This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, congressional reporter Steven T. Dennis analyzes a Senate hearing that may prove crucial to the Trump economic agenda. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here.

Calming GOP Nerves 

Stephen Miran remains on track for swift confirmation to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after he pledged to support the independence of the central bank rather than be a puppet of President Donald Trump as charged by Senate Democrats in a contentious Banking Committee hearing today.

“If I’m confirmed to this role, I will act independently, as the Federal Reserve always does,” Miran said, a statement that helped him with some Senate Republicans in the sharply divided chamber.

Several Democrats drilled down on a potential conflict — that Miran has an incentive to please Trump at the Fed because he decided not to resign as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers but instead take an unpaid leave of absence for the Fed job. It’s a temporary arrangement to fill the remaining months left in Adriana Kugler’s term after her unexpected early resignation.

They dismissed his pledges of independence from Trump as simply not credible, pointing to the president’s assertion that he will soon have a majority on the board that will back his desire for lower interest rates. The senators repeatedly questioned Miran on his own comments from his 2024 paper criticizing the ways established Washington hands often move between the executive branch and the central bank.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the panel’s top Democrat, during the Miran hearing in Washington on Sept. 4. Photographer: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

“Short-circuiting the revolving door between the Fed and the executive branch is critical to reducing the incentives for officials to act in the short-term political interests of the president,” Miran wrote in that paper, adding that board members should be prohibited from serving in the executive branch for four years following the end of their Fed term.

Miran refused to commit to that standard, but there’s no sign yet of any Republican opposition.

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina — no fan of Trump’s efforts to bully the Fed and more of a maverick than most Republicans this year — told my colleague Jamie Tarabay that he planned to vote for Miran.

Unless Republican opposition materializes, the Senate could confirm Miran before the Sept. 16-17 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee — the Fed’s rate-setting body. — Steven T. Dennis

Don’t Miss

During a combative Senate hearing today, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  dismissed critics who questioned his decisions to restrict vaccine access by accusing them of either lying or having ties to pharmaceutical companies. 

Tomorrow’s employment report, according to many economists, is expected to show continued tepid US job growth, making an interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve even more likely. 

A criminal investigation into whether Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook committed mortgage fraud has been opened by the US Justice Department — heightening the stakes in Trump’s effort to oust her from the central bank.

Trump’s HUD secretary, Scott Turner, has ambitious plans to address the nation’s housing crisis, but the administration’s cost-cutting campaign threatens to undermine his agenda.

Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison has been given  a new mission by the Trump administration and state officials. Part of the sprawling penitentiary will become a federal detention center for migrants.

The Pentagon’s inspector general has begun a review of how US military personnel in Japan complied with policies on preventing and addressing violent crimes after reports of sexual assaults in the country.

While Trump’s economic threats against Canada have outraged much of the country and prompted consumer boycotts of US products, Barry Zekelman, a steel pipe tycoon and supporter of the American president, urges accommodation.  

Giorgio Armani, the celebrated fashion designer who established one of the world’s most revered labels and helped define the “Made in Italy” slogan as a sign of quality for generations of consumers, has died at 91. 

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., hosts Joe Mathieu and Kriti Gupta interviewed Leslie M. Kantor, chair of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at Rutgers University's School of Public Health, on Kennedy’s Senate testimony.

On the program at 5 p.m., they talk with former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard regarding Trump’s attempts to exert more control over the central bank.

On the Trumponomics podcast, host Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg’s head of government and economics, talks to Bloomberg Economics economist Anna Wong and Everything Risk author Ed Harrison on why investors are reluctant to sell stocks they see as overvalued. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
 

Chart of the Day

So far this year, artificial intelligence has not led to a significant cutback in employment, but the technology is poised to replace many more positions in coming months. A survey, conducted in August by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, found that 13% of service firms expect layoffs from their adoption of AI through early 2026 and about one in four expect to hire fewer workers. People with college degrees will be especially vulnerable to such job losses and reductions in hiring. The data shows that for most businesses, the plan is to increase in-house training rather than fire employees. Thus, those who already have a job are more likely to be retrained than replaced by AI. For job seekers, however, AI has likely made it harder to find a new position. Some firms point out that they are adding workers already proficient in AI use. This is especially true in the information, finance, and professional and business services sectors, according to the New York Fed. — Alexandre Tanzi

What’s Next

Trump hosts top US technology executives at a reception in the renovated White House Rose Garden this evening.

The jobs report for August will be released tomorrow.

Data on outstanding consumer credit will be reported Monday.

The producer price index for August will be released Sept. 10.

The consumer price index for August will be reported Sept. 11.

Seen Elsewhere

The US agency that oversees applications for visas, green cards and citizenship will now be allowed  to make arrests as Trump’s campaign against illegal immigration expands, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Two former National Institutes of Health officials say that antipathy toward vaccines has taken hold among the agency’s leadership, according to the New York Times.

China’s growing fascination with pigeon racing has brought eager buyers to the doorsteps of breeders in Europe, and attracted thieves who have carried out brazen bird heists, the Washington Post reports. 

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