The Jan. 6 trigger

Divisions between Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, other White House staff and a small group of outside advisers to Donald Trump nearly came to blows in an “unhinged” meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, just hours before Trump sent a fateful tweet that helped trigger the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. The three advisers urged Trump to pursue fake election-fraud claims and order the seizure of election machines, according to testimony and evidence presented during a hearing of the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday. Those advisers—Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell—failed over the course of the evening to get Trump to do so, as Cipollone fought off the effort, pointing to a lack of evidence supporting their conspiracy theories. Hours after the meeting ended, Trump tweeted out his call for supporters to come to Washington to protest the Jan. 6 electoral vote count that would confirm Joe Biden’s election. “Be there, will be wild!” Trump tweeted.

The hearing also described alleged direct connections between Flynn and the violent white supremacist group Oath Keepers, whose members helped lead the insurrection. Trump associate Roger Stone was in regular communication with another violent group at the center of the attack, the Proud Boys, the committee said. Evidence presented included testimony that senior White House aides were aware violent actors who previously attacked a state capital were headed for Washington, and that Trump and his staff nevertheless secretly planned to instruct the crowd at his rally to march on the Capitol. As the hearing ended, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican, added more detail to a prior revelation—that people close to Trump were allegedly seeking to tamper with committee witnesses. Cheney identified someone who the committee says tried to call one witness: She said it was Trump himself. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

The World Health Organization urged governments and health care systems to take steps to curb Covid-19 transmission as a fresh wave of infections moves across Europe and the US. Sub-variants of the omicron strain are lifting case numbers and leading to further fatalities, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. Tedros recommended the revival of protocols like mask-wearing to stop the spread.

Inflation continued to rise in June, hitting a fresh pandemic peak that likely keeps the Federal Reserve on path for another big interest-rate hike later this month, economists said. The consumer price index probably increased 8.8% from a year earlier, marking the largest jump since 1981, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. The June acceleration likely reflects higher gasoline and elevated food costs. Since then, fuel prices have started to ease, suggesting the CPI will simmer down beginning with the July data. Some cooling in inflation may already be on the way as bloated retail inventories lead to discounts and used-car prices soften. While Americans cut back on groceries and gas, the biggest U.S. banks are poised to report a double-digit increase in trading, the result of big market swings spurred by that inflation, as well as recession fears and global turmoil, including Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Wall Street, Washington and others are debating whether the US economy can escape a recession as the Fed moves to slow inflation. But that determination will be made by eight eminent economists meeting far from public view.

European stocks plunging 20%. Junk credit spreads widening past 2020 crisis levels. The euro sinking to just 90 cents.The predictions are ominous for financial markets if Russia cuts off all the gas supply to Europe—retaliation by Vladimir Putin for sanctions over his war. Shipments are currently running at reduced levels with the main pipeline shut for a 10-day maintenance, and fears are building over whether Moscow will turn the tap back on.

About 20 million Americans quit their jobs in the first five months of this year in what’s come to be known as the Great Resignation. Many now regret the decision. More than one-quarter of those who left work are reconsidering whether they made the right move.

Peloton Interactive rallied on Tuesday after announcing plans to cease in-house manufacturing and rely solely on partners for production, marking one of the most dramatic steps yet to simplify its operations and cut costs.

Rishi Sunak, whose resignation last week helped trigger Boris Johnson’s downfall, heads a final list of eight candidates seeking to become the next Tory leader and UK prime minister.

London Heathrow is imposing a two-month cap on daily passenger traffic to contain flight chaos, a dramatic response by the UK’s busiest airport to address the struggle with surging demand for travel. The airport will limit daily passenger traffic to 100,000 departing people through Sept. 11, asking carriers to refrain from selling summer tickets. Current forecasts are modeling for as many as 104,000 passengers a day over the summer, still below the roughly 125,000 this time before the pandemic.

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