Hey! It’s the Surge, Slate’s weekly update on what’s happening in America’s halls of power. Who’s slapping backs and calling out nicknames? Who’s walking with their head down hoping not to be noticed? And who’s struggling to get a miniature Pringles can out of the flap at the bottom of the halls-of-power snack machine? (The last one is always Pete Hegseth.)

This week we have a tragedy in Texas that potentially could have been avoided, Elon Musk’s computer program calling for another Holocaust, and more establishment pushback against the outsider whose radical campaign message of “the cost of living in New York City is too high” has transfixed the rabble. But first: Jerome P. is on the hot seat again.

1. Jerome Powell
Central banker becomes center of attention.
Donald Trump is back to threatening other countries with the imposition of import tariffs that, according to most economists, would cause consumer prices to soar—like, for example, an allegedly imminent 50 percent tax on copper. And that means Trump is back to getting mad at Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve committee that effectively sets interest rates in the U.S., for saying that tariffs will cause inflation and that, as a result, interest rates need to stay high. Trump wants to cut rates to juice borrowing and spending, and to make the country’s GDP numbers go zoom, but pretty much everyone besides MAGA cultists agrees that lowering interest rates with more tariffs on the horizon would be a risky move given that lowering interest rates can itself trigger inflation. The bad news for Powell is that MAGA cultists are in charge of [checks clipboard] nearly everything in the country, which means there is now a caucus of Republican senators—the ones from Powell’s own party, the party of big business!—hounding him to resign. (Trump is also sending him mean handwritten notes.) The good news is that his term is not up until May 2026, and Trump has not yet figured out how to fire him.