Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Trifle]

You cannot be implicated in a crime, just because someone else committed a crime. If my brother knocks over a gas station, they can't arrest me.

Logically I would have thought she's no longer able to plead the 5th because she's already been convicted, so she can't self-incriminate anymore.

[PhaelixWW]

Logically I would have thought she's no longer able to plead the 5th because she's already been convicted, so she can't self-incriminate anymore.

There's always the possibility of new charges.

[Kaleredar]

You cannot be implicated in a crime, just because someone else committed a crime. If my brother knocks over a gas station, they can't arrest me.

You can if you assist them.

I think you can probably take the 5th to a bunch of stuff, but this feels more targeted and specific.

And we should infer when the answer wasn't just "no" that there is other evidence that proves the answer is "yes" and they don't want to perjure themselves.

I assume the “plead the 5th” element is that by professing knowledge under oath as to what did or didn’t happen with epstein’s victims she essentially admits she had involvement in them.

[TACOshake]

I assume the “plead the 5th” element is that by professing knowledge under oath as to what did or didn’t happen with epstein’s victims she essentially admits she had involvement in them.

Careful, thats treadin on the pre2022 Trumpian view of pleading the fifth = assumes guilt.
now in 2022 Trump plead the fifth like 400 times.

Multiple things are true:

• She can be compelled to answers on crimes she has already been judged for.
• She can plead the fifth on questions that may expose her to new jepordy.
• No, pleading the fifth does not invalidate a witness's entire testimony; it only protects a person from being compelled to answer specific, incriminating questions.

[Poopymonster]

There's a Sammy Hagar joke in there somewhere, but I can't quite make it work. "I can't grind...15 lithe"?

The Dory McLean bridge.

[Breccia]

Team Trump blames low job numbers on deportations.

Peter Navarro, White House senior counsel for trade and manufacturing, cautioned on Tuesday that the jobs report could come in even lower than expected because of the sweeping deportations of immigrants working in the country illegally.

“The jobs report’s going to come out tomorrow. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like,” Navarro said in an interview on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria.”

The senior trade adviser said, in general, people need to adjust their expectations of the number of jobs that will be added each month. He said to expect job growth in the 50,000 monthly range, rather than the six-figure range seen consistently during the Biden administration.

“So, Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can’t rain on that parade,” Navarro said. “They have to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of our job market.”

"Wait, so they deported millions?"

No. DHS claims it's about 2.5 million including voluntary departures, but the DHS is lying. They have not released anything official. On the other hand, pretty much any non-Trump source has put the real answer far lower than this. A Kaiser survey found that 15% of undocumented have considered leaving. DHS is taking their numbers from a known poor source of data using known poor data collection techniques: self-reporting from a group that's gone into hiding.

I posit, with evidence, deportations are falling. ICE is on the rampage to the point of murdering US citizens in the street. You don't do that if things are going great. They're behind, they have quotas, and are now claiming "well we're deporting all these immigrants who were gainfully employed" and not "we're deporting all these immigrants who are dangerous criminals".

For the record, if that claim was correct, it is still bad news. As I've posted before, in 2025 Trump added 500,000 new jobs when he should have added two million or more. Let's say those 1,500,000 jobs lost were due to those job holders leaving the country. Why haven't those jobs been filled yet? I thought immigrants were stealing jobs. Why are they still vacant?

And that's not even counting the immigrants who, yep, were taking unreported jobs.

The truth is that layoffs have been rising for a year straight, something that cannot be blamed on immigration. 1.17 million people were laid off in 2025. We haven't seen that since COVID, or to put it another way, Biden did better all four years.

Funny story: that accurate measure of layoffs, plus an accurate number of deportations, would about be the 1.5 million jobs behind schedule Trump is.

The fact that Navarro is even bothering to lie is telling. It means Team Trump know how bad the damage is and is desperate to change the narrative to explain those low numbers. He didn't stay quiet. He didn't blame China or Mexico stealing jobs. He didn't even claim the low job numbers are fake - we know they tried that before, it's a valid option for Team Trump even if it's fucking retarded. He instead admitted the numbers are bad and getting worse, and trying to tell the people who were laid off "you didn't get laid off, an immigrant was deported".

Oh, and January 2026 layoffs are over double January 2025 layoffs. There is no evidence things are improving. In January, we added 22,000 jobs. That's less than one-half a number I called dismal.

And Powell is signaling things are even worse. He called out a rise in inflation, a rise in unemployment, a GDP growth of 1.7% which is anemic, and this:

So in October, I said that there was no certainty of moving.
And that was indeed correct. I said it’s possible you could think about it that way, but I was
careful to say other people could look at it differently. So why did we move today? You know, I
would say—point to a couple of things. First of all, gradual cooling in the labor market has
continued. Unemployment is now up three-tenths from June through September. Payroll jobs
averaging 40,000 per month since April. We think there’s an overstatement in these numbers by
about 60,000, so that would be negative 20,000 per month. And also, just to point out one other
thing, surveys of households and businesses both showed declining supply and demand for
workers, so I think you can say that the labor market has continued to cool gradually, maybe just
a touch more gradually than we thought.

There is no metric by which the economy is improving for anyone who isn't already rich. With nothing to work with, not even believable lies - and that's a really tough metric to pass with Trump supporters - Team Trump is going with "We admit the numbers are bad, and it's because we're doing something for your own good. Now shut up and play with ChatGPT from the unemployment line."

[Edge-]

is he saying americans are too lazy to work?

[PhaelixWW]

is he saying americans are too lazy to work?

