Morning Brief: Trump Vs Fed Chair, Congressional Chats, $100 Billion Investment In Pennsylvania AI

President Trump continues his assault on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. With the Big Beautiful Bill signed into law, the House GOP lays out their next set of priorities. And, Trump unveils a $100 billion energy investment in Pennsylvania – which he hopes will spur America’s tech dominance over China.

It’s Thursday, July 17, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.

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Trump Threatens To Fire Fed Chair

Topline: As the Federal Reserve continues to hold interest rates steady, President Trump is once again threatening to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Jerome Powell was first appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve by Donald Trump himself back in 2017, but ever since 2019, he’s drawn the consistent ire of the president. Trump says he was too slow to cut rates during the pandemic, and felt Powell intentionally kept rates high ahead of the 2020 election to try and hurt the economy and his re-election odds.

Now Trump is furious with Powell once again over his hesitation to cut rates despite low inflation and strong labor numbers — for his part, Powell has expressed concerns that Trump’s tariffs will spur inflation, and he doesn’t want to cut rates if the economy is about to slow down.

Trump has repeatedly hinted that he could fire Powell — however, because the Federal Reserve is meant to be independent of Congress and the White House, the president is only allowed to remove its chair with cause. Policy disputes aside, the White House believes they could have cause in the form of a $2.5 billion renovation plan for the Federal Reserve that Powell approved. Trump says Powell has wasted taxpayer money on a “palace” for himself and hinted that the project could constitute fraud.

“I don’t rule out anything,” Trump said when asked if he would fire Powell, although he noted such a move would be “highly unlikely.” “It’s possible that there’s fraud involved with the $2.5 billion-$2.7 billion renovation. … And he didn’t have proper clearance. So there could be something to that.”

On Tuesday night, Trump reportedly floated the idea to his allies in Congress, showing conservative House members a draft letter informing Powell he’d been fired that he was prepared to send. He then polled those 12 members for their thoughts – 11 reportedly advised him to fire Powell. But by Wednesday, the president seemed to be having second thoughts. “We’re not planning on doing anything. We’re a little concerned.”

Congressional Round-Up

Topline: After the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, congressional Republicans are focusing on new legislative priorities.

On Tuesday, the Republican Study Committee hosted a “new media row” on the Hill, an opportunity for outlets like The Daily Wire to speak to their members one-on-one. That includes House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who spoke to Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan about the concerning rise of violent political rhetoric on the Left. Scalise was badly injured at a mass shooting by a left-wing activist at the 2017 Congressional baseball game — he’s particularly sensitive to this issue.

“You’re seeing people attacking our law enforcement, including ICE agents, and they’re spurred on by a lot of the rhetoric from the Left,” Scalise told The Daily Wire. “That’s got to stop.”

Scalise also addressed the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein controversy – he told The Daily Wire he trusts President Trump will “straighten things out … I haven’t been privy to those documents, the classified information. Others have, but look, I trust Donald Trump and his judgment. And ultimately, I think he’s going to get the right answers.”

“The cartels are going to go where the money is, and they’re going to go where they’re going to find the most lax state laws where they can take advantage,” said New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who’s been fighting to keep drugs and criminals from pouring through our northern border. She said she’s particularly worried about the problem in light of recent developments in New York City. “New York City is facing a major crisis, which is going to impact not just the state, but all of us. Obviously, the election of a Marxist antisemite, like Zoran Mamdani … these are the kind of people that are helping, aiding and abetting the criminal cartels that are trafficking children, trafficking women.”

Florida Congresswoman Kat Cammack said her biggest priority was imposing background checks for Congress. “We’ve seen situations where individuals who have ties to foreign nations, different organizations that have terrorist funding have made their way in through different offices … I think the American people deserve to know who’s working on their behalf. It’s pretty simple, but you would not believe the resistance that we’re getting.”

Several other lawmakers also spoke at length with The Daily Wire – stay tuned to hear more about protecting kids, women’s sports, the Middle East, the Texas floods, and why Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) never wears a suit jacket.

Pennsylvania Receives $100 Billion In AI Investments

Topline: President Trump is directing $100 billion to artificial intelligence infrastructure in Pennsylvania. A summit held at Carnegie Mellon University was billed as a chance to showcase the state’s “potential to power the A.I. revolution.”

AI investment is picking up rapidly in the state of Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, Trump said that he had received pledges worth over $90 billion for new AI and energy investment in the Keystone state. By Wednesday, that number had risen to more than $100 billion, including an investment from the asset manager Blackstone, which wants to bankroll $25 billion worth of new data centers and energy infrastructure in the state.

Pennsylvania is a key swing state located in the center of the Rust Belt – the old industrial heart of the United States – but electoral concerns aside, many of the same factors that helped the state rise to prominence in the industrial era have become relevant again in the AI age. Old industrial sites generally have ready access to water and electricity, which data centers consume huge amounts of for cooling and power generation – some data centers require millions of gallons of water per day and AI is projected to account for more than 20% of global power consumption by ~2030.

Pennsylvania also sits on top of the Marcellus Shale formation – that means plentiful natural gas ready to be tapped into, and less money spent on pipelines to get it to power plants to fuel the data centers. A deactivated coal plant in Homer City, Pennsylvania, is being rebuilt into the largest natural gas-fired power plant in the world – according to President Trump – and the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island is being reactivated to exclusively power Microsoft data centers.

The U.S. leads the field in AI research and development, but China has emerged as a major competitor. China is investing heavily in new power stations to build out its already substantial lead over the U.S. In 2023, according to the Brookings Institution, China had over twice the electricity generation that the United States has and was on track to greatly increase that.