Oliver Wiseman

Powell pays for past mistakes In the summer of 2020, Fed chair Jerome Powell could not have been clearer. “We’re not thinking about raising rates,” said Powell, before doubling down: “We’re not even thinking about thinking about raising rates.”   Things, as we now know, turned out a little differently. The months marched on, and with the Biden administration determined to spend, spend, spend, inflation went from “high class problem” to “transitory” to the biggest problem facing the US economy. Powell and his Fed colleagues went from not thinking about thinking about raising rates to, well, raising rates. From virtually zero around this time last year to 4.75 percent as of January.

Would you like CHIPS with that? When Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law last August, the White House heralded legislation that “will poise US workers, communities, and businesses to win the race for the twenty-first century” and help Americans “compete in and win the future.” Cut through this hype and the real point of this bipartisan, $52-billion legislation was no less significant: to reinvigorate a semiconductor industry that was born in America but moved overseas in recent years and, in doing so, to strike a major technological and economic blow in the new cold war with China.  However admirable the goals, there were always reasons to worry that the CHIPS Act may not live up to the hype.

Why DeSantis’s Ukraine statement matters Ron DeSantis’s statement on Ukraine issued Monday night, an answer to Fox host Tucker Carlson’s policy questionnaire for possible presidential candidates, is proving to be one of the most significant moments yet in the still nascent 2024 campaign.  The closer DeSantis gets to formally announcing his bid, the less he can stick to the policy ambiguity which being a state executive, rather than a Washington lawmaker, affords you. The Florida governor took Tucker’s invitation to expound on Ukraine and ran with it, issuing a statement that outlined a far less hawkish position than many had expected him to adopt.

SVB and the echo of bailout politics There was a back-to-the-noughties feel to events in Washington this morning as Joe Biden sought to calm markets and assuage fears of contagion in the banking system after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the last few days. Talking the day after regulators announced emergency measures that guaranteed all depositors at Silicon Valley Bank, Biden said that “thanks to the quick action of my administration over the past five days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe.” Viewed as a stand-alone case, Biden’s response to a run on America’s sixteenth largest bank after mismanagement left it fatally exposed to higher interest rates is understandable.

Does the New York Times think it is helping John Fetterman? It’s been almost a year since John Fetterman suffered a life-changing stroke and less than a month since he admitted himself for in-patient psychiatric care at Walter Reed Medical Center to deal with severe depression. But the New York Times is pleased to report that everything is just fine in Fetterman World. Okay, I exaggerate, but no more than Annie Karni, whose profile of Fetterman at Walter Reed is one of the most troubling things I’ve read about a Washington politician in a while. It’s hard to know where to start with her implausibly upbeat dispatch. There’s the uncritical regurgitation of his staffers’ account of a senator hard at work.

Biden wants to tax and triangulate When Joe Biden heads to Pennsylvania tomorrow to give a speech announcing his 2024 budget, he will be taking the latest in a series of steps to stake out a platform for reelection. In his State of the Union speech last month, Biden sketched a populist flavor of progressivism with promises of spending boosts and buy-American measures. Over recent weeks, the administration has showed signs of taking a tougher approach to immigration, embracing restrictive policies that the White House once rejected. Last week he backed out of a promise to veto a Congressional block on legislation in DC that would soften the city’s criminal code.

Can Marianne Williamson change anything? The first question asked of any presidential bid is, “Can she win?” It’s not an unreasonable query, and in the case of Marianne Williamson, the spiritual guru, bestselling self-help author and failed 2020 Democratic primary contender, it’s one that is reasonably easy to answer. I could add some throat-clearing caveats and health warnings but instead I’ll just say it: Marianne Williamson will not be the next president of the United States. But unsuccessful presidential bids can change history. And so, what, if anything, might Williamson’s ultra-long-shot, which she launched with a speech in a ballroom at Washington’s Union Station, achieve?

Ron DeSantis’s strategic ambiguity Ron DeSantis may not have announced his presidential bid, but no one seems to be in any doubt that he will do so eventually. This week amounted to a significant stepping stone towards that moment for the Florida governor. His book was published Monday, soaring to the top of the bestseller lists and — perhaps more importantly — providing DeSantis with an excuse to leave his “Free State of Florida” and spend some time in the rest of the country. Today, DeSantis is at a donor gathering in Houston. Tomorrow he will be in Dallas, on Sunday he will deliver remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles and, while he’s in the area, swing by a local Republican event in Orange County.

IT’S NOT FOX WOT WON IT One of the most famous front pages in modern British history ran on April 11, 1992. It wasn’t a report on world-historic events but a newspaper puffing out its chest. “IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT,” read the headline on the front of the Sun, the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid that at the time was the most read paper in the country. Published two days after a general election in which the Conservatives unexpectedly clung on to power, the story boasted that the paper’s relentless anti-Labour campaign (including a famous election-day front page asking, in reference to the possibility of a Labour victory, “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?”) had proved decisive.

Will we learn from the lab leak saga? It has been a bad few weeks for claims that were once among the most sacrosanct truths of the Covid era. Earlier this month, the landmark Cochrane study exploded the case for mask mandates when it found that “face coverings make little to no difference” in slowing the spread of Covid-19. More recently a study published in the Lancet undercut the logic of vaccine mandates when it found that “the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines.

