After several weeks of sitting stagnant, mortgage rates surged higher Monday following Moody’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

Bond yields rose after the late Friday announcement, and mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year Treasury.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed loan hit 7.04% on Monday, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest level since April 11.

“The average mortgage lender had to account not only for the market movement in Friday’s closing minutes, but also to the additional weakness seen this morning. That makes for a fairly big jump, day-over-day, but it does very little to change the bigger picture,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.

The April surge in mortgage rates did have a direct effect on the housing market, causing it to pull back right in the heart of the usually busy spring season. Pending sales of existing homes in April, counted by signed contracts, dropped 3.2% compared with April of last year, according to Realtor.com.

Homebuilders also noted a steep drop in demand in April. Homebuilder sentiment is now at the lowest level since the end of 2023, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ monthly index.

But that wasn’t the only thing that happened. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s highly controversial and wildly unqualified national intelligence director, decided to fire the leaders of the National Intelligence Council, the office that dared to tell the White House what it didn’t want to hear.

In case this weren’t quite enough, The New York Times reported on some previously undisclosed behind-the-scenes details that appeared to take the controversy to a new direction.

A top adviser to the director of national intelligence ordered a senior analyst to redo an assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and a gang after intelligence findings undercut the White House’s justification for deporting migrants, according to officials.

The original intelligence assessment reportedly came together in late February. According to the Times’ new reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, it was in March when Joe Kent — Gabbard’s acting chief of staff and the president’s conspiratorial nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center — “told a senior intelligence analyst to do a new assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and the gang.”

In other words, the council analyzed the classified intelligence and provided a reality-based assessment. Soon after, members of Trump’s team, unsatisfied with the available facts, effectively asked them to do it again......

The developments come against a backdrop of Trump ignoring intelligence briefings and reports, as he moves forward with a “major downsizing” at U.S. intelligence agencies. Let’s also not forget that the president recently fired the leadership of the National Security Agency, a key intelligence gathering department, as well as the National Security Council’s director for intelligence.

What we’re confronting, in other words, is the White House and presidential appointees aren’t just feuding with the U.S. intelligence community, they're also potentially destabilizing the U.S. intelligence community.

There’s no shortage of scandals that have unfolded since Trump returned to power four months ago, but this absolutely belongs on the list.

But shortly before the Republican’s sensitive discussion with his counterpart in Moscow got underway, he decided to let the world know what else was on his mind. HuffPost reported:

President Donald Trump on Monday launched a new attack on rock legend Bruce Springsteen along with several other major celebrities during a middle-of-the-night rant on his Truth Social website. ... He also attacked Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey and Bono, claiming without evidence they were all paid to endorse Harris during last year’s presidential election.

The first sign of trouble came last week, while Trump was still in the midst of a Middle East trip, when the president set aside some time to whine about Springsteen while simultaneously suggesting that Taylor Swift is no longer “hot,” thanks entirely to his criticisms of the pop star......

To the extent that reality still has any meaning in situations like this, let’s just briefly note that there’s literally no evidence of Harris or her campaign paying anyone for endorsements; there was nothing “unlawful” or “corrupt” about the support the then-Democratic nominee received from celebrities during the 2024 campaign; Beyoncé did not face “loud booing” after she endorsed Harris; and there’s nothing “illegal” about public figures publicly backing a presidential candidate.

It’s also probably worth mentioning in passing that Trump’s hysterical online communications don’t do any favors to his “very stable genius” description of himself.

But of particular interest was the president’s interest in “a major investigation into this matter.”

All things considered, there’s no reason to get too worked up about every Trump tantrum, his rage toward celebrities who’ve dared to criticize him, his weird approach to pop culture, or his use of the word “illegal” as a synonym for “stuff I don’t like.” What I do care about, however, is the president’s willingness to use the power of the state to pursue critics in authoritarian-style fashion.

This is especially true now with the Justice Department led by an attorney general who apparently sees herself as an extension of the White House and its political agenda — which raises the prospect of a federal investigator actually initiating a probe into celebrities that Trump doesn’t like.

The concession on fishing opened the way for a wide-ranging deal including a security and defence pact and the promised removal of much red tape for British farm exports to the EU.

The agreement was unveiled at a London summit on Monday, the first between the two sides since the UK left the bloc in 2020.

The two sides are seeking to deepen their ties five years after Brexit, as Donald Trump’s presidency strains transatlantic relations over issues including tariffs and the Ukraine war.......

