“We are the zeitgeist now.”

Caroline Downey, 27, teetered atop a chair in silver heels, microphone in hand, the teardrop-shaped beads of her pink minidress reflecting light. Nearly 200 fellow 20-somethings stared back at her, nodding in agreement. It was a Thursday night at Butterworth’s, a bistro near the Capitol that’s become a sort of MAGA clubhouse in Trump’s second term. The second-floor bar was festooned with feminine flourishes — mini disco balls scattered on the bar, blush-colored balloons scattered on the floor, hot-pink “Make America Hot Again” ball caps scattered on tabletops.

The name of the event put things in the present tense: “America Is Hot Again.” The host was the Conservateur, an online lifestyle publication. Think Vogue meets National Review. (Recent headlines: “The Media’s Latest Buzzword: Misogyny”; “‘Trad Life’ Is a Spectrum, Not a Straitjacket”; “Trump & Elon — The Power Duo Saving America.”) Downey, a staff writer for National Review Online who also serves as the Conservateur’s editor in chief, stood under the soft glow of pendant lights and talked about an “objectively beautiful lifestyle” and an “objectively superior worldview” that had been under-recognized and underappreciated by mainstream fashion magazines.

“They’re glamorizing bad ideas,” she said of the mainstream outlets. “They’re glamorizing evil.”

The Trump administration has been making headlines for its attacks on federal workers, but it just opened a new front in its war on workers by scrapping minimum wage protections for hundreds of thousands of employees at private sector companies with government contracts. This latest attack could not have come at a worse time for workers, who are already concerned about rising costs but now face a threat to their livelihood.

On March 14, President Donald Trump issued an executive order undoing a Biden-era regulation that raised the minimum wage for private sector workers on federal contracts to $17.75 per hour. That Biden administration rule raised the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers and helped ensure government contractors paid workers a decent wage. But now, there’s nothing stopping employers from slashing wages. Because of Trump’s new order, corporations working on government contracts are free to cut wages for hundreds of thousands of workers, as the U.S. Department of Labor will no longer enforce the Biden-era rule. An Obama-era rule remains in place, meaning some workers on federal contracts can now be paid a minimum of only $13.30 per hour—a pay cut of up to 25 percent.

Hundreds of thousands of private sector workers got raises under the now-scrapped Biden rule

The federal government contracts out work to private sector companies to provide goods and services for the public, the military, and the government—from building and maintaining federal offices to providing uniforms for military service members. For a century, the government has been using its contracting system to set a standard to offer market wages and working conditions for private sector workers on federal contracts, while also boosting standards through minimum wages on several occasions.

Good Morning—

Today’s headlines serve up a full-course reminder that in Trump’s Washington, “American hotness” isn’t about substance—just red hats and red flags.

While Trump plays chicken with the global nuclear order and tells the Supreme Court he’ll “respect” them (how generous), China is torching U.S. investments, Americans are paying “tariff surcharges” on essentials, and the Social Security Administration is declaring immigrants dead. You know, normal stuff.

Meanwhile, minimum wages are being slashed, books are being banned, DEI is in the crosshairs, and the Education Department is now threatening entire states. Not to be outdone, RFK Jr. is promising to solve autism like it’s a Sudoku puzzle, and South Carolina is busy revving up the firing squad.

So buckle up. The markets are panicking, the courts are rubber-stamping political deportations, and the only thing growing faster than censorship is Trump’s delusions about cognitive exams.

Let’s dig into the chaos—because if we don’t pay attention, they’ll keep rewriting reality while calling it greatness.

Stay informed, stay engaged. 💪

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This Day in History:

On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, marking the start of a conflict that would shape the nation's future. In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, leading to Vice President Harry S. Truman assuming the presidency during a critical phase of World War II. A significant milestone in space exploration occurred on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, completing an orbit around Earth aboard Vostok 1. This achievement is celebrated annually as Cosmonautics Day in Russia and as the International Day of Human Space Flight worldwide. In the realm of music, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954, a song that would become a defining anthem of the rock and roll era. Additionally, on April 12, 1981, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Columbia, marking the first flight of the Space Shuttle program and ushering in a new era of reusable spacecraft.