One year on The Biden administration marked today’s one-year anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine with a one-two punch of additional support for Kyiv and a fresh slate of sanctions aimed at Russia. Elsewhere, Europe’s most powerful NATO members are mulling a more formal defense pact with Ukraine, and Beijing issued a call for peace talks even as it considers delivering artillery and drones to Russia. Taken together, these developments are a reminder of the global consequences of Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine. A decision that surprised the world and changed the world, in clear and irrefutable ways. Less obvious is what happens next. One thing few expect is a speedy resolution to the conflict.

The Republicans walking 2024 tightropes One of the big questions hanging over Ron DeSantis’s 2024 bid is how he will position himself on foreign policy. A governor with the broad backing of conservatives on a range of domestic issues, DeSantis has so far been reluctant to wade into geopolitics, on which his party is more divided. But in an appearance on Fox and Friends this week — conducted during a swing through the New York, Chicago and Philadelphia — DeSantis was asked about Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine. In response, he chose to downplay Russia’s threat to Europe, dismissing its military as “third rate” and criticizing what he called Biden’s “blank-check policy” towards Ukraine. “He’s very concerned about those borders halfway around the world.

Biden’s bill of health and the Democrats’ third rail The president is in rude health, according to his doctor. In fact, the octogenarian is so youthful, he’s still growing. In a letter detailing the results of a medical exam conducted on Thursday, White House physician Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor recorded the president’s height at six feet — a modest increase on the five feet, 11.65 inches he measured in December 2021. Summarizing his findings, Dr. O’Connor reported that Biden is a “healthy, vigorous eighty-year-old” who is “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as chief executive, head of state and commander in chief.

Haley takes aim at the Olds Nikki Haley launched her heavily trailed presidential campaign today with a speech in Charleston. The former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador walked on to “Eye of the Tiger” and came out swinging with a not-so-subtle jab at over-the-hill politicians refusing to give way to a younger generation. “We’re ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” she said. “If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win, not just as a party, but as a country, then stand with me.” Haley, to her credit, backed up this rather platitudinal generational pitch with a mischievous and concrete policy: mandatory mental fitness checks for officeholders over the age of seventy-five.

Washington’s UFO speculation: sci-fi movie or cold war thriller? Mysterious airborne objects are downed by US jets off the Alaskan coast, over the Yukon and over Lake Huron in Michigan. The NORAD commander is asked if aliens could be involved and replies: “I haven’t ruled anything out.” Washington began this week trying to figure out if it was living through the opening scenes of a sci-fi movie, the first chapter of a Cold War thriller, or something more banal. A great deal of speculation filled into the information vacuum that followed the weekend’s news that the US military had shot down three unidentified flying objects. The president has been mum on the incidents in recent days.

The capital vs the Capitol When the House of Representatives voted to overturn a pair of laws recently passed by the Council of the District of Columbia this week, Eleanor Norton Holmes, the District’s non-voting delegate, delivered an uncompromising and partisan denunciation. “I can only conclude that that the Republican leadership believes DC residents, the majority of whom are black and brown, are unworthy or incapable of governing themselves,” she said. But Holmes’s black-and-white account of the House vote to block two controversial pieces of legislation — one a revamped (and relaxed) criminal code, the other allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections — omitted some inconvenient details.

Biden delivered a strategy-free State of the Union The loudest line of Tuesday’s State of the Union was ad-libbed. “Name me a world leader who’s change places with Xi Jinping,” he shouted in a departure from his prepared text. “Name me one, name me one.” There may not have been a Chinese spy balloon drifting above the United States as Biden was speaking, but foreign policy hung awkwardly over the president’s address. In the wake of a major spat with America’s most powerful adversary and in the longest speech of his presidency, Biden spent about as much time talking about hotel resort fees as he did discussing the US’s relationship with China.

Sobering polls should cool Biden’s bullishness Joe Biden could be forgiven for ignoring the polls lately. Not because they would have made for especially difficult reading for the president — his approval rating has improved in recent months — but because, with the wind in his sails after the midterms, he and his team won’t have had much reason to worry. But a brace of surveys published today a reminder of the precariousness of the position which the president finds himself in. The first comes from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It finds that just 37 percent of Democrats say they want Joe Biden to run again in 2024.

Washington digests some very good, very confusing, economic news The US economy’s encouraging start to 2023 got a major boost this morning when the Labor Department published its January jobs report. It showed that non-farm payrolls increased by 517,000 last month, a far higher figure than the Dow Jones estimate of 187,000. Economic forecasts are often wrong, but that’s a very big miss. The White House has welcomed the news: “The Biden economic plan is working,” said the president this morning. “Sometimes good news is just good news. And this time, it’s great news,” outgoing chief of staff Ron Klain observed to Politico’s Ben White.

Boris Johnson’s call to arms Boris Johnson started a speech in Washington urging continued support for Ukraine this morning with three words: “God bless America.” The former British prime minister (and one-time Spectator editor) is in town in his burgeoning role as a freelance champion of the Ukrainian cause — and he began with a message of thanks for the leading role taken by the United States in arming and supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia. When in power, Johnson was one of the Western leaders most committed to backing Ukraine. Now, freed from the constraints of Downing Street, he has chosen to spend his new-found free time helping the Ukrainian cause — even if that puts him at odds with his successor, Rishi Sunak.