Every accusation is a confession.

- - - Updated - - -

Instagram and trust me bro aren't good enough for you? Fine. Probably will have official numbers in a few hours.

So the official Super Bowl viewer numbers were finally posted today:

An estimated 124.9 million viewers watched Super Bowl LX on Sunday, February 8, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement. NBC’s presentation of Super Bowl LX ranks as the second most-watched Super Bowl in history, behind the 127.7 million viewers who watched Super Bowl LIX in 2025.

The halftime show featuring Bad Bunny averaged 128.2 million viewers between 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET.

[Dontrike]

So the official Super Bowl viewer numbers were finally posted today:

And the "We'll make our own halftime show! With pedophiles and racists!" show only got slightly higher than 5 million and they still couldn't defeat a bunch of puppies.

[Valdhammer]

And the "We'll make our own halftime show! With pedophiles and racists!" show only got slightly higher than 5 million and they still couldn't defeat a bunch of puppies.

Christ, that’s depressing. 5 million is way too many.

[Gorsameth]

Christ, that’s depressing. 5 million is way too many.

Not when you consider that 1/3 of the US are nazi's.
(which is ofc also way to many but hey 'Merica).

[Breccia]

is he saying americans are too lazy to work?

The report claims 130,000 new jobs, higher than anything in 2025.

What's interesting is two things: one, the report is fiction. It's double predicted levels with no evidence. Two, it's still underwhelming. 130,000 per month is better than Trump has had no question, because Trump fails at everything, but even if it was true and even if he kept it up, it'd be 1.5 million in a year, which is not great or even average.

Trump will crow about this report, which is lackluster, until it is revised downwards twice, when he will assume people have forgotten.

Bookmark me.

[Paranoid Android]

FAA suspends flights over El Paso for 10 days and...

The FAA says it has lifted temporary closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, and all flights are set to resume.

Follow live updates.

https://bsky.app/profile/apnews.com/post/3melnura6q42i

No statement why closed in first place and lifted on a whim?

I get there is speculation yet whatever plan always seems a mess with these people.

- - - Updated - - -

MS NOW: "A congressional official with knowledge of the matter is telling MS NOW the cause of the shutdown of El Paso airspace is a lack of communication between the Pentagon and FAA. The official told us the FAA and DOD are 'not in clear communications with each other.'"

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3melogfl6ht2y

Ok. Perhaps more confirmation on speculation. Guess a possible military strike? Just incompetence as above?

[Breccia]

Guess a possible military strike? Just incompetence as above?

It's so heartwarming that the man who claimed to be the best bestiest best businessman ever can't even get his people who fly planes to talk to his people who land planes.

[btlcryct]

Well seems this might be why it was shut down.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/11/us-new...space-closure/

[Edge-]

Well seems this might be why it was shut down.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/11/us-new...space-closure/

"cartel drones" sure thing, jan

especially given that the faa and pentagon aren't seemingly on the same page, this reeks of some incompetence followed by some swift ass-covering

[Rasulis]

The report claims 130,000 new jobs, higher than anything in 2025.

What's interesting is two things: one, the report is fiction. It's double predicted levels with no evidence. Two, it's still underwhelming. 130,000 per month is better than Trump has had no question, because Trump fails at everything, but even if it was true and even if he kept it up, it'd be 1.5 million in a year, which is not great or even average.

Trump will crow about this report, which is lackluster, until it is revised downwards twice, when he will assume people have forgotten.

Bookmark me.

I just want to add this from BLS.

The job gains in 2025 have been revised down significantly, reflecting a weaker labor market than previously estimated. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the total nonfarm employment growth for 2025 was revised down to 181,000, down from 584,000, implying average monthly job gains of just 15,000. This revision indicates that the employment picture in the U.S. is weakening, with a total of only 181,000 jobs added in all of 2025. The revisions also suggest that all months of 2025 have been revised down, with the unemployment rate declining to 4.3% from 4.45%.

Navarro is correct in saying mass deportation had a major impact on the job report. More people deported less workers. Also, people are afraid to go to work. Even less workers. No workers to hire meant crappy job gain report. That's how the US managed to get low job report numbers and low unemployment at the same time.

I don't think the number is fake. What's interesting is that when you look at the job gain by sectors, the entire thing was driven entirely by two sectors - construction (from data centers construction) and primarily health care. Except for those two sectors, everything else are shit.

Job growth by sectors from BLS.

Professional and business services also started to recover in the last 3 months. Many companies are rehiring the people that they laid off and tried to replace with AI.

[btlcryct]

"cartel drones" sure thing, jan

especially given that the faa and pentagon aren't seemingly on the same page, this reeks of some incompetence followed by some swift ass-covering

I'm not saying they're telling the truth, but I also don't think it's that far-fetched either. People have been using drones to drop contraband into prisons for a few years now.

[Edge-]

I'm not saying they're telling the truth, but I also don't think it's that far-fetched either. People have been using drones to drop contraband into prisons for a few years now.

i don't think it's entirely made up, no

but apparently this is the first airspace closure like this since 9/11

it's very possible there was a drone incursion, even from cartels

but i think, and this could be true at the same time, the higher likelyhood is one of the incompetent dumbshits in the administration panicked and went to 11 before people who aren't dumbshits actually figured out what was going on and unfucked it

[Breccia]

was revised down to 181,000, down from 584,000

Jeez, that's not even funny.

And if all of 2025 added 181k with every month revised downwards, I am even further convinced that January report of 130k is wrong.