The Dictatorship

Trump’s economic promises to Black voters are falling short

Published

9 months ago

September 21, 2025

Trump’s economic promises to Black voters are falling short

WASHINGTON (AP) — At one of his final rallies before the 2024 election, then-candidate Donald Trump warned that Black Americans were losing their jobs in droves and that things would get even worse if he did not return to the White House.

“You should demand that they give you the numbers of how many Black people are going to lose their job,” Trump said. “The African American population, they’re getting fired at numbers that we have never seen before.”

But with Trump back in office since January, an already fragile financial situation for Black Americans has worsened. Upset by inflation and affordability issues, Black voters had shifted modestly toward the Republican last year on the promise that he could boost the economy by stopping border crossings and challenging foreign factories with tariffs. Yet a recent spate of economic data instead shows a widening racial wealth gap.

Black unemployment has climbed from 6.2% to 7.5% so far in 2025, the highest level since October 2021. Black homeownership has fallen to the lowest level since 2021, according to an analysis by the real estate brokerage Redfin. Earlier this month, the Census Bureau said the median Black household income fell 3.3% last year to $56,020, which is roughly $36,000 less than what a white household earns and evidence of a bad situation becoming worse.

That creates a major political risk for the president as well as an economic danger for the nation because job losses for Black Americans have historically foreshadowed a wider set of layoffs across other groups.

“Black Americans are often the canary in the coal mine,” said Angela Hanks, a former official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Labor Department who is now at The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank.

The Trump White House stressed that some of these downward trends, such as a relative decline in Black wealth, began under Democratic President Joe Biden. It emphasized that the “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies pushed by Democrats failed to deliver economic gains.

“Despite his lunatic obsession with DEI, Joe Biden’s disastrous economic agenda reduced the Black share of household wealth by nearly 25%,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. “His inflationary policies caused interest rate hikes that froze Americans out of homeownership, and his open borders policies flooded the country with tens of millions of illegals who drove down wages.”

Some Black voters see Trump’s policies as doing more to hurt than help

Some Black voters who stayed on the sidelines in 2024 feel they need to be more engaged politically.

Josh Garrett, a 30-year-old salesperson in Florida, said he could not find a candidate last year with whom he agreed. He is frustrated by Trump’s layoffs of federal workers and sees a government more geared toward billionaires than the middle class.

“I don’t understand how you could be for the American people and have Americans lose their jobs when they have families, have bills,” Garrett said.

While the financial outlook for Black Americans is deteriorating, the net worth of white households is largely holding steady or increasing, largely due to stock market performance.

Hanks notes that the “chaotic effects” of Trump’s tariffs and spending cuts are hitting more vulnerable populations right now but that the damage could soon spread beyond.

Black leaders see Trump’s policies as discriminatory based on race

The federal layoffs appear to have disproportionately hit Black Americans because they make up a meaningful share of the government workforce. The administration maintains that its income tax cuts, tariffs and deportations of immigrants who are in the United States illegally will help Black Americans, but there is little evidence so far in the data of that.

At the same time, Trump has said that he would like to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore and Memphis, Tennessee — cities led by Black mayors. The president has called for redrawing congressional districts to favor Republicans, which could dilute the ability of Black voters to shape elections. He has sought to diminish the legacy of slavery and segregation from the Smithsonian museums.

“The message that they are sending is very clear: In these places, these people are incapable of governing themselves,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said. “They are incapable of helping to solve their own issues. And make no mistake about it, it’s partly due to how we look.”

The Democrat warned that the mounting economic challenges could contribute to crime in the future, reversing progress that cities have made in recent years to lower homicide rates.

Trump might not be able to afford alienating Black voters

Black Americans are the dominant core of the Democratic base, though Trump has improved his standing with them. In 2024, Trump won 16% of Black voters, doubling his 2020 share, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate. One of the key differences appeared to be frustration over inflation and affordability.

Roughly one-third of Black voters (36%) in the 2024 presidential election said the economy and jobs was the most important issue facing the country, up from 11% in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic was the top issue.

In a July poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, about half of Black adults (52%) said the amount of money they get paid was a “major” source of stress in their life right now, slightly higher than for U.S. adults overall (43%) and significantly higher than for white adults (37%).

When it comes to incomes, some associated with the conservative movement suggest that Black households are more vulnerable because fewer of them are in married families, which generally tend to have higher incomes.

Delano Squires, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the “connection between family structure and financial stability is one that is fairly consistent across time.”

The immediate political reality is that Trump had a mandate to improve the economy for the middle class, including Black voters. But many of those voters now see an administration more focused on deporting immigrants and expanding its own grip on power, possibly threatening Republicans’ chances of holding onto the House and key Senate seats in next year’s elections.

“We’re in a new era,” said Alexsis Rodgers, political director at the Black to the Future Action Fund. “There are people who obviously believed his promises, that Trump was going to do something about the cost of eggs, the cost of housing. They’ve seen the focus instead is on ICE raids and downsizing the government.”

The Dictatorship

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Published

2 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Jun. 29, 2026, 2:04 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — About 3 million fewer people in the United States had Affordable Care Acthealth insurance plans in February compared with the same time last year, according to new federal data.

In the reportreleased Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggested the 13% drop in enrollment from 22.1 million people in 2025 to 19.2 million this year could be attributed to a federal crackdown on fraudulent or “phantom” enrollment. But health analysts said it was more likely related to the Jan. 1 expiration of federal subsidieswhich caused a surge in plan costs that resulted in many people being unable to pay their premiums.

“We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, citing survey findings on people who had left their plans. “This coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double or even triple digit increases in their premium payments.”

