Departing Miami prosecutor oversaw the investigation into Trump’s political foes
The U.S. attorney in Miami who oversaw the investigation into President Donald Trump’s political foes has resigned, in what is expected to be a series of departures from the Justice Department after the midterm elections, The Wall Street Journal’s What’s News newsletter reported. The newsletter’s Friday edition paired the resignation with reporting on a months-in-the-works Trump administration executive order that would immediately suspend nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, a stronger-than-expected October jobs report and a rebound in technology stocks.
In the Truth Social post the newsletter highlighted, Trump called Stephen Miller one of his most trusted advisers and said Miller would be starting in the new role on Monday, replacing Susie Wiles after Republicans suffered far-reaching losses in this week’s midterm elections. Wiles has served as chief of staff since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Trump said, and will move to the president’s political operation.
Trump administration officials have been working for months on an executive order that would suspend nonprofits’ tax-exempt status immediately and could cripple their operations, according to people familiar with the matter. The order is still being deliberated and may end up not being finalized or signed by Trump, the people said. Such an order would escalate the administration’s scrutiny of tax-exempt groups, possibly targeting some of Trump’s antagonists and political opponents. A White House official said any discussions about a potential executive order are speculative.
The Labor Department’s October jobs report topped economists’ expectations for a 59,000 job gain, which the newsletter called a sign that the labor market could be strengthening. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, slipped to 4.1%, lower than expectations for 4.2%.
Friday’s session reversed some of the previous day’s historic losses in technology stocks. The tech-heavy index gained 1.1%, while the Dow lagged behind with a 0.5% loss. The stocks hit hardest this week all climbed, including data-center firms like CoreWeave and chip companies Intel, Nvidia, Micron and Arm Holdings.
In health care, the practice of keeping patients in the E.R. — called “boarding” — for hours or even days has been increasing over the past decade, according to a paper in Health Affairs. One in four patients who were admitted through the E.R. spent at least four hours waiting in the E.R. before getting a bed in September 2024, compared with one in eight in September 2017. The rate of people boarded in the E.R. for at least 24 hours tripled during that time.
Overseas, the newsletter reported that the fighting has left Israel with a growing defense bill, forcing difficult choices over how to pay for security without sacrificing the investments needed to sustain economic growth. Those choices have become even more pressing amid uncertainty over American support. The U.S. provides $3.8 billion annually in military aid, about 0.5% of Israel’s GDP, plus billions more in emergency wartime assistance.
In business news, CEO Elon Musk said on X that production will wind down next year — which the newsletter called the latest indication of Tesla’s shift away from selling traditional cars toward autonomous vehicles and robotics. Musk said the move will “make room” for increased production of the company’s self-driving Cybercab at its gigafactory in Texas. The newsletter described the change as an unceremonious ending for a vehicle that once drove palpable hype for Tesla and that Musk once told investors would be its “best product ever.”
With the midterm elections over, investors may be tempted to rethink their portfolios based on who won and what the results could mean for the economy, the newsletter noted. In a recent edition of his newsletter, where he offers readers guidance on navigating the markets and managing their money, the Journal’s investment columnist Jason Zweig warned that politics can be “mental poison” for investors, shaping how they see the market even when the fundamentals haven’t changed. Bharbi Hazarika spoke with Zweig about why political bias can influence investment decisions and how to separate meaningful policy changes from political noise.
Economists and psychologists have found, Zweig wrote, that people drastically change their expectations for the economy and stock returns based solely on whether their political party wins or loses. The economy and financial markets, however, tend to react much more mildly and slowly to political changes, which makes impulsively overhauling a portfolio a bad idea. People can be so passionate about their political opinions that they lose sight of the facts — “Stories trump statistics,” as the late psychologist Daniel Kahneman liked to say, Zweig noted. Intense loyalty to a political party can lead people to believe its policies are always better, regardless of what the data would show, and political affiliation can become part of a person’s identity, making it hard to be objective.
His advice was to “check your politics at the door”: readers may have strong emotional reactions to particular policies, but whether those policies are good or bad for financial markets is an empirical question. Before reacting to a change in tax rates, he suggested, go back and look at how stocks behaved during a period when taxes were at that high — or low — level. Earnings, inflation and interest rates — not elections — drive returns, he wrote, and in periods of high inflation and interest rates, such as the 1960s and 1970s, stocks and bonds alike can struggle. Regardless of party affiliation, Zweig wrote, readers should hope Congress and the White House can find common ground in tackling the debt and the deficit; the long-term health of the U.S. economy and financial markets will depend on getting those problems under control.
The newsletter also reported that comedian Dane Cook was fleeced of $12 million by his business manager — not an outsider, but Cook’s older half-brother, Darryl McCauley, whom he had grown up with in Massachusetts. Cook discusses the betrayal and its fallout in a new documentary, “Funny Money.”