Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Belize]

I don’t know that would do much to quell the rumor train. “We pardoned this person who was absolutely found guilty of trafficking children so they would swear that our guy wasn’t involved in exploiting said trafficked children” isn’t exactly a good look.

I have no doubt the right-wing media would lock-step behind her saying Trump isn't on the list and blast that

[Kaleredar]

Wait, they want government handouts? Pfft, they can pull themselves up...

When dems do it, it’s a poorly-conceived waste of taxpayer money meant to keep the lazy moochers mooching and lazy.

When Republicans do it it’s a well-considered and thoroughly budgeted help for hard-working Americans.

This is the rationalization. It’s like how conservative white trash living off unemployment and government subsidies will criticize dems for making a welfare state but believe they deserve every cent they get from unemployment.

- - - Updated - - -

I have no doubt the right-wing media would lock-step behind her saying Trump isn't on the list and blast that

They aren’t doing the greatest at damage control right now, and I don’t think this would help. Especially because someone actually convicted in association with epstein’s sex crimes would, essentially, be set loose.

If trump wanted this to go away he’d shut up about it and wait for his next scandal to dominate headlines. Him constantly throwing fuel on the fire is what keeps it going. And while modern media is definitely bent towards serving conservative interests it, ultimately, lives off of outrage because outrage drives clicks and they are above all else monetarily inclined. This would certainly be headline-worthy.

[Timester]

Trump is fucking Nero, he is nuclear-blasting Rome while blaming the Christians and everyone else.

[Xyonai]

I don’t know that would do much to quell the rumor train. “We pardoned this person who was absolutely found guilty of trafficking children so they would swear that our guy wasn’t involved in exploiting said trafficked children” isn’t exactly a good look.

Yeah but Trump's stupid and desperate and I don't think anyone close to him is gonna tell him that. Just as likely, he's gonna try and play her into speaking good about him then just reneg on the pardon when the approval numbers came back negative.

[Rasulis]

About that.

U.S. Homes Are Not Selling, and Prices Continue to Rise

The NYTimes cites the NAR, saying



"Surely this is not a magical new event that happened the second Trump took office."

It is not. But making new homes more expensive by putting tariffs on building materials will make it worse. Rising prices in general leading to inflation will make it worse. And, while this is unrealistic, firing Powell and just dictating that the fed rate is 1% will make things worse.

"Why would a 1% mortgage rate be bad for buyers?"

Oh, it wouldn't. It would mean no banks gave loans. Why would anyone give a 1% rate loan, with or without collateral, when the rate of inflation was 2.7%? Trump would be dictating that all banks that give loans or renegotiate loans (his end game) will lose large piles of money. Nobody can afford a house now, and if there are no mortgages, that will get worse.

This one it tricky. Real estate is local. You can't look at the market from a nationwide perspective. I'll use Florida as an example. It is a very unique market.

Housing inventory in Florida is at record high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUFL

Prices are coming down.

"In Florida, it’s a buyer’s market and resales are competing with a lot of new-construction or newer homes in certain price points, which makes it harder," says Cara Ameer, an agent with Coldwell Banker who is licensed in California and Florida. "Builders are able to offer aggressive incentives—such as buying down the interest rate, or offering money off the price or toward closing costs—to make buying the home more affordable."

Yet, sales are down.

Closed sales for single-family homes were down 4.5% in April 2025 compared to the year before. Condo and townhouse sales took an even bigger hit, down 14.8%. This tells us that while there might be more homes available, the pool of active buyers has shrunk.

Why?

Property taxes went up a lot during Covid when everybody was moving to Florida and drove home prices up. Contrary to Newton's law, what goes up does not necessarily will come down.

Insurance costs are raising rapidly due to hurricane and flood risks.

Hurricane and flood.

Inflation. Consistently higher than the US average. Florida is not affordable anymore.
Consumer Price Index, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach — June 2025

Owning a home in Florida has become a very expensive proposition. Only those with good paying jobs can afford to live in Florida metro areas.

On the other hand, although unemployment is low, the job quality is poor. A lot of techies that moved there during Covid have come to the same conclusion and many have left for places like San Francisco.

San Francisco housing market is ridiculous right now. Money is pouring into the City like crazy. I could show listing for homes that were sold within the last month. All of them sold for above asking. Yes, the homes are pricy, and it is driving non-techies out of the city.

While San Francisco has earned a reputation as a dystopian left-wing policy disaster, it remains the hottest spot for tech funding in the US. This is according to a recent report from Tracxn, which claims that in California $94.8 billion was raised in the first six months of 2025, with 78% of all funding landing in SF. Palo Alto came in a distant second.

According to the report, the funding was a sharp increase compared to H2 2024 when $61.8 billion was raised and a 140% incrase from the $39.6 billion raised in H1 2024.

That's the same amount of funding for the entirety of 2024 ($70b out of 134.6b worldwide).

