Democratic Underground: Forums for U.S. Liberals and Democrats

Trump says things are 'going very well' after worst stock market drop in years over tariffs

President Donald Trump offered a rosy assessment after the stock market dropped sharply Thursday over his tariffs, saying, "I think it's going very well." "The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom," he said when asked about the market as he left the White House to fly to one of his Florida golf clubs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 1,600 points on Thursday as U.S. stocks led a worldwide selloff after the Rep ...

BumRushDaShow

Trump administration is months away from direct payments to farmers, agriculture secretary says

April 3, 2025 12:24 PM EDT Updated 5 hours ago April 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Fox News on Thursday the Trump administration is "months away" from making a decision about whether to make payments to farmers to offset any impact from tariffs. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced sweeping tariffs that were mostly criticized by farm and food groups for their potential to shrink markets for farmers and raise prices for consumers. Rollins h ...

LetMyPeopleVote

Senate confirms Mehmet Oz to lead Medicaid and Medicare

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a television personality and failed U.S. Senate candidate, was confirmed Thursday as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a largely bipartisan vote. The Senate confirmed Oz in a party line vote of 53-45. At least one Republican changed their mind on Oz this week. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who had publicly opposed Oz’s nomination, said Monday that he would back the doctor after being reassured that Oz “now disavows his previous support for trans ...

BumRushDaShow

'We're All Dead': GOP Senator Reacts To Trump Tariffs

Apr 3, 2025, 02:55 PM EDT Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wasn’t concerned enough about President Donald Trump’s steep international tariffs to vote against them Wednesday — like some of his GOP colleagues — but did scold staunch supporters of the policy with a dire warning to multiple outlets. “In the long run, we’re all dead,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Wednesday. “Short run matters, too. Nobody knows what the impact of these tariffs is going to be ...

MayReasonRule

Judge Boasberg says he's contemplating 'contempt proceedings' over Trump deportations

Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to remove more than 200 alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador with little-to-no due process, a federal judge on Thursday is considering whether the Trump administration defied his court order by deporting the men. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said at a hearing Thursday that he is contemplating initiating "contempt proceedings" against the government in the event he finds probable cause they delib ...

BumRushDaShow

Trump Tariffs Set to Wipe Out Nearly $2 Trillion From US Stocks

(Bloomberg) Roughly $1.7 trillion is set to be erased from the S&P 500 Index when trading opens Thursday amid worries that President Donald Trump’s sweeping new round of tariffs could plunge the economy into a recession. Few stocks in the US were unscathed with the biggest ETF tracking the S&P 500 on pace for its biggest decline since 2022. More than 90% of companies in the S&P 500 were trading lower at 8 a.m. in New York, with over half of its 500 stocks down at least 2% in premarket trading.

Dennis Donovan

Trump's tariffs to lift companies' costs and hurt exports

(Reuters) Businesses around the globe on Thursday faced up to a future of higher prices, trade turmoil and reduced access to the world's largest market after U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed their worst fears by instituting broad tariffs worldwide. Trump ramped up his trade war with tariff rates from 10% to nearly 50%. He says the levies will bring jobs back to the United States - but company executives were focused on possibly raising prices, reducing shipments, or cutting back investment activity outright.

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

Trump's first 50 days mark one of the worst starts for the S&P 500 under any presidency

(Yahoo Finance) The Trump 2.0 stock market is off to one of the worst starts of any presidency since 1950. New data crunched by SunDial Capital Research strategist Jason Goepfert on Wednesday shows the market's response to President Trump since the inauguration is among the bottom of all presidents since 1950. In the first 50 trading sessions since Inauguration Day, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) has dropped about 6.4%. The only two worse starts were Richard Nixon's first 50 days (-7.2%) and George W. Bush's (-13.6%).

dalton99a

DOGE drove layoff announcements to their third-highest-ever level in March

(CNN) More than 275,000 layoffs were announced last month, reaching a level not seen since the pandemic, according to a new report published Thursday. The biggest culprit was one particular employer: The federal government. The federal government announced plans to axe 216,215 jobs, accounting for nearly 80% of the 275,240 layoffs announcements made by US employers in March, according to Challenger Gray & Christmas’ latest report. It’s the third-highest monthly total behind April 2020 (671,129) and May 2020 (397,016).

Dennis Donovan

The Economist - 22 weeks apart

Expand Featured Stories

Culture Forums

Alliance Forums

Region Forums

Latest Breaking News

Berkshire says posts claiming Warren Buffett endorses Trump's economic policies are false

10 min ago - Erin Bamer Apr 4, 2025 Updated 1 hr ago Berkshire Hathaway is denying claims made in a social media video that Warren Buffett endorses President Donald Trump's economic policies. The statement from the Omaha-based conglomerate Buffett chairs was in ... (Omaha World Herald)

NOAA research websites slated to go dark get a reprieve

13 min ago - Updated 2 hours ago NOAA has averted the early cancellation of an Amazon Web Services contract that would have caused a slew of agency websites to go dark beginning at midnight, the agency said Friday. Why it matters: The outages mainly would have af ... (Axios)

'There's a movement bubbling up': Anti-Trump protests planned nationwide Saturday

