| | | | |  | | By Ben White | REST IN PEACE — Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, died today at the age of 96. She had served more than 70 years on the throne. "The queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon," Buckingham Palace said in a statement. She is immediately succeeded by her eldest son Charles, who now becomes King Charles III. Across the Atlantic, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden said in a statement that the queen "defined an era." "She was the first British monarch to whom people all around the world could feel a personal and immediate connection," they went on to note. "She, in turn, dedicated her whole life to their service."
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testify during a hearing before Senate Banking Committee on Capitol Hill. | Alex Wong/Getty Images | MARQUEE MATCHUP — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are good friends and former central bank colleagues. Janet and Jay (as he is known to friends) share one big goal: bringing down a run of nasty inflation unseen since the early 1980s. When it comes to achieving that goal, however, the pair are not aligned in subtle but important ways. The Powell versus Yellen matchup flared into view today as each delivered highly anticipated remarks. To be clear, this is not exactly a steel-cage, blood-on-the-floor battle to the death. These are affable, soft-spoken people who truly like each other, after all. But Powell and his central bank colleagues are firmly committed — as the chair reiterated in remarks today — to yank down inflation currently running over 8 percent back to the Fed's roughly 2 percent annual target by pretty much any means necessary. Yellen also used her remarks, largely focused on clean energy and cheerleading the Biden record, to acknowledge that bringing down prices remains the administration's top economic focus. But you won't hear any "by any means necessary," bare-knuckled kind of talk from Yellen or other White House officials or Democrats more broadly when it comes to inflation-fighting. Many at senior levels in the White House and Democratic campaign circles believe the worst of the (very heavy) political hit from four-decade-high inflation is largely over given the much less horrifying numbers on gas station signs. And the last thing Democrats want is for a bunch of jumbo-sized rate hikes from the Fed to crash the economy into recession and send the unemployment rate sharply higher heading into the midterms and the start of the 2024 presidential campaign. So it's no accident that when White House officials talk about fighting inflation, they add a little caveat. Here was Yellen in Michigan today: "The most immediate challenge is to return to an environment of stable prices without sacrificing the economic gains of the past two years." You will hear some version of the "not giving up the gains" line from pretty much any major Democrat from Biden on down when they talk about inflation. This is code for: "Take it easy, Jay. Don't mess this up for us." Powell, unfortunately for Democrats and Wall Street traders who wanted a softer message, went pretty much the exact opposite way in his remarks today in a Cato Institute Q&A session in D.C. The Fed chair said the central bank remains "strongly committed" to killing inflation. Powell nodded at trying to avoid the "very high social costs" that often come with rate-hiking campaigns, costs that can include recession and much higher unemployment. But he made nothing close to a promise that these things could be avoided. And many economists, including Democrat Larry Summers, don't think they can. According to this train of thought, prices for food, rent, housing travel and almost everything else won't meaningfully decline without the Fed slamming the brakes pretty hard and choking off demand in the economy, sending joblessness to perhaps double the current 3.7 percent rate. There was hardly a dovish (meaning favoring fewer rate hikes) word to be found in Powell's comments. "We need to act now, forthrightly, strongly as we have been doing, and we need to keep at it until the job is done," he said. And he pretty flatly dismissed those who think it's already time for the Fed to start easing up. "History cautions against prematurely loosening policy," Powell warned. Markets pretty much read the chair's remarks as a near guarantee that the central bank will not, as some previously hoped, dial back the rate hike at its meeting later this month to half a point from three-quarters of a point at the last two meetings. Financial contracts tied to the next rate hike suggest around 90 percent odds of another three-quarter-point boost, meaning credit will get significantly tighter and it will be harder to borrow and spend. That tends to mean slower growth, less hiring and layoffs, which we have so far mostly avoided. None of this means the fabled "soft landing" in which inflation cools and the economy avoids recession, is impossible. But right now, Yellen and Democrats' preferred path — fewer big rate hikes — seems blocked off by traffic cones set up by Yellen's close pal, Jay. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's author at bwhite@politico.com or on Twitter @morningmoneyben.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | — DOJ appeals special master ruling in Trump Mar-a-Lago probe: Prosecutors said in a new court filing that temporarily halting the federal criminal probe into the ex-president's handling and storage of classified materials would result in "irreparable harm" to the government and the public. They also said that U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon's attempt to enjoin the investigation while permitting a parallel national security review of the seized documents was unworkable. DOJ also contended that it's urgent the FBI be permitted to help investigate dozens of empty folders found at Mar-a-Lago with classification markings to determine what they once held and whether their contents "may have been lost or compromised." — Nevada county official charged in connection with death of investigative journalist: Police in Las Vegas have charged a local elected official with murder in connection with the stabbing death of Jeff German, an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had spent the last few months exposing misdeeds and turmoil in the official's office. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, a 45-year-old Democrat, was taken into custody on Wednesday after police conducted a search in his home. Today, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters Telles had been charged with murder after authorities found a positive match for Telles' DNA with the genetic material found underneath German's fingernails. — DHS unwinds Trump-era 'public charge' rule for immigrants: The Department of Homeland Security today finalized a regulation rolling back a policy instituted under former President Donald Trump that sought to limit immigration benefits for those likely to rely on government aid. The new law unravels the Trump-era public-charge rule, under which immigrants could be denied permanent resident status if they had received or were expected to receive food assistance, Medicaid, housing assistance or other public benefits. The Biden administration stopped enforcing that regulation in March 2021.