Probably because it was already an expensive city to begin with and it lost almost 10% of its population, inflation was pretty low.

https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/new...nFrancisco.htm

[Kaleredar]

This one it tricky. Real estate is local. You can't look at the market from a nationwide perspective. I'll use Florida as an example. It is a very unique market.

Housing inventory in Florida is at record high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUFL

Prices are coming down.

"In Florida, it’s a buyer’s market and resales are competing with a lot of new-construction or newer homes in certain price points, which makes it harder," says Cara Ameer, an agent with Coldwell Banker who is licensed in California and Florida. "Builders are able to offer aggressive incentives—such as buying down the interest rate, or offering money off the price or toward closing costs—to make buying the home more affordable."

Yet, sales are down.

Closed sales for single-family homes were down 4.5% in April 2025 compared to the year before. Condo and townhouse sales took an even bigger hit, down 14.8%. This tells us that while there might be more homes available, the pool of active buyers has shrunk.

Why?

Property taxes went up a lot during Covid when everybody was moving to Florida and drove home prices up. Contrary to Newton's law, what goes up does not necessarily will come down.

Insurance costs are raising rapidly due to hurricane and flood risks.

Hurricane and flood.

Inflation. Consistently higher than the US average. Florida is not affordable anymore.
Consumer Price Index, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach — June 2025

Owning a home in Florida has become a very expensive proposition. Only those with good paying jobs can afford to live in Florida metro areas.

On the other hand, although unemployment is low, the job quality is poor. A lot of techies that moved there during Covid have come to the same conclusion and many have left for places like San Francisco.

San Francisco housing market is ridiculous right now. Money is pouring into the City like crazy. I could show listing for homes that were sold within the last month. All of them sold for above asking. Yes, the homes are pricy, and it is driving non-techies out of the city.

While San Francisco has earned a reputation as a dystopian left-wing policy disaster, it remains the hottest spot for tech funding in the US. This is according to a recent report from Tracxn, which claims that in California $94.8 billion was raised in the first six months of 2025, with 78% of all funding landing in SF. Palo Alto came in a distant second.

According to the report, the funding was a sharp increase compared to H2 2024 when $61.8 billion was raised and a 140% incrase from the $39.6 billion raised in H1 2024.

That's the same amount of funding for the entirety of 2024 ($70b out of 134.6b worldwide).

Probably because it was already an expensive city to begin with and it lost almost 10% of its population, inflation was pretty low.

https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/new...nFrancisco.htm

I also wonder how much of it has to do with job tumult. If you don’t feel secure in a job or a particular location you aren’t going to be buying a house. If rent in the short or medium term is less expensive or even kind of on par with a mortgage payment people will be more inclined to do that than risk a huge investment like a house they might end up taking a bath on to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars based on how the market feels that month.

This could have been mitigated by more extensive work-from-home policies, but we can see how quickly those all got rolled back the moment it became convenient.

[Bwgmon]

Folks, is potentially releasing one of the most prolific child sex traffickers of the past 100 years to avoid releasing a list your name definitely isn't on a good look or no?

[Edge-]

Folks, is potentially releasing one of the most prolific child sex traffickers of the past 100 years to avoid releasing a list your name definitely isn't on a good look or no?

holy shit how many children did is there evidence of donald trump raping?

[Belize]

holy shit how many children did is there evidence of donald trump raping?

Didn't they throw like 1000 FBI agents to comb over the documents (that don't exist).

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/trum...bi-durbin.html

Durbin said his office had learned that after that, the “FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”

“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter said.

And if we're wondering how this is related to child rapist Donald Trump

“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

[Moralgy]

She says a list of Dems only. Gets a pardon. Conservatives say "haha libs owned" as she starts trafficking kids again.

[Poopymonster]

I don’t know that would do much to quell the rumor train. “We pardoned this person who was absolutely found guilty of trafficking children so they would swear that our guy wasn’t involved in exploiting said trafficked children” isn’t exactly a good look.

If Trump does pardon her, she can't hide behind the 5th amendment. Like when the families of the children raped sue her in a civil trial not a criminal one and pointedly ask "WHO DID THIS TO YOU."

[zorkuus]

I don’t know that would do much to quell the rumor train. “We pardoned this person who was absolutely found guilty of trafficking children so they would swear that our guy wasn’t involved in exploiting said trafficked children” isn’t exactly a good look.

The new rightwing media talking point is already that she's a victim, so the pardon is deserved. There is no bottom to their depravity. He doesn't need to convince us, the normal people, all he's trying to convince is the republican base. And they'll just eat it all up without second thought.

IT. IS. A. CULT.

[Edge-]

The new rightwing media talking point is already that she's a victim, so the pardon is deserved. There is no bottom to their depravity. He doesn't need to convince us, the normal people, all he's trying to convince is the republican base. And they'll just eat it all up without second thought.

