Reading Between the Lines on Interest Rates: BGOV Starting Line

Eye on the Economy: Interest Rates

Watch the chairman of the Federal Reserve choose his words very, very carefully this afternoon, knowing his sentences will be pulled apart, parsed, and translated by people trying to figure out when interest rates are going to change and whether the economy’s about to slide.

The Fed’s been telegraphing a hold-rates-steady intention ahead of today’s meeting, so the suspense shifts from the benchmark interest rate to what comes next — and how the central bank views inflation, tariff impact, and the overall Trump economy.

In an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there may be a “pause” in the economy, but the Trump administration is “going to get this spending under control, we’re going to bring manufacturing back home and we’re going to make the country more affordable for working Americans.”

“What I can guarantee you is there is no reason we need to have a recession,” Bessent said.

Figures out this week on US factory production and housing starts both pointed up. However, the preliminary consumer sentiment index for March was down to the lowest level since November 2022 — a mixture that Fed chief Jerome Powell probably will be asked about in the post-meeting press conference. Read More

Today’s Guests Run Energy Companies

At least 15 oil company chief executives meet with President Donald Trump at the White House today and it will be worth watching how they handle what amounts to a diplomatic mission.

They can thank him for ending a Biden-era policy that halted new authorizations to export American natural gas overseas. But Trump’s tariffs also will make them pay more for the materials needed to refine gasoline and drill wells.

“Generally speaking, in the oil patch, higher prices go over better than lower ones,” said Kevin Book, managing director of the Washington consulting firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC. Read More

Zelenskiy On Trump’s Call List

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters in Helsinki he will speak with Trump today, a day after the American president spoke at length with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin didn’t agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but did agree to halt attacks on energy infrastructure.

Read More:

• Putin Spurns a Ukraine Ceasefire But Trump Calls Talk a Win
• Putin Puts Ukraine Truce on Ice in Search for Trump Partnership

Latest on RIFs

In response to a California judge who said paid leave isn’t the same as getting your job back, the administration said it intends to rehire more than 25,000 fired federal workers.

Paid leave “is not being used to skirt the requirement of reinstatement but is merely a first part of a series of steps to reinstate probationary employees,” the administration said in a court filing.

A federal judge in a different case challenging the federal personnel reductions indicated that’s he’s satisfied with the government’s efforts. The varying judicial feedback came as federal appeals courts weigh the US Justice Department’s requests to pause both judges’ decisions.

Those cases focus on probationary employees. Trump separately has suggested that federal workers should volunteer to leave the government’s payroll — the so-called “fork in the road” offer.

Roxana Tiron reports that the Defense Department has approved close to 21,000 civilian employee resignations, with a goal of reducing that part of its workforce by as many as 60,000 people. Read More

Meanwhile, thousands of transgender service members can remain in uniform after a judge handed a setback to Trump.
US District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction that stops a Pentagon plan to begin discharging transgender service members later this month. She wrote that her injunction was necessary “to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.”

Testing Presidential Limits

A shakeup at the Federal Trade Commission may be setting up a new lawsuit testing the ability to expand presidential power.

“The president just illegally fired me,” Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in a social media post. “This is corruption plain and simple.”

Bedoya and fellow Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were dismissed in the latest move by the White House to assert control over US agencies. Bedoya’s term expires next year and Slaughter’s expires in 2029 — terms set as guardrails to keep the FTC independent. Read More

The administration’s already in court on numerous other challenges, one of which produced a ruling that Elon Musk likely exercised unconstitutional power in orchestrating the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development.

US District Judge Theodore Chuang wrote that Musk “exercised significant authority” reserved for officers of the US.

The Constitution’s Appointments Clause “would be reduced to nothing more than a technical formality” if a president could “escape” scrutiny by having White House advisers “bypass duly appointed officers,” the judge wrote. Read More

A White House statement criticized “activist judges intruding on the separation of powers, and said there’ll be an appeal.

We have a tool to help you keep all the Trump challenges straight: Check out the Litigation Tracker.

BGOV Exclusive: New K Streeter

Kate Ackley scoops that another member of the Sen. Mitch McConnell alumni network is setting up on K Street.

After three decades on Capitol Hill, most recently as the top policy aide to the Kentucky senator, Scott Raab is launching Raab Government Strategies.

He’s part of a trend.

McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have the biggest network of former aides now lobbying, according to Dan Auble, senior researcher at OpenSecrets.org. “Having worked for a majority leader is a highly valuable trait on K Street,” Auble said. Read More

... and Speaking of McConnell

The former Senate Republican Leader was on the early side in announcing his plans to retire. He’s among four retirees-to-be serving out the end of their terms.

In an average campaign cycle, about half a dozen elected senators decide to go, as Greg Giroux reports. Check out his inventory of who to watch and who got out early with re-election decisions. Read More

Before You Go

“We have a tremendous amount of paper” — Fulfilling a Trump campaign promise, about 80,000 pages of previously classified records about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination are yours for the browsing on the website of the National Archives and Records Administration. Read More

This is far, far from a routine Washington exchange. Catch up on the chief justice publicly rebuking the president, saying impeachment is not an OK way to disagree with a court ruling.

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