44 min ago - Published 6:02 a.m. ET April 4, 2025 | Updated 11:52 a.m. ET April 4, 2025 For weeks, people have gathered on small town street corners, in major cities, state capitols and the nation's capital to express displeasure and disbelief at the way Presiden ... (USA Today)

Supreme Court allows Trump to terminate teacher training grants as part of anti-DEI policy

1 hr ago - WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to terminate Education Department grants for teacher training that officials deemed to violate their new policy opposing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The 5-4 decis ... (NBC News)

Students protest Education Department closure in 'Hands Off Our Schools' rally

1 hr ago - April 4, 2025, 12:37 PM Hundreds of college and high school students representing student governments from some of the largest schools in the Washington, D.C., area will rally outside the Department of Education on Friday to oppose the administration ... (ABC News)

US was closing in on TikTok deal, but China hit brakes after Trump announced tariffs: AP source says

1 hr ago - US was closing in on TikTok deal, but China hit brakes after Trump announced tariffs: AP source says The Associated Press April 4, 2025, 4:00 PM WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- President Donald Trump had a TikTok deal in place Wednesday for the app's o ... (Associated Press, via WTOP)

Judge blocks Trump's takeover of Inter-American Foundation

1 hr ago - Court Battles Judge blocks Trump's takeover of Inter-American Foundation by Zach Schonfeld - 04/04/25 3:51 PM ET A federal judge blocked President Trump's takeover of a federal agency that invests in Latin America and the Caribbean, finding Friday t ... (The Hill)

GOP senators express alarm over scale of Trump tariffs

1 hr ago - 04/04/25 6:00 AM ET Republican senators are expressing varying degrees of shock and alarm at the scale of President Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs against trading partners and allies, which sent stock markets into a tailspin Thursday and ... (The Hill)

RFK Jr says 20% of Doge's health agency job cuts were mistakes

1 hr ago - Around a fifth of the 10,000 jobs cut from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were done in error and will need to be corrected, the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has admitted. Mass layoffs from the health department bega ... (The Guardian)

Dow plunges 2,000 as sell-off for markets slams into a scarier gear following Trump's tariffs

2 hrs ago - By STAN CHOE Updated 2:20 PM CDT, April 4, 2025 NEW YORK (AP) — The sell-off for financial markets worldwide is slamming into a higher, scarier gear on Friday. The S&P 500 tumbled 5.7% as Wall Street’s worst crisis since the COVID cr ... (AP)

China punches back as world weighs how to deal with higher US tariffs

2 hrs ago - BANGKOK (AP) — China hit back with a stiff import tax on U.S. goods as countries and industries around the world weighed their responses to President Donald Trump’s latest tariff hikes that are roiling global trade and world markets. China ... (AP)

Judge denies Justice Department's effort to move detained Tufts student's case to Louisiana

2 hrs ago - April 4, 2025 / 3:14 PM EDT Washington — A federal judge on Friday rejected an effort by the Justice Department to throw out a Tufts University Ph.D. student's challenge to her detention after she was taken into custody by immigration authoriti ... (CBS News)

North Carolina judges side with Republican colleague in close Supreme Court race

2 hrs ago - RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina appeals court sided Friday with the trailing Republican candidate in an extremely close state Supreme Court election, a ruling that could flip the result of the nation’s only 2024 race that is still und ... (Associated Press)

Federal Unions Sue To Stop Trump's Union-Busting Executive Order

2 hrs ago - Apr 4, 2025, 12:49 PM EDT A group of labor unions sued the administration Friday in hopes of stopping President Donald Trump’s attempt to gut collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The unions say in their laws ... (Huff Post)

FEMA chief given lie detector test after leak of private meeting

2 hrs ago - The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was given a lie detector test by the Department of Homeland Security to determine if he leaked information about a recent private meeting concerning FEMA, two former senior FEMA officials told POLIT ... (Politico)

The US must return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison, judge says

3 hrs ago - Updated 3:46 PM EDT, April 4, 2025 GREENBELT, Md. (AP) -- A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to arrange for the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison, ... (AP)

Risking Reprisals, Protesters in Gaza Call on Hamas to Step Aside

3 hrs ago - In a rare and perilous public show of anger against Hamas, hundreds of Palestinians marched through Beit Lahia in northern Gaza this week, demanding that the militant group relinquish control of the territory and end the war with Israel, according to ... (New York Times)

Tax return filings drop by nearly 1 million and extension requests rise as deadline nears

3 hrs ago - Published 7:00 AM EDT, Fri April 4, 2025 CNN — As the April 15 tax filing deadline fast approaches, fewer Americans have filed their federal taxes, and more have requested extensions, at this point in the filing season compared to last year, a ... (CNN Politics)

In NC, votes don't matter for Dems

3 hrs ago - Thousands of North Carolina ballots in the 2024 election might have been counted illegally, the state Court of Appeals ruled Friday in a case that could determine the outcome of last year’s election for an open seat on the North Carolina Supreme ... (WRAL)

'He Doesn't Give a Fk': White House Official Tells Washington Post Trump Has Reached Peak 'Not Giving a Fk'

3 hrs ago - President Donald Trump has reached the “peak of not giving a fuck,” one White House official told The Washington Post for a lengthy report on what went on behind the scenes leading up to the president’s massive tariff announcement this ... (Mediaite.com)