Weak economy, weak president....

The US economy grew just 0.7% last quarter, ahead of a potentially destabilizing war with Iran

By Bryan Mena, Elisabeth Buchwald

The US economy was on shaky footing even before President Donald Trump plunged the United States into a war with Iran, a battery of new data released Friday showed.

At the end of last year, economic growth was anemic, the Commerce Department said Friday, dragged down by the historic government shutdown. Economists widely expect most of those losses to be recouped in the current quarter stretching from January through March.

But America still has an inflation problem, according to January figures released Friday — one that will likely worsen if the Iran war continues to disrupt global energy markets. Consumers are already taking notice of higher prices at the pump, set to weigh on America’s already-weak economic mood.

The crosscurrent of intensifying price pressures and ongoing fragility in the labor market puts Federal Reserve policymakers in a difficult spot as they’re set to convene in just a few days to set interest rates.

“The full impact on the US economy and financial markets from the Iranian conflict remains highly fluid and uncertain,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, in an analyst note Friday. “The longer the conflict and disruptions persist, the larger the possible negative hit to business and consumer confidence from increased uncertainty that would inflict further drag on economic activity.”

The overall picture

US gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, expanded at an annualized rate of 0.7% in the October-through-December period, the Commerce Department said Friday in its second estimate. That’s down sharply from the 1.4% rate initially reported, and a much slower pace than the 4.4% in the third quarter.

The latest estimate revised several output categories lower, including exports, consumer spending and government outlays. The biggest downward revision was to exports, which moved down to -3.3%, much lower than the -0.9% reported in the first estimate.

The government shutdown was still the biggest factor subtracting from GDP in the fourth quarter, shaving off 1.16 percentage points. Economists widely expect most of those losses to be recouped in the current quarter that stretches from January through the end of March.

“The big downward revision in GDP is a gut check going into this energy crunch, increasing the risk of stagflation,” David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, wrote in analyst note Friday.

The fourth quarter capped a tumultuous year for the US economy as Trump waged a bid to reshape global trade and businesses ramped up investments in AI while slamming the brakes on hiring. The economy expanded just 2.1% in 2025, the weakest annual pace since 2020, and before that, since 2016.

Now, though, the US economy is currently staring down the effects of Trump’s war on Iran, which has already sent oil prices skyrocketing and pushed up prices at the pump for Americans, with more inflation pain expected if the war broadens or is prolonged.

The latest sentiment survey from the University of Michigan released Friday showed that the Iran war has already begun to take a toll on consumers. Sentiment declined about 2% this month to a reading of 55.5, according to a preliminary reading.

“Interviews completed prior to the military action in Iran showed an improvement in sentiment from last month, but lower readings seen during the nine days thereafter completely erased those initial gains,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a release.

The labor market remains shaky

The oil shock comes as the US labor market remains in a precarious state, with employers shedding 92,000 jobs in February as the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3%.

But new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests employers are still looking to hire more workers, with 400,000 new job openings in January, compared to December.

However, layoffs and discharges ticked up slightly, by 183,000 to 2.1 million in January. That’s according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report.

A weakening labor market helped the Fed lower rates three times last year, but unless conditions deteriorate, Fed officials may hesitate to lower rates anytime soon because of the looming threat of higher prices due to the expanding conflict in the Middle East.

The engine of the economy isn’t hitting the brakes (or the gas)

With looming concerns about job security, Americans’ appetite for spending isn’t growing.

A separate report from the Commerce Department on Friday showed consumer spending held firm at a 0.4% rate in January from December, according to Personal Consumption Expenditures data. That matters for the broader economy, since spending represents about two-thirds of US economic activity.

Friday’s revised GDP data also showed that inflation-adjusted consumer spending in the fourth quarter was 2%, which is lower than the previously reported 2.4% gain.

On the inflation side, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index, showed slight improvement in January. On an annual basis, it grew at 2.8% versus 2.9% in December. And on a monthly basis, inflation was up 0.3% compared to 0.4% in December.