The two sides also signed a communiqué promising deeper economic co-operation during a two-hour meeting at Lancaster House with Von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa.

The EU-UK summit emphasised a spirit of reconciliation, but the tense talks on Sunday were a reminder that the relationship is now highly transactional.

Details of the EU-UK deal are very politically sensitive. Badenoch has said Starmer is about to “surrender” British interests, including agreeing to become a “rule-taker” from Brussels.

DOHA, QATAR (The Borowitz Report)—Last week Qatar inked a historic agreement to acquire a president of the United States, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani confirmed on Monday.

But even as Qatar touted the acquisition, critics argued that the president it bought was in poor condition and not fully functional.

Additionally, the critics noted, he was preowned, having previously been purchased by Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, and dozens of others.

For his part, the emir brushed off such criticism, telling reporters, “He can’t possibly be worth less than that shitty old 747.”

There is still one other ratings agency, however, that hadn’t downgraded the nation’s credit rating — at least, that is, until last week. NBC News reported:

Moody’s Ratings cut the United States’ sovereign credit rating down a notch to Aa1 from the Aaa, the highest possible, citing the growing burden of financing the federal government’s budget deficit and the rising cost of rolling over existing debt amid high interest rates.

In terms of the practical economic impact, neither the 2011 nor the 2023 downgrades did meaningful harm, though as NBC News’ report added, the decision from Moody’s might end up lifting the yield that investors demand in order to buy U.S. Treasury debt and could dampen sentiment toward owning U.S. assets. Time will tell.

But in terms of the political impact, Donald Trump’s White House tried to blame Biden for the developments — a go-to move for this administration — despite the fact that deficits exploded during Trump’s first term and were far smaller under Biden.

Even more interesting, however, was the reaction from House Speaker Mike Johnson. The New York Times noted:

In his appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ Speaker Mike Johnson tried to spin Moody’s recent downgrading of U.S. credit worthiness away from House Republicans’ multi-trillion-dollar spending package and recast it as a product of ‘the Biden spending spree.’ He argued that the inferior credit rating was evidence that ‘emphasizes the very need for the legislation we’re talking about.’

.....This need not be complicated. Moody’s downgraded the United States because of the country’s national debt and fiscal future. The GOP’s reconciliation bill, filled with massive tax breaks, would add nearly $3 trillion to projected budget deficits over the next decade. (As for the idea that there was a “Biden spending spree,” now seems like a good time to remind everyone that government spending has gone up, not down, since Donald Trump returned to power.)

In other words, the fiscal problem that led to the downgrade would get worse because of the Republican’s megabill, which is the opposite of the line GOP leaders have brought to the public.

Last week, Walmart became the latest high-profile national retailer to announce that Donald Trump’s trade tariffs were poised to push consumer prices higher. In fact, the price hikes are poised to reach the public very soon: David Rainey, the behemoth’s chief financial officer, told CNBC on Thursday that Walmart would likely start rolling out tariff-related price hikes “towards the tail end of this month, and I certainly expect more in June.”

As The Washington Post reported, the president did not take the news well.

President Donald Trump over the weekend admonished Walmart for warning that his tariffs could force a price increase, urging the world’s biggest retailer to simply absorb the consequences of his trade war. ... The president responded Saturday, posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Walmart should ‘EAT THE TARIFFS’ and ‘not charge valued customers ANYTHING.’

......When it comes to the president’s approach to the issue, he has repeatedly pushed a simple claim: Foreign counties pay the tariffs. That’s never made any sense, and everyone who’s ever taken an Economics 101 course has tried to explain how absurd this belief is, but Trump — whose capacity for confusion about the basics of trade policy is endless — has nevertheless clung to the assertion, telling the public that tariffs on China, for example, lead Beijing to put money in American coffers. That’s long been absurd, but the Republican has long been impervious to the policy details.

Trump’s latest online statement, however, gives away the game: He apparently now realizes, at least on some level, that his tariffs are responsible for pushing Walmart’s costs higher, and the retailer now intends to push its prices higher as a result.

The president wants Walmart to simply “eat the tariffs” — meaning, Trump wants the company to profit less in order to accommodate the tariff-related costs. Time will tell whether Walmart follows the White House’s lead......

But again, the dust-up itself served as a reminder to Trump that it’s American businesses and American consumers that feel the pinch from his tariffs.