The new data, compiled in April but showing coverage in February, represents the government’s first official look at how people’s inability to pay their first bills this year affected total enrollment. That is because the figures capture the marketplace after a nonpayment grace period expired.

A federal estimate in Januaryshowed that about 800,000 fewer people had signed up for ACA plans compared with the same time last year, marking the first time in the past four years that enrollment had been down from the previous year at that point in the shopping window.

Cox said KFF expects the total number of people in the government healthcare program to continue to declinethroughout the year, potentially to a low of about 17.5 million. That would be a significant drop for the government’s flagship subsidized health insurance program for working-age people who do not qualify for Medicaid. In recent years, ACA plans have become a popular choice for gig workers, farmers, ranchers, hairstylists and others without health coverage through an employer.

The ACA subsidies that expired this year were at the center of a bitter fight in Congress last fall, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for their renewal. Sharp increases in health costs across ACA and other health insurance programs come as voters in the approaching November elections say affordability is among their top concerns.

The Dictatorship

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Jun. 27, 2026, 9:51 PM EDT

Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary runoff Saturday, defeating former Rep. John Fleming.

Her win comes as a victory for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed her repeatedly throughout the race — including before she was even officially running.

Letlow made history in 2021 when she became the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in Congress. In that special election, she won the seat that her late husband, Luke Letlow, had won prior to dying of complications related to Covid-19 in December 2020.

Letlow had no political experience prior to running for her late husband’s seat. She holds a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and worked as an administrator for Tulane University and the University of Louisiana, according to her LinkedIn page. Nonetheless, she won the special election House race with nearly 65% of the vote.

In Congress, she has served on the appropriations and education committees, and has been a reliably MAGA Republican.

Letlow’s win also comes as a rebuke to Fleming, who loaned himself more than $11 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and tried running for the same seat in 2016 only to finish in fifth place in the nonpartisan primary. (Letlow did not loan her campaign any money, and took in more than $5.35 million compared to Fleming’s more than $12.1 million, FEC filings show.)

Trump has played a key role in the race. In addition to backing Letlow early on, the president also helped tank Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign in last month’s primary, based on the senator’s record of bucking his party and voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. In the primaryLetlow earned nearly 45% of the vote, giving her a healthy lead over both Fleming, who received about 28% of the vote, and Cassidy, who earned nearly 25%.

Ahead of Saturday’s runoff, polling showed Letlow and Fleming in a close race, with Letlow retaining a small lead in several polls.

Letlow will now proceed to the November general election to face off against the Democratic nominee, farmer Jamie Davis, who came out on top in tonight’s Democratic primary runoff.

The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her last term in office.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.

The Dictatorship

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Jun. 28, 2026, 1:36 PM EDT

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligencehas stirred fear by choosing as his chief of staff a GOP election lawyer who oversaw a poll watching program that included Jack Posobiec and other conservative conspiracy theorists. The lawyer, Christina Norton, also appears to have no experience working in the intelligence community.

“It is horrifying,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW Saturday. “Not only does Norton have absolutely no background, experience or expertise in national security or intelligence, but her principal qualifications appear to be loyalty to Pulte and an embrace of absurd election-interference conspiracies.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been a vocal critic of Pulte, also raised concerns about election integrity on Sunday while taking shots at the director of national intelligence and the office itself.

“We should eliminate the DNI, and we should eliminate Pulte from the DNI until that happens,” he said on BLN, adding, “I am concerned that we’re gonna continue to cast doubt on elections in November and erode what has been a 250-year tradition of a peaceful transition of power.”

Pulte’s choice of Norton is also likely to increase concerns among Democrats that President Donald Trump intends to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to interfere in the midterm elections. Pulte, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, has used his current position as head of federal mortgage agencies to refer political rivals of the president for federal criminal prosecution.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW on Sunday that the choice “just confirms” that the “only job qualification is absolute political loyalty and devotion to Donald Trump.” But he expressed faith in the judicial system during an appearance on “The Weekend,” noting that “right now we have federal courts across the land that are rejecting their various attempts to take over the election process. Nine different federal courts have rejected the claim that the president, by executive order, can compel the states in the union to turn over all of their voter lists to Donald Trump and to the White House.”

The New York Times first reported Norton’s appointment.

The former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, told MS NOW the choice also “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Norton, reached by MS NOW by telephone, declined to comment and referred questions to an ODNI spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment on Norton but defended Pulte’s tenure.

“Acting Director Pulte and his team are focused on carrying out President Trump’s national security priorities while faithfully executing ODNI’s statutory mission,” the spokesperson told MS NOW. “We are leading the Intelligence Community to provide President Trump with elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, said his objection to Pulte is “that he used personal information to target a political enemy of the president,” a reference to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“You should not be using the force of government to crash upon somebody just because the person in charge does not like them or finds them inconvenient. The fact that Bill did that is disqualifying for someone to be the director of national intelligence,” Cassidy said.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that Congress would ensure that the ODNI under Pulte will “report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”

Himes warned that, “Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind.”

Trump has said in interviews with the news media that he would like to see Pulte shrink the size of the ODNI and investigate election fraud. Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in investigations in Georgia and Puerto Rico to find proof of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Democrats and some former intelligence officials say they worry that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Pulte could falsely claim foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines, they say, and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats during the midterms. Or Trump could instruct Pulte to be present if FBI agents seize ballots and election records in November as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Georgia.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement on Friday that Pulte should not use his position to spread Trump’s false election conspiracy theories.

“The mission of ODNI is to identify and counter foreign threats, not to import election denialism into the Intelligence Community,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections.”

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.