IT. IS. A. CULT.

god

watching republicans apparently turn into the party of pro-child-rape is sure a thing to behold

[zorkuus]

god

watching republicans apparently turn into the party of pro-child-rape is sure a thing to behold

tRump could come out tomorrow and say on air "let's start eating babies, I like the taste of baby meat" and within hours rightwing bobble heads would be telling their viewers how eating babies actually has its merits.

[Edge-]

tRump could come out tomorrow and say on air "let's start eating babies, I like the taste of baby meat" and within hours rightwing bobble heads would be telling their viewers how eating babies actually has its merits.

suddenly that scene in snowpiercer where chris evans breaks down admitting that he knows baby meat is the most tasty human meat is offensive because how dare he be ashamed to eat baby, the other other white meat

[Rasulis]

suddenly that scene in snowpiercer where chris evans breaks down admitting that he knows baby meat is the most tasty human meat is offensive because how dare he be ashamed to eat baby, the other other white meat

I was thinking of Christopher Reeve's Southpark stem cell episode.

[Breccia]

Third court blocks Trump's attempt to ignore a Constitutional Amendment just because he wants to.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of former President Obama, found that the nationwide injunction he granted to more than a dozen states remains in effect because “no workable, narrower alternative” would provide the plaintiffs full relief — an exception laid out in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“Despite the defendants’ chosen path, the Court — aided substantially by the plaintiffs’ meticulous factual and legal submissions — undertook the review required of it by CASA and considered anew whether its original order swept too broadly,” Sorokin wrote in a 23-page opinion, referencing the high court decision.

“After careful consideration of the law and the facts, the Court answers that question in the negative,” he said.

“The record does not support a finding that any narrower option would feasibly and adequately protect the plaintiffs from the injuries they have shown they are likely to suffer if the unlawful policy announced in the Executive Order takes effect during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Sorokin wrote.

[Iphie]

Folks, is potentially releasing one of the most prolific child sex traffickers of the past 100 years to avoid releasing a list your name definitely isn't on a good look or no?

I seriously think presidential pardons need to be revised if this goes through. Like I get why they exist but this is not it.

[s_bushido]

I seriously think presidential pardons need to be revised if this goes through. Like I get why they exist but this is not it.

Maybe. But I still have this fraction of a % worth of hope that if he actually goes through with that, his presidency is all but over. His cult couldn't care less that he was convicted of dozens of business/finance felonies, but that dude in tears over "protecting the children" on Glenn Beck's show leads me to believe that at least some of them think they're fighting for some noble cause. This would destroy that illusion for *a lot* of them.

[Breccia]

As expected, when Trump was talking about the weak dollar he was wrong on almost every meaningful level.

This week marks the greatest drop in a month, with the dollar index standing at 97.448. That shows a 1 percent weekly decline, while the euro stayed at $1.1754, close to its four-year high of $1.183.

And that's after a slight reprieve today. Trump is hyping a weak dollar because his policies are creating it, not because it's good.

But that's just a few objective numbers. Let's add some context.

However, economists have warned that the weakening U.S. dollar is likely to spark a price hike on everyday items while also forcing U.S. travelers to pay more when abroad.

"A weaker dollar does have certain benefits—particularly for multinational corporations and U.S. exporters. It makes American goods more competitive abroad and can boost earnings when foreign profits are converted back into dollars," Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek.

"But let's be clear: the U.S. is a consumer-driven, import-heavy economy. A weaker dollar makes imports more expensive, which can drive inflation. So while there are benefits on the corporate side, it also hurts households by increasing the cost of everyday goods."

Now most of that I'd already said, but the inflation part is something I didn't spell out. And, yes, inflation is rising due to Trump's policies. A weak dollar won't help.

Thompson also said Trump's comments on inflation were incorrect, as consumers are still facing price increases in many areas.

"He's dead wrong," Thompson said. "We're still seeing elevated prices in areas like energy, particularly piped gas, and in household essentials. Food costs continue to climb, especially meat, and many families are seeing higher utility bills. Disinflation doesn't mean prices are falling—it just means they're rising more slowly, but they're still rising."

In June, the consumer price index for all urban consumers climbed 0.3 percent, seasonally adjusted. Meanwhile, food was up 3 percent year-over-year, not seasonally adjusted.

TRUMP TAKE EGG

"Continued deficit spending and ballooning debt levels have led to questions about long-term economic stability. Since the dollar is the world's reserve currency, its strength is tied to global trust in our economy," Thompson said.

Trump's ongoing tariff negotiations have also signaled alarm amongst some economists, who say that the heightened tariffs could be passed along by importers via higher prices.

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "A weaker dollar can have some benefits, namely in the form of cheaper exports which can boost demand for our goods and services internationally. However, the cons can easily outweigh the pros. A weaker dollar equates to higher prices on many items for American consumers, particularly on imports."

For everyday Americans, the declining U.S. dollar could continue to impact their wallets after years of inflationary pressures, experts say.

"Inflationary pressures have already left a sizable dent in many Americans' wallets in the years since the pandemic. Further weakening of the dollar could just prolong this effect," Beene said.