“This is only going to head higher as the energy shock comes through,” Sonu Varghese, chief macro strategist at Carson Group, wrote in commentary issued Friday. “An already large headache for the Federal Reserve is going to turn into an even larger one, and it’s likely the Fed will not cut rates in 2026 and may even start talking about rate hikes later this year.”

Because he is stupid......

Trump gets irritated over questions about taking Kharg Island — Iran's critical oil lifeline

By Alayna Treene

President Donald Trump dodged questions regarding occupying Iran’s Kharg Island — a stretch of land in the Persian Gulf referred to as the country’s oil lifeline — during an interview published today.

He told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade “I can’t answer a question like that,” before adding “it’s not high on the list.”

“Are you thinking about taking Kharg Island, where 90% of the Iranian oil goes through, and what do you think about…” Kilmeade asked Trump during a radio interview, before the president cut him off.

“Brian, I can’t answer a question like that. … You shouldn’t be even asking it. It’s one of so many different things. It’s not high on the list, but it’s one of so many different things, and I can change my mind in seconds,” Trump said, before criticizing the question as “foolish.”

“OK, let’s say I was going to do it, or let’s say I wasn’t going to do it. What would I tell you? ‘Oh, yes, Brian, I’m thinking about doing it, let me, let me let you know what time and when it’ll take place.’ It’s not, you know, it’s sort of a foolish question, a little surprising for you, because you’re a smart man,” the president added.

Kharg Island is a five-mile-stretch of land off the Iranian coast that has seemingly been left untouched during the first two weeks of the war with Iran. The critical island handles roughly 90% of the country’s crude exports.

Experts have argued that attempting to capture or attack Kharg Island would require a significant number of ground troops — something the Trump administration has so far been reluctant to call in.

You think????

Trump says he thinks Russia may be helping Iran “a little bit”

By Donald Judd

President Donald Trump said Friday he believes Russia is helping Iran “a little bit,” but pointed to US support for Ukraine as justification.

Pressed if he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is supporting Iran following US strikes on the country, Trump told Fox News Radio in an interview, “I think he might be helping him a little bit, yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?”

“Yeah, we’re helping [Ukraine] also,” Trump continued. “And so, [Putin] says that, and China would say the same thing. You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it. In all fairness, they do it and we do it.”

Last week, CNN reported that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft, according to multiple people familiar with US intelligence reporting on the issue.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters during a Pentagon briefing last week that Russia and China are “not really a factor” in the war with Iran.

I convince them all to do what?????

Trump suggests his national security team doesn’t disagree much: “I convince them all”

By Betsy Klein

President Donald Trump offered his views on decision-making in wartime, suggesting that he is limiting dissent among his top national security officials.

“I let them speak their mind. And they do, and we have some differences, but they never end up being much. I convince them all to let’s do it my way,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade when asked about the dynamics behind closed doors.

Kilmeade had asked Trump about disagreements in modern presidential history, pointing to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell sparring in front of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger feuding in front of President Ronald Reagan.

I feel bad...

Trump says Iran war will end when he feels it “in my bones”

By Alejandra Jaramillo

President Donald Trump said he will know when the war with Iran is over when he feels it “in my bones,” offering yet another personal measure for when the conflict might come to an end.

Asked during a phone interview, aired Friday on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox Radio, when he will know the war is finished, Trump responded: “When I feel it, OK, feel it in my bones.”

Moments earlier in the interview, the president suggested the conflict may not last much longer.

“I don’t think it’s going to be long when it’s over,” Trump said.

The United States and Israel have continued military operations against Iran following the start of their assault on February 28. Since the campaign began, Trump has offered differing signals about how long the conflict could continue.

Psychopath......

Trump says he doesn't worry about potential threats to California or US

By Kit Maher

President Donald Trump said he doesn’t worry about potential threats on California or the United States following reports about an FBI memo that contained unverified information about a potential Iranian drone attack on the state.

“I don’t worry about it, because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to function. OK, so you can’t worry. You have to do something — and we watch everything at a level that it’s never been watched; our country has never been watched over like this,” Trump told “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox Radio.

Pressed on whether the memo crossed his desk, Trump insulted California Gov. Gavin Newsom but did not address the validity of the threat.

