Jobs Numbers Hit Record Low as Trump’s Economy Craters

Donald Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” is seriously screwing American workers, according to the latest jobs report.

The U.S. economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, underperforming expectations from Wall Street. December’s meager job offerings capped off total job creation in 2025 at roughly 584,000 total jobs, making it the worst year for hiring since the Covid-19 pandemic that ravaged the American economy. 2025 also saw the weakest annual job growth since 2003. 

Since Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs announcement, job growth has screeched to a halt—and may even be in decline, according to economist Justin Wolfers. 

Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, pointed out that the bulk of hiring last year happened in April, when 158,000 jobs were added to the economy. 

The worst month for job creation was October, when the market lost a staggering 173,000 jobs (revised up in the latest release from 105,000) as federal workers ousted by Elon Musk’s DOGE departed their government roles. November gains were also revised down from 64,000 to just 56,000. 

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.4 percent, after reaching its highest rate in four years. The unemployment rate was overall up from 4 percent in January 2025. 

The first year of Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” has been a rough one. 2025 ended with the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons up by 980,000,  the number of long-term unemployed people up by 397,000, and the number of people not in the workforce but wanting a job up 684,000.

National trust in federal authority has plummeted in the wake of several ICE shootings, leading at least two mayors to denounce the government.

Two people in Portland, Oregon, were shot by Border Patrol agents during a traffic stop Thursday evening, leading Mayor Keith Wilson to acknowledge that federal agents have made American towns less safe.

Speaking at a press conference late Thursday, Wilson called on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to quit “all operations in Portland”—but not before he called out the Trump administration for twisting the reality that Americans are experiencing with their own eyes and ears.

“We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word,” Wilson said. “That time is long past.”

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek was in lockstep, claiming at the same press conference that “federal agents at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security are shattering trust.”

“They are destroying day by day what we hold dear,” Kotek said.

The current status of the two shooting victims is not currently known, according to state and city officials in Oregon.

The shooting occurred just one day after an ICE agent killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis shortly after she dropped off her 6-year-old child to school. Her death sparked national fervor, particularly after the Trump administration vehemently defended the agent with an explanation of the incident that did not line up with video footage of the assault.

Penning a New York Times op-ed Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey argued that Donald Trump was lying to the country about what had taken place in his city. He cited the escalating violence that ICE agents had enacted against the Minneapolis community in recent months, including incidents in which ICE agents dragged a pregnant woman through the street, sparked chaos at libraries, and hurled chemical agents at high school students on school grounds.

But further still, Frey argued that the president and his officials had undermined public safety by deliberately dividing the public on a federally sponsored killing, caught on tape.

“The actions of the ICE agents deployed to my city are dangerous, and now, even deadly,” Frey wrote. “But that danger has been compounded by the administration’s claim that the victim committed an act of domestic terrorism.”

Video evidence of the incident suggested Good was letting other vehicles pass her on the road before she attempted to get out of the officers’ way, in an attempt to comply with ICE’s orders. However she was momentarily halted when the masked agents approached her window.

As she began to move her vehicle away from the agents, an officer standing in front of her red Honda Pilot sidestepped the car, moving toward the driver’s side before he pulled the trigger multiple times through her open window, video recording illustrates.

The officer then extended his arm and chased after Good as her SUV accelerated down the road, seemingly uncontrolled, before smashing into a utility pole and several parked vehicles.

Somehow, Trump officials have interpreted the clip as an act of aggression, in which they claim that the attacking ICE agent—identified by the Minnesota Star-Tribune as Jonathan Ross—was acting in self-defense. Trump claimed that Good “behaved horribly,” while Vice President JD Vance argued Thursday that Good’s death was effectively her own fault as he believed she had been “brainwashed.”

But after watching “multiple videos from multiple perspectives,” Frey wrote he agreed with eyewitnesses that “it seems clear that Ms. Good, a mother of three, was trying to leave the scene, not attack an agent.”

A new video shows the minutes leading up to the killing of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer from a new angle—and further casts doubt on the Trump administration’s smears.

The video obtained by CNN Thursday night showed Good’s Honda Pilot arriving at the site of the incident approximately four minutes before the shooting took place. One person appeared to exit Good’s car, before she pulled out into the road perpendicularly. The new footage showed that Good wasn’t fully blocking the street, as cars were able to pass her on either side.

The new video appears to show that ICE arrived suddenly and aggressively, and that Good was not actually blocking their path at all.

