publicmatter
Real sourced news, info and statistics.
The promise was $2 gas.
The price is $4.10.
Higher than the full-term average of every presidency this century — and 60% above the promise. Sources: AAA national average, Sep 1, 2026 · U.S. EIA annual regular-grade averages — eia.gov
Gasoline is up
The biggest annual jump since 2022. Energy is up 14.7%, food up 3.0%, everything up 3.4%.
Roughly +37% in seven months, on a promise that energy prices would be cut in half. Sources: U.S. BLS CPI, Jul 2026 — gasoline +24.6% y/y, energy +14.7% — bls.gov · AAA weekly averages.
Average tariff cost per family
Each U.S. household, this year. Up 44% from $1,745 last year.
The poorest tenth of households lose four times the share of their income that the richest do.
Sources: JEC Democrats, Mar 2026 — jec.senate.gov · NY Fed pass-through study — newyorkfed.org · Yale Budget Lab · Tax Foundation.
The man who promised to lower prices put a tax on everything.
Tariff wall detail — taxfoundation.org · BEA trade data — bea.gov.
Record national debt
About $3.7 trillion has been added since he took office in January 2025.
Borrowing like the boom never ended.
Three straight years above a trillion dollars, all on his watch — the third now projected near 6% of GDP. Sources: cbo.gov · fiscaldata.treasury.gov.
Markets noticed.
Sources: public market data · fred.stlouisfed.org.
The cart gets more expensive.
BLS CPI, food & energy series — Jul 2026 — bls.gov.
The record outside the economy.
WaPo Fact Checker · DOJ — justice.gov.
First, fire everyone.
Feb 2025 reporting · justice.gov · White House proclamations.
Unemployment is climbing.
The jobless rate now, against 3.7% on the day he was sworn in.
Promise, meet reality.
Sources: campaign transcripts · public promise-trackers · agency records.
Prices went one way.
The federal minimum wage — untouched since 2009, the longest freeze on record.
The first 48 hours, cubed.
White House staffers had printed "one-page" orders for 38 things by lunchtime. By close of week one: 1,500 pardons, 37 executive actions, one renamed gulf, and a trade bill of sale nobody read twice.
Sources: White House log · DOJ — justice.gov · JEC — jec.senate.gov.
The rest of the receipt.
Three wheels, same receipt.
Same data, bigger picture.
The wars don't pause for domestic politics.
While the scoreboard above watches pump prices and the Dow, the second term inherited and escalated two live wars, rebalanced troops away from the Pacific, and re-lit old rivalries. Here's the part of the term that doesn't run on a CPI season.
1.5 million+
Combined military and civilian losses across both armies since 2022. Negotiations in 2026 produced ceasefires, not a settlement. A U.S. talk of "ending it in 24 hours" ran into its fourth year.
A fragile ceasefire — and a dense human toll.
Post-2023 conflict deaths remain in the tens of thousands; reconstruction funding was gutted after the 85% USAID cut gutted the main humanitarian channel.
sources · un · interrupted.orgTroop rebalance without a plan.
Blunt signals to allies and a halved force-readiness budget for the theater leave Washington's allies in Seoul and Taipei reading the tea leaves nervously.
sources · pentagon budget · alliesEurope starts paying more — for its own defense.
Post-2025, several NATO members pledged+1%–2% of GDP toward defense after Washington demanded more. Ukraine aid has gone from direct to negotiated.
sources · nato · member pledgesWhere the lines moved this year.
Compiled from public defense reporting — defense.gov · UNHCR · state.gov. Estimates, not audited figures.
The receipts are numbers. The story is people.
Guilty, on all counts.
A Manhattan jury convicted a former president for the first time in American history — the checks, the fixer, and the hush-money scheme, in one record.
the convictionSeventeen watchdogs, one form email.
Inspectors general who audit the IRS, the Pentagon, and a dozen agencies were removed mid-investigation by a blank-form email.
the purgeThe Epstein file that wasn't.
A 48-million-line release that was mostly old documents and thick redactions — a transparency story told in black bars.
the file, phase twoThe all-court morning raid.
A family called a "reporting" hotline and a raid followed. The system has a human receipt that no statistic captures.
the tip-line storyFifty-six million for silence.
The 2015 settlement that bought a decade of quiet before any file release — NDAs over a 2009 deal that ended the first probe.
the muzzlingThe quiet whistleblower portal.
After the firings, the complaint portal stopped answering. Watchdogs don't make headlines until they have to.
the silenceThe death the summary missed.
A detainee died in custody and local news found a transfer pattern the federal report never mentioned — the human cost of the ramp.
in custodyThe immunity line in the sand.
The Supreme Court's ruling redrew the calendar of two federal cases — and turned every charge into a question about what counts as official.
the rulingThe tariff tax hits the register.
Every pass-through study lands on the same table: the poor pay the biggest share of a tax they didn't vote for.
the receiptThe prosecutors who got pushed.
Career lawyers who built cases against allies were shown the door in week one — and their replacements became the story.
the DOJ shuffleFull ceiling, empty beds.
Privately held detention facilities kept billing "record" builds beneath cap — the receipts showed who profited.
private profitThe shrinking newsroom.
Journalists laid off by the thousands while election ad money hit records — an industry at war with its own economics.
the mathWorth reading, worth questioning.
Treasury yields shrug at trillion-dollar deficits.
Bond buyers keep buying even as interest eats the budget — a bet that the debt is "fine until it isn't."
Sep 01 · 2026Refinery margins cap the tariff "pop."
The full tariff math hasn't passed to retail yet; economists expect another $0.20–0.40 at the pump if import costs fully land.
Aug 28 · 2026Humanitarian fund post-mortem.
Nine months after the USAID 85% cut, the largest aid pipe into the territory has no clear replacement.
Aug 24 · 2026State labor markets feel the fed layoffs.
Rust-belt and federal-heavy metros report the biggest job losses; local tax receipts are starting to feel it.
Aug 21 · 2026AI capex story hits a hesitation point.
Semiconductor earnings wobble as datacenter buildout faces power and export controls — a rare pause after two euphoric years.
Aug 18 · 2026EU defense pledges get bankable.
After Washington's demands, the bloc moves to joint borrowing for weapons — a first in EU history.
Aug 15 · 2026Want the receipts behind the numbers?
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