“First we heard about it was from Gavin Newscum,” Trump said, using a nickname he often employs for the potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

Newsom said Wednesday that “no imminent threat” exists. ABC News was first to report on the memo.

6 crew members killed

All 6 crew members aboard refueling aircraft killed in Iraq crash, US military says

By Kaanita Iyer

All crew members who were aboard the refueling aircraft that went down in Iraq Thursday have been confirmed dead, US Central Command announced today.

“All six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.

The military previously announced the deaths of four of the crew members aboard the aircraft.

CENTCOM shared in an earlier post that the incident is under investigation, but it determined that the crash “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, an umbrella group of factions loyal to Iran, has claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft. The group did not provide evidence for its claims.

Another aircraft was also involved in the incident but it landed safely in Israel, the country’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said in a post on X.

The military is withholding the names of the deceased service members until 24 hours after next of kin are notified.

No to kids...

MAGA’s Baby Boom and Me

I’ve been wracked with indecision over having a second child. Then came a series of public pregnancy announcements.

Inae Oh

Who could have guessed they would be the ones on my mind? It was a personal appointment, perhaps the most intimate variety, and MAGA characters don’t normally seep into my private life. But there I was last month, at some point between a transvaginal ultrasound and substantial bloodwork, pondering the lives of Karoline Leavitt, Usha Vance, and Katie Miller.

These three women are at the forefront of a trend: a so-called mini “baby boom” unfolding across the upper echelons of the Trump administration. In other words, Leavitt, Vance, and Miller are pregnant, each with due dates in late spring or summer. Their pregnancies have been accompanied by a bit of culture war, too: Fox News noted the “full boom” as evidence that the women are enthusiastic devotees of the administration’s pronatalist agenda. There was Vice President JD Vance, who at a March for Life rally shortly after his family’s announcement, declared: “Let the record show, you have a vice president who practices what he preaches.” In a December Instagram post announcing her pregnancy, Leavitt thanked Trump, a self-declared “fertilization president,” for “fostering a pro-family environment in the White House.” Miller regularly supplies her X account with expressions of pronatalist, anti-contraceptive concerns about the country’s declining birth rate.

But back to me, in the doctor’s office. I am not pregnant, nor do my husband and I know if we ever want to be again after having a baby a little more than four years ago. Should we stick with one, this objectively awesome kid, we’d be a part of the fastest-growing family unit in the United States. “One and done,” as they say, would be normal and good, fine and familiar. Still, there isn’t much about our undetermined decision-making process that has felt stable. Instead, I face a steady source of neurotic turmoil, a topic I have now discussed across three therapists, one of whom, in January, suggested that I visit a reproductive endocrinologist to discuss the option of embryo freezing. Which is what brings me to a fertility clinic in New Jersey, where I found myself in the unlikely position of envying the cheerfully un-ambivalent, un-conflicted, pregnant ladies of MAGA.

It’s not easy for me to admit envy, considering that I find some aspects of this mini baby-boom a bit unsettling, from the implication that the vice president may be procreating to advance a political project to the overt eugenics that animate the administration’s push for more babies. But even so, in the midst of my private ambivalence, I have been spellbound by the easy certainty, or more accurately, the supreme public confidence with which Leavitt, Vance, and Miller appear to be growing their families. Their remarks convey the impression that, for some, choosing to become pregnant is as uncomplicated as waiting for the favored political winds to be at their backs and saying, “Let’s do this.” That certainty, even if performed, eludes me, and frankly, I desire it. Whether I decide to have another kid or not, I want to be secure in the choice, like these women seem to be.

When I reached out to Peggy Heffington, a historian at the University of Chicago and author of Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother, to talk through all this, I was surprised, even comforted, to hear that some of what had informed her book was her own “personal place of being someone who has never felt sure about having kids.”

“For me, it was a grey area,” she said. “It always felt like there were other factors at play. That it’s never just about desire, it’s about context.”

It’s exactly this context that Leavitt, Vance, and Miller don’t appear to acknowledge. As Miller wrote in a February X post: “Women are biologically destined to have children. Biology equips women with unique tools and predispositions that make children more aligned with female physiology and psychology. You don’t need to wait for that perfect moment to have kids, you just need to have them.”