Initial footage of the incident, shot from another angle, showed Good wave at the agents and urge them to “go around” her vehicle. Instead, the ICE agents swarmed her vehicle, pulling on the doors and demanding she “get out of the fucking car!” One witness even said that another officer ordered her to leave. When Good attempted to drive away from the group of officers, one officer standing near the front of the vehicle shot her at least three times.

Still, Vice President JD Vance claimed Thursday that Good was a “deranged leftist” that was “part of a broader left-wing network” and “was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation.”

Members of the Trump administration, including Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, claimed that Good was some kind of “domestic terrorist.” And President Donald Trump went so far as to claim she’d run over one of the officers, before he actually watched the video, it seems.

But the video evidence—of which there is a lot—does not support these claims at all. When pressed on this shadowy network to which Good supposedly belonged, Vance replied: “Well, it’s one of those things we’re gonna have to figure out.” Apparently, it may take some time to cook up anything to support his outrageous lies.

Venezuela has apparently saved itself from another U.S. invasion by readily handing over political prisoners to the Trump administration.

Donald Trump revealed Friday that there was a preplanned arrangement to attack Venezuela a second time, though he noted that the offensive maneuver had since been called off in light of Venezuela’s capitulation with regard to releasing prisoners.

“Venezuela is releasing large numbers of political prisoners as a sign of ‘Seeking Peace.’ This is a very important and smart gesture,” Trump posted on Truth Social early Friday morning.

“The U.S.A. and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure,” Trump continued. “Because of this cooperation, I have cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will not be needed, however, all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes.

“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” he added.

The move comes just hours after five Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance the War Powers Resolution, which would force Trump to seek congressional approval before conducting any further military offensives in Venezuela. The Senate will carry out a final vote on the bill next week, after which the measure would need to pass the House and then get signed by Trump.

U.S. forces invaded Venezuela early Saturday, bombing its capital, Caracas, as nearly 200 American troops infiltrated the city to capture its 13-year ruler, Nicolás Maduro.

The narrative surrounding Trump’s attack on Venezuela has been wildly different from America’s other foreign intervention efforts. Whereas the George W. Bush administration insisted that its invasion of Iraq was to quell terrorism and suppress the nation’s nuclear capabilities—a claim that was dubiously received by the American public, considering the country was one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil at the time—Trump has been practically eager to fess to reporters that the primary rationale for his own military incursion against Venezuela was, truly, for oil.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that the U.S. would oversee the sale of some 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil, a sale that could be worth as much as $2.5 billion. The following day, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that America would continue to oversee and sell Venezuelan oil “indefinitely,” even after the government finishes chewing through the Latin American country’s stockpiled oil reserves.

In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Trump claimed that the U.S. will likely run Venezuela for years.

“Only time will tell,” Trump said. “We will rebuild it in a very profitable way.”

A Minneapolis pastor who joined protests Wednesday after an ICE officer fatally shot a woman in her car said that federal agents handcuffed him and threw him in the back of an SUV—before letting him free because he was white and “it wouldn’t be any fun.”

Pastor Kenny Callaghan, who initially shared his story on Facebook, told MS NOW Thursday that as he went to church the previous morning, he noticed protests were happening about a block away, so he grabbed his whistles to join them. As he was protesting, he said that they heard news of the fatal shooting nearby.

“Before I knew it, I saw ICE agents circling a young woman who appeared to be Hispanic, and so I approached her, and we were at that point chanting, ‘We are not afraid, we are not afraid.’”

Callaghan then said he told ICE officers to take him instead of harassing her. An agent then “came, got in my face, pointed a gun at me, and said, ‘Are you afraid now?’” Callaghan recalled.

After he said he still wasn’t afraid, the officer handcuffed him before putting him into the back of an SUV. “They came back three times and they asked me if I was afraid yet, to which I replied, ‘Hell no, I’m not afraid of you, and I’m never going to be afraid of you.’”

Callaghan said that he asked if he was under arrest after officers asked for him to hand over his identification and his cellphone.

“And then they said to me, ‘Well, you’re white, you won’t be any fun anyway. You can get out of the car.’”

ICE hasn’t confirmed the details of this confrontation. However, under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has been sharing increasingly white nationalist content, and ICE has skipped over proper vetting procedures in an aggressive push to ramp up its numbers.

Callaghan said he was stunned by the interaction, but takes hope in the mass crowd of protesters who are showing up.

“I was grateful to be there and grateful to stand in solidarity with anyone who is marginalized within our society, and will continue to advocate for the rights of my immigrant siblings here in Minneapolis and around the world,” he said.

“I don’t know what happened to me. In my world, I say God empowered me to speak up in that moment.”