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| — Steve Bannon charged with money laundering, conspiracy: Longtime Trump ally and right-wing firebrand Stephen Bannon, who dodged federal charges in a charity fraud case thanks to a last-minute presidential pardon, must now face the music in New York state court. Bannon, 68, arrived in handcuffs to a crowded arraignment in Manhattan's New York County Supreme Court this afternoon, hours after surrendering to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. A six-count indictment charges the controversial former White House adviser with money laundering, conspiracy and scheming to defraud for his alleged role in We Build the Wall, a group that raised at least $15 million to construct a barrier along the border with Mexico but skimmed the donations. — D.C. mayor declares public emergency in response to migrant buses: Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency today due to buses of migrants being sent to the nation's capital by Texas and Arizona. The emergency declaration allows Bowser to establish an office, which will be allocated $10 million, that will provide services to the incoming migrants, her office announced. Democratic mayors have roundly condemned the move by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey as a politically motivated, man-made humanitarian crisis since the busing began in April. — Trump's Save America PAC finds itself in DOJ's crosshairs: The Justice Department is eyeing Trump's Save America PAC, a key fundraising arm for the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter. A grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking information about the group , that person told POLITICO. Save America is a leadership PAC that was set up shortly after Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election. It has raised tens of millions of dollars, including in the aftermath of Trump's defeat, during which it asked for money to support efforts to challenge those results.
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Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. | Daniel Leal - WPA Pool/Getty Images | ALL THE GREEK PRIME MINISTER'S MEN — Greece's opposition parties are railing against the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the inquiry into a wiretapping scandal dubbed "Greek Watergate." The scandal broke last month when the government's Secretary-General Grigoris Dimitriadis (who is the prime minister's nephew) and the head of the National Intelligence Service (EYP) lost their jobs, after it transpired that the phone of Nikos Androulakis, head of the center-left Pasok party, had been surveilled by EYP. A separate attempt was made to tap his phone around the same time with illegal software called Predator, but Athens strenuously denies that EYP had any connection with that, writes Nektaria Stamouli. At a parliamentary session today investigating the spy scandal, opposition parties stormed out in protest, after the ruling New Democracy party blocked any political figures from being called to testify, including those directly involved. Today's parliamentary committee hearing in Athens was convened to form a list of people that will be summoned to testify. But New Democracy, which holds the majority in the panel, blocked dozens of witnesses proposed by opposition parties, including Dimitriadis and Mitsotakis, who is in charge of the EYP. The Mitsotakis government has admitted it acted wrongly and promised to investigate the case.
| | | | | As many as 9,000 The number of lives that could be saved if Americans take the updated Covid shots at the same rate as the annual flu shot this year , according to CDC-reviewed modeling projections. Estimates show 100,000 hospitalizations could also be avoided. The White House this week said that future national strategies to bolster Covid-19 immunity will fall in line with the annual flu campaign. | | | | | | 
Queen Elizabeth II and then-Prince Charles, Prince of Wales in 2017. | Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images | SUCCESSION PLANS — The moment Queen Elizabeth died today, Prince Charles became King Charles III. As Britain and 14 Commonwealth realms adjust to their new head of state, Charles will begin to carve out his role as a monarch in 2022 — and, importantly, decide whether he will continue his activism from the throne, writes Ella Creamer. As Prince of Wales, Charles did not equivocate on climate. "The world is on the brink," he wrote earlier this year, "and we need the mobilizing urgency of a war-like footing if we are to win." Now, as King, he will be forced to tread the paper-thin boundary between political advocacy and the throne. How he handles his activist instincts will surely influence his popularity across the U.K. and Commonwealth. But it will also matter in the U.S., where Queen Elizabeth II's special brand of marshmallow diplomacy — soft, sweet and distinctly apolitical — charmed Americans over decades. Oysterlike in refraining from controversial comment, the Queen resembled a "blank slate," said Stryker McGuire, a former editor at Bloomberg and Newsweek who has written about Britain's post-Elizabethan identity. "The thing about celebrity blank slates is that the admirer can write just about anything they want to on that slate. […] They can identify with that person in any way they want." Elizabeth's eldest son Charles, on the other hand, has spent decades in decidedly political territory, cultivating a resume of progressive projects that have often been climate-centered. At 21, he made his first major speech on the topic at a countryside conference in Cardiff, drawing attention to the threats of pollution, plastic and overpopulation. This was in 1970 — long before environmental concerns became mainstream political talking points. This commitment to environmentalism and charity work is as impressive as it is politically incongruous: There's the loud-and-proud progressiveness of his public efforts. And then there's his background of extreme wealth as part of an institution steeped in traditionalism and a tight-lipped culture of "never complain, never explain" — a phrase adopted by the Queen Mother. Charles likely faces a choice between his climate politics and the bipartisan popularity of the type his mother enjoyed in America. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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