It would take reams upon reams to unpack the arrogance of Miller’s assertions. But it’s her last claim, that women “just need to have” kids and forget the factors that go into the decision-making process, that elides the legitimate and troubling reasons why so many of us can’t decide. A short list: anxiety over the climate crisis, conflicts over career ambitions, the physical stresses, regret over the first one, and fears of identity loss. Then there are the brutal realities of having a child in a country lacking family-friendly policies: paid family leave, affordable child care, flexible working arrangements, and access to affordable fertility treatments.

“We’ve changed society in ways that have made it far more challenging” to have kids, Heffington said. “The way we work has come into conflict with the demands of a large family. We’ve made really deliberate decisions towards an individualized society that lacks support for families.”

And then there’s the sheer, mind-blowing expense. But you won’t hear about any of that from Leavitt, Vance, or Miller.

The contours of my own indecision bend toward freedom. That sweet ability to take the trip out of the group chat—Mallorca, Malibu, Granada, San Francisco!—that only grows the further you are from those grueling newborn days. The liberty to finish entire books without interruption, to ponder a surprising return of ambition, to take care of oneself in a way that feels uniquely dependent on the calculus of zero diapers, one daycare bill, and the 1,273 early illnesses that laid the groundwork, finally, for a more robust immune system. I can’t help but worry that another baby could be the destruction of that freedom. All of which, I imagine, smacks of selfishness among today’s pronatalists who see declining birthrates as threats to humanity.

It’s easy to brush off their messaging as weirdo creepiness, because, well, it is. But their dedication to portraying the illusion of a picture-perfect world of motherhood can trigger an ache not unlike the complex emotions some, including women experiencing infertility and miscarriage, feel when coming across Instagram pregnancy and birth announcements. Still, I never expected the trigger to come from prominent families of the federal government.

This has precedent. To understand how governments can stigmatize a woman’s ambivalence, we need only to go back 121 years to Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, speaking to the National Congress of Mothers:

There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of children, and for these we have the respect and sympathy always due to those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any of the other great blessings of life. But the man or woman who deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the unimportant—why, such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work for the support of those dependent upon him, and who, though able-bodied, is yet content to eat in idleness the bread which others provide.

Roosevelt sets up a clear delineation between those who deserve empathy because they cannot conceive, and people who either choose not to or, like me, who struggle to decide, and should therefore be despised. For Roosevelt, his speech continued, we are the “creatures” who form “the most unpleasant and unwholesome feature of modern life.” Such harsh views are not dissimilar to Vance’s “childless cat ladies” dig or this administration’s countless efforts to inject “family values” and conservative gender norms across daily American life.

“The existence of women of this type,” Roosevelt continues, “forms one of the most unpleasant and unwholesome features of modern life.”

I don’t know how I’ll land on the decision to go for another. Shortly after the initial ultrasound, a financial counselor informed me that my mediocre insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment, which, should I eventually move forward with freezing and implantation, would cost just north of $37,000. (So much for Trump’s promise of free IVF, indeed.) But cost is far from the main factor making this decision feel, at times, impossible.

Was there ever a moment of uncertainty for the women of MAGA’s baby boom? Could they even empathize with a woman who can’t figure it out? It’s impossible to know. But portraying it as an easy decision, that just so happens to conveniently align with a political ideology, is to push a quieter cruelty. That they have entered my consciousness, in the most intimate of settings, must be some kind of proof of their propagandistic success.

“Don’t we all want that ease?” Heffington said. Looking at declining birth rates in the US, where the material and political contexts of daily life have changed so drastically over the last two centuries, she added, “There’s a feeling that this ease has been taken from us.” You just wouldn’t know it from the women of MAGA.

New Nuclear Nightmare

Trump’s New Nuclear Nightmare in Iran

“This may be the worst planned war in history.”

David Corn

Donald Trump says he’s bombing Iran to prevent the regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But he may be providing with Tehran more incentive to sprint toward developing a nuclear bomb, which is now easier for Iran to make—thanks to Trump.

