Trump Aide Claims Americans ‘Spending More Money on Everything’ Shows They’re ‘Optimistic’ About Economy

Multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

For the second time in a month, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Tuesday claimed that Americans spending more money on gasoline and other goods is a sign of strength for the US economy—rather than evidence of the Trump administration’s inflationary policy decisions.

During an interview with Fox Business, Hassett tried to counter recent data showing US consumer sentiment hitting all-time lows during Donald Trump’s second term.

“The thing that I’ve seen when I look at credit card data,” Hassett said, “is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they’ve been spending more money on everything else, which means that they’re still very, very optimistic about the state of the economy, and they should be.”

In fact, multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.

Last week, the University of Michigan’s latest Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level ever, driven primarily by concerns about the cost of living.

Gallup last week published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.

"Everything checked out PERFECTLY!"

His Physical and Mental Decline Are Linked

Robert Reich

I do not wish Trump ill. While he hasn’t shown a shred of compassion for anyone other than himself, this doesn’t justify our lacking compassion for him.

It’s also in the interest of America and the world that he be physically and mentally able to discharge the duties of his office.

So we have reason to be concerned about Trump’s visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center early Tuesday for what the White House called a “routine annual dental and medical assessment.”

Trump turns 80 next month. I feel entitled to comment on the practical meaning of this milestone because I’ll also turn 80 next month (he was born 10 days before me).

Let’s just say that reaching it doesn’t mean altogether good things, unless you consider the alternative.

Even in a healthy person, small things begin to break down as one approaches 80. Everything takes just a bit more time and effort. Joints ache. Energy isn’t quite as abundant.

The 80-year-old mind isn’t as quick. The frontal lobe’s capacity to remember names goes to shit. (Yesterday, I could barely remember the name of a garage mechanic whom I’ve known for nearly half a century.)

Taken separately, such minor frailties are typically no more than a personal frustration, but they begin to mount up. In a president of the United States, they can pose a major challenge to the nation and world.

Trump frequently proclaims he’s in excellent health. “Just finished my 6 month physical at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” he wrote on Truth Social early yesterday afternoon. “Thank you to the great Doctors and Staff! Heading back to the White House.”

But even “PERFECTLY” is a relative concept for someone ending his seventh decade and beginning his eighth, who’s the oldest person to assume the presidency and the second-oldest to hold the office. (Joe Biden was 82 when he left in 2025.)

Presidents aren’t legally required to release their medical records, but, given the effluvium of lies in which Trump permanently floats, we’d be excused if we didn’t entirely trust this PERFECTLY report.

Plus, there are his bruised hands, swollen ankles, bouts of drowsiness, exceedingly long blinks during official meetings (some call them “naps”), and erratic — if not off-the-charts weird — behavior.

Add in the frequency of his health “checkups.”

"Too distracting"

Satire from the Onion

June 3 protest in Wyoming

Richmond Takes Action on Climate Resilience

Climate change-driven storms threaten more than the coast

By Jonmaesha Beltran / ecoRI News staff

As climate-fueled disasters rise, municipalities are no longer asking if a catastrophe will strike but whether their communities will be prepared when it does. 

In Richmond, where a little more than 8,000 people live, Town Councilor Daniel Madnick is working to close gaps that recent wildfires and brushfires across the state revealed in the town’s environmental planning. 

Bottom of Form

Madnick proposed creating an environmental resiliency commission to prepare the town for threats, including drought, flooding, hurricanes and wildfires, while monitoring its hazard mitigation plan.

“We don’t have a board or commission that their sole focus is to make sure that we are prepared for any environmental issues that come,” he said during a May 19 town council meeting. 

The proposal is modeled after the Charlestown Climate Resilience Commission, which was established in 2021 and worked with state Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, Hopkinton, and Richmond, on forest management and fire prevention.

Cotter, who serves on the Northeastern Forest Fire Prevention Commission, urged the commission to reach out to Charlestown landowners with five acres or more to connect them with resources and federal funding available for private land management.

A Medical School at URI would be a boon for South County

Much to gain, little to lose 

By Sen. Alana M. DiMario 

As South County residents, we know that as difficult as the primary care provider shortage is for folks across Rhode Island, it is worse down here. 

Ask any group of people from North Kingstown to New Shoreham and you’ll hear the same stories: physicians retiring or leaving the state with no one to take their patients at their clinic, leaving their patients bouncing from provider to provider, driving up to Providence or beyond for routine care or just giving up and going without a primary care provider. 

There is no single solution to this problem. Last year the General Assembly began the process of increasing primary care reimbursement rates and reduced prior authorization requirements to make Rhode Island more attractive to primary care providers, but it’s not enough to just hold onto the providers we have: we need a supply of new primary care providers to make up the gap. 

