurrency trading services, crypto payment processing, and crypto trading through DEX.”

• In January 2026, Beast Industries received a $200 million investment from “the leading Ethereum treasury company in the world.”

• Upon receiving the investment, Beast Industries’ CEO stated, “We look forward to exploring ways to further collaborate and incorporate DeFi into our upcoming financial services platform.” DeFi is shorthand for decentralized finance, which broadly refers to digital asset services that facilitate automated peer-to-peer transactions, often through the use of self-executing code and without the use of intermediaries like banks.

• In February 2026, Beast Industries announced its acquisition of Step.

3. Step Allowed and Encouraged Minors to Trade Cryptocurrency

Step previously allowed teenagers, with parental permission, to buy and sell Bitcoin so they could “participate…in the rapidly evolving investing landscape.” But it appears Step was looking to expand its offerings and repeatedly advertised that teens would soon be able to buy over 50 different types of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Step has very active social media channels and at the time strongly targeted its content to teenagers. Teens scrolling through Step’s feed would see posts about summer jobs, free gym memberships, and summer break interspersed with posts and short form videos about cryptocurrency, including ads for Step’s rollout of trading options for alt-coins (very risky cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin) and NFTs, even though Step later stated that these investments were respectively “volatile” and “full of scams.”

4. Step Encouraged Minors To Pressure Their Parents Into Letting Them Invest In Crypto

Despite Step’s careful claims that crypto investing by minors was only with the permission of a parent or guardian, Step produced a video titled “How to Talk to Your Parents About Investing in Crypto,” which was targeted at kids whose parents “want nothing to do with crypto,” “think [they’ll] end up losing all [their] money,” or “simply [do] not understand crypto in general.” The video coaches children on how to convince their parents to let them make investments their parents may not want and includes specific scripts for children to use while talking to their parents.

For example, halfway through the video, the speaker directs the viewer to “tell them something like,” and then gives a direct script with text on screen.

Step has undercut its own credibility by going around kids’ parents and directly coaching minors on how to convince their parents to let them make an investment their parents do not wish them to make.

Beast Industries is primarily an entertainment and consumer product company with a young loyal following and no reported prior experience offering financial services, investment services, or banking products. Now, with its acquisition of Step, Beast Industries may be entering a highly regulated market—and doing so with a product aimed at minors and young adults. Given Step’s history of hawking volatile investments to teenagers, Mr. Donaldson’s young and loyal audience, and Beast Industries’ interest in expanding into financial services and DeFi, Senator Warren asked a series of detailed questions about Beast Industries’ plans for Step.

To read Senator Warren’s letter to Beast Industries, you can click here.

To read New York Times’s exclusive coverage, you can click here.

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