It was against this backdrop that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor in late April, calling on companies to do what Amazon was prepared to do. “To the large businesses that sell to consumers, I say: Show your customers how much tariffs are hurting in their pocketbooks,” the New York Democrat said. “People deserve to know the impact tariffs have on their finances. ... And it’s also small businesses: They don’t want to get blamed for hiking prices when Donald Trump’s tariffs have put them in a terrible position — in a position that says, raise your prices of close your doors. They hate doing either.”

A week later, congressional Democrats introduced legislation to codify this idea into law, unveiling a bill that would require retailers to display costs that reflect Trump-imposed increases. Although the legislation will never be seriously considered in a Republican-led Congress, the effort itself should be part of an educational campaign for the president, which seems to be working, slowly but surely.

JD Vance’s efforts to schmooze were rebuffed by Pope Leo XIV Sunday — as the pontiff shook him off to meet with other world leaders.

The vice president was in the Vatican to witness the pope’s inaugural mass. Afterward, he tried to speak to the leader of the Catholic church, who shook his hand but barely spoke in the 17-second encounter.

But the pope did meet behind closed doors with many other world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra.

The awkward greeting with Vance followed a sermon in which subtle digs were aimed at President Donald Trump's administration. Though he didn't name Trump, the pope talked about “hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest.”

It was widely considered to be a dig at Trump’s immigration policies.

The pope has been openly critical of Vance, and penned an op-ed in which he slammed the vice president for saying caring for others should come after your own family is looked after.

“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” he wrote.

When it comes to the Trump administration’s approach to law enforcement, much of the president’s second term has featured one personnel purge after another at the Justice Department and the FBI. But Republican officials aren’t just ousting people in federal law enforcement, they’re also closing offices that have done important work over the years.

Take the FBI’s public corruption squad, for example. The New York Times reported:

The F.B.I. is disbanding a squad that handles investigations into members of Congress and fraud by federal employees, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that comes as the Trump administration seeks to eliminate or marginalize units responsible for public corruption cases. ... The special agent in charge of criminal matters at the field office — who was recently responsible for investigating the Biden administration’s green energy grants — was also pushed out of his job, those people said.

.....Consider the related moves since Donald Trump returned to the White House:

Trump’s Justice Department gutted its Public Integrity Section, which oversees prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption.

The president ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Trump fired at least 18 inspectors general who were responsible for rooting out corruption.

Trump fired the head of the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.

Trump’s budget director is gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has spent years taking on corruption that affects consumers.

Trump’s Justice Department abandoned a corruption case against Eric Adams.

A Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., demoted multiple senior supervisors involved in, among other things, public corruption cases.

Trump’s Justice Department abandoned a criminal case against a former Republican congressman who’d already been found guilty of corruption by a jury. That came on the heels of Trump’s Justice Department also taking steps to abandon a criminal investigation into a different Republican congressman accused of corruption.

Trump pardoned former Gov. Rob Blagojevich, whose crimes are synonymous with corrupt Illinois politics but who has also aligned himself with the president.

The Trump administration has never explicitly said that it’s tolerant of corruption, but given the circumstances, does it really have to?

Those of us living in hurricane prone areas need to prepare bc our FEMA is not! As hurricane season nears, the Trump administration is struggling badly to prepare

He was soon replaced by David Richardson who, on his first day, told FEMA’s staff that he would “run right over” anyone who gets in his way. And while that was an unfortunate start to Richardson’s tenure, as The Wall Street Journal reported, it was hardly his only controversial comment.

The newly appointed head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged in private meetings that with two weeks to go until hurricane season, the agency doesn’t yet have a fully formed disaster-response plan. David Richardson, who previously served as a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security and doesn’t have a background in emergency management, told staff he would share a hurricane plan with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after he completes it late next week.

The Journal’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, went on to note that the disaster-response plan “is already months behind schedule in its preparations for the hurricane season starting June 1, which is expected to have above-normal activity, according to FEMA employees.”

Reading this, the obvious problem is that the Trump administration — which, again, believes that FEMA should no longer exist — is not at all prepared for hurricane season with two weeks remaining. Indeed, it’s now the responsibility of a FEMA rookie with no background in emergency management to come up with a plan that was due months ago......

What’s more, it’s not just FEMA. The Trump administration has also gutted the National Weather Service, which has already dramatically scaled back its work on behalf of the public, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To be sure, maybe Americans will get lucky. It’s possible that the United States won’t have to deal with any deadly hurricanes this year — or for that matter, in the coming years — and there won’t be any real-world consequences tied to the administration’s latest moves at FEMA, NWS and NOAA.

But as the president and his team move further away from responsible governing and disaster preparedness, counting on good fortune hardly seems like a wise strategy.