That is why the Senate launched a commission last year to study the feasibility and impact of starting a primary-care-focused medical school at the University of Rhode Island. I served on the commission and I believe that its conclusion that “a state medical school would provide transformative long-term benefits for the state’s healthcare system, economy and communities” goes double for South County. 

A medical school at URI would be a sustainable pipeline of homegrown doctors in our backyard that we sorely need. 

Forecasters Predict Below-Average Hurricane Season, Advise Against Complacency

Hurricane season begins today

By Amy Green

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Forecasters are calling for below-average activity this hurricane season, which begins Monday, June 1.

The National Weather Service is predicting eight to 14 named storms, including three to six hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes of category 3, 4 or 5 strength, packing winds of 111 mph or greater. By comparison, a typical season is characterized by 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. The season ends Nov. 30.

“It just takes one,” said Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service. “Now is the time to start thinking about your hurricane preparedness.”

The forecasters based their predictions on an expected El Niño that is likely to develop during the season. An El Niño is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that begins with unusually warm waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and can affect weather patterns worldwide. 

Rhode Island needs to pass bills to codify the Voting Right Act into RI law

We are at Code Red for Democracy

On May 21st, 2026, the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act Campaign (RI VRA) hosted a lobby day at the State House to promote the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act (H8334/S3143) and its ten amendments. As group leaders in the campaign, and after experiencing actions and lobbying by over 100 people for the passage of the bill, we invite you to join the urgent Code Red for Democracy call.

As community leaders, we are calling on the Rhode Island General Assembly to pass the RI VRA and all 10 amendments before the session ends in June. There is extreme urgency.

Voting rights are being attacked across the country, both at the state and federal levels. The recent United States Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais gutted the federal Voting Rights Act. Action needs to be taken now. Rhode Islanders cannot afford to have their voting rights put at risk. The way to do this is to pass the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act and its ten amendments before the session ends, and implement the bill immediately upon passage.

“Standing inside the Rhode Island State House alongside Common Cause, The Womxn Project, the RI Coalition of Black Women, The Women’s Fund, Clean Water Action, and members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta and Zeta Phi Beta sororities, lobbying for the codification of the Voting Rights Act into Rhode Island law, was a surreal and sobering moment — because sixty-one years ago, my grandparents already fought and won this battle,” says Shahidah Ali, the Political Action Committee Chair of the RI Coalition of Black Women.

Yet here we are again.

Judgment of history

Trump posts on social media about himself

Insight into the mind of Donald provided by Donald himself...

Ticks already sending more people to the ER in RI

Rhode Island has a tick expert in its own backyard.

RINewsToday News Team

Tick season is not waiting for summer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says emergency room visits for tick bites are running higher than normal in many parts of the country. In all U.S. regions except the South Central United States, weekly rates of ER visits for tick bites are the highest for this time of year since 2017.

For Rhode Island, the warning is especially relevant. The state remains a high-risk area for Lyme disease and other tickborne illnesses, with cases typically rising during the warmer months. The Rhode Island Department of Health says most Lyme disease cases are reported during the summer, with a peak in July. Washington County consistently has the highest Lyme disease rate in Rhode Island, with a 2024 rate of 723 cases per 100,000 people.

And Rhode Island has one of the country’s best-known tick resources in its own backyard: the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center.

Led by Dr. Thomas Mather — URI’s “TickGuy” and one of the nation’s foremost tick experts — TickEncounter provides practical, plain-language guidance on tick identification, tick-bite prevention, and what to do after finding a tick. URI’s TickEncounter site also includes tools and videos to help people understand which ticks are active and how to reduce the risk of tickborne disease.

Mather has long emphasized that conditions matter. Ticks do not like dry weather, while damp, shady, leafy areas create more favorable tick habitat. In a URI summer-prevention update, he said Rhode Islanders can often judge tick risk by looking at yard conditions, including whether lawns and surrounding areas are dry or damp.

Ticks are not the only warm-weather pest concern. The National Pest Management Association is also warning that ticks, mosquitoes, ants and stinging insects become increasingly active as summer approaches. Mosquitoes can breed in small amounts of standing water and may transmit illnesses such as West Nile virus and Zika virus. Stinging insects are also a seasonal risk, especially for people with allergies.

The advice is simple, but important: act early, before pest activity peaks.

What to do now

7,000 Local Food Benefit Cards Available for Eligible Seniors

No home delivery anymore due to Trump allowing funding to lapse

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) will distribute nearly 7,000 benefit cards to eligible seniors to purchase fresh, RI Grown fruit and vegetables, as well as local honey. The SFMNP benefit cards preloaded with $50 will be distributed from more than fifty senior centers and locations throughout the state starting June 1, 2026, and are valid through November 30. 

Eligible seniors can apply to participate in the SFMNP through their local senior center or other applicable nutrition program, with sign-up locations listed on the SFMNP webpage at www.dem.ri.gov/sfmnp.