After Trump, during his first White House stint, ripped up the Iran nuclear deal that President Barack Obama and other world leaders had negotiated with Tehran in 2015, Iran responded by enriching its uranium to a much higher level than it had been doing under the agreement. Because of that move, it now possesses an estimated 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium that’s a lot closer to the level of refinement needed for bomb-grade material. And international nuclear inspectors—who were able to keep track of Iran’s uranium stockpile before Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in June—aren’t sure where this uranium is now.

In short, with his war in Iran, Trump has created a big, possibly catastrophic problem: A half-ton of highly enriched uranium, which can be made bomb-ready, is somewhere…out there—available for use by Iran’s new regime or perhaps not fully secured and susceptible to theft or expropriation.

I spoke to Joe Cirincione, a veteran nuclear policy expert, about this stockpile and the challenges it presents.

He notes that it would not take much for Iran to enrich this material—a gaseous form of uranium—from its present state of 60-percent enrichment to the 90-percent level necessary for a bomb. (Uranium at the 60-percent level can be used for a crude and large bomb that would be akin to the weapon dropped on Hiroshima but not a bomb that could be delivered by a missile.) He points out that under the Iran deal that Trump rejected, Iran had only been enriching uranium to the 4-percent level.

Once uranium is enriched to 90 percent, there are other critical steps required to manufacture a bomb that Cirincione estimates could take Iran nine months to a year, and this could happen perhaps even after the massive US-Israeli bombing campaign on the country.

So, Cirincione says, when Trump, to justify the war, proclaimed Iran was two weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon, he was misleading the public. And he was also wrong to have boasted of destroying Iran’s nuclear program last year. “This is the great fallacy of the June bombing, where Trump said he obliterated the program,” Cirincione remarks. “All of us knew at the time he hadn’t gotten that 60-percent enriched uranium. It was too deeply buried…So now it’s sitting there as literally a ticking time bomb.”

Then what ought to be done now about this treasure chest of uranium that is believed to be at a facility deep underground near the city of Isfahan? Cirincione says there are only two alternatives:

The United States either has to conduct some high-risk military maneuver where we would land people from the 82nd Airborne or an Israeli commando unit into the site at Isfahan and try to find the uranium, go down hundreds of meters underground, retrieve the uranium and pull it out or perhaps destroy it on site. That is a high risk proposition.

What you’re left with is really the only other solution where we started: a negotiated deal. You have to get Iran’s agreement to secure that material, declare it, allow inspectors, and then either secure it under inspection or downblend it—the process in reverse, bring it down to a 3-percent or 4-percent level. That’s the only two solutions to this problem.

As of now, it’s hard to envision productive negotiations between the United States and Iran—especially since Trump launched this war while nuclear talks were still underway. And the new supreme leader is said to be more of a hardliner than his father was.

Cirincione believes that eventually there will be some sort of negotiations:

Almost all wars end by some sort of negotiation. If you project forward several weeks, it’s going to have to end. Usually there’s some sort of arrangement that’s made to end a war. With Donald Trump, who seems to be flying by the seat of his pants and making this up as it goes along, we just don’t know. But it’s possible that Trump has put us into the worst of all possible worlds. He’s made it impossible for us to have a negotiated solution to this. And we can’t use any military means to solve the problem. So we’re left in this worst of all worlds, which is Iran is holding all the nuclear cards at the end of this war.

So did Trump and his advisers not think hard before the war about what to do about this stockpile of HEU? There have so far been no indications that Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and whoever else was involved prepared for this part of the mess. “This may be the worst planned war in history,” Cirincione says. “I see no sign that they knew what they were doing. It seemed to be just literally bomb, bomb, bomb. There didn’t seem to be a plan for how you were going to get at that particular material. If there is one, it hasn’t emerged.”

He adds: “As you know, the members of the Senate and the House that have emerged from classified briefings on the war are appalled at the lack of planning, not just for what they were going to do when they started the war, what the goals were, but there seems to be no plan for how to end this war.”

That ending, whatever it may be, has to take into account this half-ton of uranium, which exists because the Iran deal was dumped. It is a crisis of Trump’s own making.

Not Funny