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• In Trump’s Washington, MAGA Fashionistas Lay Claim to American Hotness
• Trump May Be Triggering the Fastest Nuclear Weapons Race Since the Cold War
• U.S. and Iran See Saturday’s Nuclear Talks as Test of Whether Other Side Wants a Deal
• Crackpot RFK Jr Claims He’ll Know Cause of Autism by September
• China Retaliates Again in Trump’s Trade War, Prompting Flight From US Assets
• US Consumer Sentiment Plummets to Second-Lowest Level on Records Going Back to 1952
• Consumers Now Face “Tariff Surcharges” for Some Goods as Companies Pass Along Costs
• Trump Just Cut the Minimum Wage for Hundreds of Thousands of Private Sector Workers
• Trump Has 90 Days to Do 150 Trade Deals. Financial Markets Aren’t Buying It

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Should Trump Face Insider Trading Charges?

Trump paused tariffs, and the stock market soared.

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• Judge Rules University Student Mahmoud Khalil Eligible for Deportation
• A Ruling Against Mahmoud Khalil Highlights Marco Rubio’s Vast Power to Deport People for Their Opinions
• Trump Says He Would Respect Supreme Court Decision to Return Wrongly Deported Man
• Social Security Says on X It’s Not Switching All Communications to X (Update)
• What We Know About the Social Security Administration Listing Thousands of Living Immigrants as Dead
• US Fires Greenland Military Base Chief for ‘Undermining’ Vance
• Trump Says He ‘Got Every Answer Right’ During Cognitive Portion of Physical Exam
• Maya Angelou Memoir, Holocaust Book Are Among Those Pulled From Naval Academy Library in DEI Purge
• Mikal Mahdi Killed by Firing Squad as South Carolina Pushes Execution Spree

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📊 Poll Time 📊

What outcome do you expect from U.S.–Iran nuclear talks?

🔹 Another social media tantrum
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🔹 Just enough chaos to spike oil prices

Vote & Discuss

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• F.B.I. Suspends Employee on Patel’s So-Called Enemies List
• White House Says Trump ‘Optimistic’ as He Waits for China’s Xi to Call
• Florida Teacher Loses Job for Using Student’s Chosen Name
• Farmers Try to Keep Food on the Table Despite Trump
• Putin’s Secret Dealmaker Emerges From the Shadows in Ukraine Peace Talks
• Activism, Uncensored: "Hands Off" Protests and Pro-Palestine Activists Rally in DC
• An Uprising at a Big Law Firm Targeted by Trump
• Former Trump Lawyer Uses Cushy New Gig to Probe Political Enemies

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• How Nintendo Is Navigating Tariff Chaos With Secret Shipments and New Factories
• Ex-Blackwater CEO’s New Pitch for Trump ‘Could Be a Precursor to Deporting US Citizens’
• Senate Democrats Are Obstructing Everything and Burning Out Republicans
• The Silence of the Dems
• Justice Department Expands Its Retribution to American Bar Association
• Education Department Is Threatening to Cut All Federal Funding for Maine Schools
• Edison to Bury More Than 150 Miles of Power Lines in Wake of Devastating L.A. County Firestorms
• Justice Dept. Skirts Judge’s Deadline on Plans to Return Wrongly Deported Man

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Americans are rarely this pessimistic about the economy.

Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952. April’s reading was lower than anything seen during the Great Recession.

President Donald Trump’s volatile trade war, which threatens higher inflation, has significantly weighed on Americans’ moods these past few months. That malaise worsened leading up to Trump’s announcement last week of sweeping tariffs, according to the survey.

“This decline was, like the last month’s, pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region and political affiliation,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a release.

“Sentiment has now lost more than 30% since December 2024 amid growing worries about trade war developments that have oscillated over the course of the year,” she added.

The Federal Reserve and Wall Street are watching closely how souring sentiment translates into consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of the US economy, and whether Americans lose faith that inflation will return to normal in the coming years.

Trump on Wednesday paused his massive tariff hike on dozens of countries for 90 days, but kept in place a 10% baseline duty for all imports into the US and separate tariffs on specific products and commodities. The so-called reciprocal tariffs, albeit short lived, were the sharpest increase in US duties ever on data going back 200 years, Fitch Ratings told CNN