The SFMNP helps eligible seniors access fresh, locally grown food, supports Rhode Island farmers, and keeps food assistance dollars in the state. DEM works closely with the Rhode Island Office of Healthy Aging (OHA) to identify communities in need and ensure an equitable distribution across the state. Due to the end of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, there will be no deliveries of produce boxes to homebound seniors this season. 

To provide RI SFMNP benefit access for homebound eligible participants, DEM encourages eligible homebound individuals to complete the application found on the SFMNP webpage and indicate a selected proxy. The proxy can take the completed application to a SFMNP Distribution Location to obtain a SFMNP benefit card and then shop for produce on the participant’s behalf.

Pope Leo XIV compares AI to the Industrial Revolution – as new alternatives to big AI firms take shape

A very different Pope

Nathan Schneider, University of Colorado Boulder

With the release of his encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas on May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV has signaled that he wants the church to respond to artificial intelligence much as a predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, responded to upheavals during the Industrial Revolution over a century ago.

Since the first act of his papacy – choosing his name – the current pope has repeatedly invoked the earlier Leo’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. 

That document, which waded into the political and economic debates of the time, denounced the excesses of the Gilded Age and pointed toward a more just social order. 

Now, Leo XIV has used his first major statement to the world to present a new Rerum Novarum for the age of AI.

Rerum Novarum was more than just a theological text. It helped reshape economic policy around the rights of workers, serving as a spiritual foundation for European social democracy and the 1930s New Deal programs that still undergird economic life for working Americans today. It also spurred a movement of entrepreneurs to transform the economic system from within.

Understanding its influence is key to seeing the potential of Leo XIV’s encyclical.

Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition urge General Assembly to tax the rich

They can afford it and it's the right thing to do

Steve Ahlquist

As the Rhode Island House releases the FY2027 state budget, the Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition and more than 50 statewide organizations and businesses¹ are calling on legislative leaders to meet this moment with courage and urgency by including meaningful revenue solutions — including the top one percent surtax proposal — in the final budget. On Thursday, they held a rally outside the Rhode Island State House and then went inside to lobby in both chambers.

“We are here to demand that lawmakers tax the rich,” said emcee Alisha Pina, director of Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty. “We are here today because we know Rhode Island needs more revenue. We are here today because most of us are not thriving; we are struggling paycheck to paycheck. We know that tax fairness and more revenue from the 1% will bring in more money that we all need. Rhode Island can take care of itself, and we do that by doing it together. We know that federal cuts will be on the order of $400 million for fiscal year 2028, so the money found a few weeks ago is not enough. What we need is tax fairness, and tax fairness means taxing the top 1% to bring in more money for all of us and to address the inequities we see every day in education, housing, and healthcare.

“We need money for childcare, the unhoused, RIPTA, and healthcare. Every session, we tell our legislators the same thing: It is your moral obligation to help all of us, not just some of us. To think that the budget that’s going to be announced tomorrow may not include any millionaires or 1% tax ... It’s not fair, logical, or good for Rhode Island. We’re here to demand what we need. Listen to your taxpayers. We’re the ones who elect you, and yet you make decisions that are against what we want. That’s why we’re here today.”

“In April 1978, martyr and Saint Óscar Romero wrote, ‘A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed -- what gospel is that?’² The original column was written for an archdiocesan newspaper in response to secular attacks from the Salvadorian oligarchy, corrupt and fraudulent leadership supported by the U.S. government,” said Jeremy Langill, Executive Minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. “Romero had been accused of being a communist, but like many inspired by liberation theology and the reality that the gospels compelled action, he continued to insist that his care and support for the rights of the poor were a matter of faith.

“But Saint Romero is not the only leader who understood the Christian call to action. Karl Barth, arguably the most preeminent Protestant theologian of the 20th century, wrote that the churches have injured the cause of the gospel by the way they have identified the gospel with the badly planned and ineptly guided cause of the West. Bart, too, was responding to claims that he was a crypto-communist because of his consistent critique of the attempt to identify Christian faith post World War II with the economic and political systems of the United States. His commentary was theological. It was grounded in the gospel. It could not be assimilated into market forces that prioritized profits over people.

“Friends, a marginal tax rate on the top 1% is, to speak simply, a no-brainer. It’s a no-brainer because it does not even get close to addressing the deep structural inequities that drive our dystopian and immoral economic reality. It merely addresses a symptom, the excessive accumulation of wealth by a handful of people. As a minister of the gospel of Christ, I already know what Jesus thinks about wealth. The gospels go straight to the heart of the matter: ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.’ (Matthew 20:16) It is a teaching that comes just after the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the manager paid every employee equally, regardless of the number of hours they worked.

Great new plan