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Donald Trump does exactly what he was expected to do

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IOWA IS SUPPOSED to surprise. Ted Cruz won there in 2016, Rick Santorum in 2012, Mike Huckabee in 2008. There was no upset this year: Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses by 30 points, in line with his polling lead before Iowans gathered in a blizzard to do their thing. Mr Trump won 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties. The only other candidate to win one was Nikki Haley, Mr Trump’s former ambassador to the UN. She came first in Johnson County, home to the University of Iowa and therefore a good place to gauge the mood of college-educated Republicans, by a margin of 0.03%. With a few votes yet to be counted, that mini-triumph could yet be reversed.

Mr Trump was magnanimous in victory, congratulating his opponents—one of whom, Vivek Ramaswamy, dropped out and endorsed him. Mr Ramaswamy has called Mr Trump “the best president of the 21st century”, so it was never really clear why he was running against his idol. Mr Trump only releases the crazy when he loses. In 2016, to steal attention from Mr Cruz after his win, he came up with a bizarre riff about the senator’s father being involved in JFK’s assassination. “You need controversy for traction sometimes,” Mr Trump mused before the caucuses this year. Even when he wins, though, Mr Trump still likes to assert his dominance by making things up and watching his fans accept them as truth: he claimed to have won the Iowa caucuses for the third time in a row.

One early conclusion from the Republican primary is that there is not much appetite among Republicans for Trump fans like Mr Ramaswamy when the real thing is on offer. Ron DeSantis, whose political rise can be dated to a video in which his infant daughter appeared in a Make America Great Again onesie, came a very distant second, failing to win a single county despite visiting all of them. But nor is there appetite for a candidate who is straightforwardly opposed to Mr Trump: Chris Christie, who had described the former president as “a liar and a coward”, dropped out before a vote was cast.

That leaves the primary as a race for second place. Next up, on January 23rd, is New Hampshire, where Mr Trump is again ahead in the polls. Journalists are trying to make it into a contest. Trailing candidates repeat the cliché that nobody has voted yet. But Mr Trump is about ten points ahead of Ms Haley in New Hampshire polls, which have a margin of error of plus or minus five points. Looking at the national polls—The Economist’s poll tracker has Mr Trump at 65% and Ms Haley at 11%—it seems likelier that the New Hampshire polls are undercounting Mr Trump’s support than that they conceal a Haley surge. (The same may be true in national polls, which undercounted Mr Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020.)

If Mr Trump were to win in New Hampshire he would still need to wait until Super Tuesday, at the beginning of March, to build an insurmountable lead in the delegate count. In political terms, though, if he wins in New Hampshire and comes first in South Carolina’s primary on February 24th, beating Ms Haley in her home state, the contest would be over. Mr Trump would then be the de facto Republican nominee when he is due to appear as the defendant in court in Washington, DC, on March 4th, accused of attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. One of the charges in that case carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The slow-moving collision of America’s electoral system with its courts, from which neither can escape unhurt, just came a little nearer.

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Economics

Donald Trump has many ways to hurt Elon Musk

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THERE WAS a time, not long ago, when an important skill for journalists was translating the code in which powerful people spoke about each other. Carefully prepared speeches and other public remarks would be dissected for hints about the arguments happening in private. Among Donald Trump’s many achievements is upending this system. In his administration people seem to say exactly what they think at any given moment. Wild threats are made—to end habeas corpus; to take Greenland by force—without any follow-through. Journalists must now try to guess what is real and what is for show.

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Economics

Donald Trump has many ways to hurt Elon Musk

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THERE WAS a time, not long ago, when an important skill for journalists was translating the code in which powerful people spoke about each other. Carefully prepared speeches and other public remarks would be dissected for hints about the arguments happening in private. Among Donald Trump’s many achievements is upending this system. In his administration people seem to say exactly what they think at any given moment. Wild threats are made—to end habeas corpus; to take Greenland by force—without any follow-through. Journalists must now try to guess what is real and what is for show.

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Economics

Jobs report May 2025:

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U.S. payrolls increased 139,000 in May, more than expected; unemployment at 4.2%

Hiring decreased just slightly in May even as consumers and companies braced against tariffs and a potentially slowing economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 139,000 for the month, above the muted Dow Jones estimate for 125,000 and a bit below the downwardly revised 147,000 that the U.S. economy added in April.

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and the underemployed also was unchanged, holding at 7.8%.

Worker pay grew more than expected, with average hourly earnings up 0.4% during the month and 3.9% from a year ago, compared with respective forecasts for 0.3% and 3.7%.

“Stronger than expected jobs growth and stable unemployment underlines the resilience of the US labor market in the face of recent shocks,” said Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Nearly half the job growth came from health care, which added 62,000, even higher than its average gain of 44,000 over the past year. Leisure and hospitality contributed 48,000 while social assistance added 16,000.

On the downside, government lost 22,000 jobs as efforts to cull the federal workforce by President Donald Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency began to show an impact.

Stock market futures jumped higher after the release as did Treasury yields.

Though the May numbers were better than expected, there were some underlying trouble spots.

The April count was revised lower by 30,000, while March’s total came down by 65,000 to 120,000.

There also were disparities between the establishment survey, which is used to generate the headline payrolls gain, and the household survey, which is used for the unemployment rate. The latter count, generally more volatile than the establishment survey, showed a decrease of 696,000 workers. Full-time workers declined by 623,000, while part-timers rose by 33,000.

“The May jobs report still has everyone waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at job rating site Glassdoor. “This report shows the job market standing tall, but as economic headwinds stack up cumulatively, it’s only a matter of time before the job market starts straining against those headwinds.”

The report comes against a teetering economic background, complicated by Trump’s tariffs and an ever-changing variable of how far he will go to try to level the global playing field for American goods.

Most indicators show that the economy is still a good distance from recession. But sentiment surveys indicate high degrees of anxiety from both consumers and business leaders as they brace for the ultimate impact of how much tariffs will slow business activity and increase inflation.

For their part, Federal Reserve officials are viewing the current landscape with caution.

The central bank holds its next policy meeting in less than two weeks, with markets largely expecting the Fed to stay on hold regarding interest rates. In recent speeches, policymakers have indicated greater concern with the potential for tariff-induced inflation.

“With the Fed laser-focused on managing the risks to the inflation side of its mandate, today’s stronger than expected jobs report will do little to alter its patient approach,” said Rosner, the Goldman Sachs strategist.

Friday also marks the final day before Fed officials head into their quiet period before the meeting, when they do not issue policy remarks.

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