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Another Bad Jobs Report, Susie Wiles Goes Wild, Making Measles Great Again - More Notes From The Trumpian Sh-tshow

Trumpism = sabotage, plunder, and betrayal

Simon Rosenberg

Dec 16

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Morning all. Let’s start with a graph the NYT released this morning. That downward drop you see in 2025 that starts in April? It’s when Trump announced his terrible tariffs.

Trump has taken four wrecking balls to the economy and the American people this year - the tariffs, the big ugly bill, mass deportation, and the assault on higher education and research.

The tariffs have reignited inflation and caused prices to rise on everything, slowed the economy, disrupted supply chains, harmed small businesses and farmers, angered our allies around the world, and undermined the American-led global order we’ve imagined and built after WWII. They are also illegal, unconstitutional, modern day “taxation without representation,” and in my mind the greatest abuse of power by an American leader in our history.

Here’s economist Justin Wolfers today on Bluesky:

Payrolls fell -105k in October and rose +64k in November. August and September payrolls were also revised down a total of 33k. These data suggest VIRTUALLY NO EMPLOYMENT GROWTH since April (”Liberation day”). Unemployment is now up to 4.6%. This is a tricky report, so stay tuned.
Measured job growth has averaged a paltry +17k since April. + The Fed estimates that these numbers overstate true job growth by about 60k per month. (No, not conspiracy theory stuff; technical issues in the birth-death model.) = Employment is shrinking around 40k per month.

Functionally America is now in a recession due to Trump’s policies.

And that’s not all. The big ugly bill is breaking our health care system, caused utility prices to rise due to it’s clean energy subsidy cuts, and cut food assistance (SNAP) that will cause many millions to go hungry.

The tariffs and the big ugly have also, together, perniciously and malevolently, shifted the tax burden in American from wealthy people and corporations (huge tax cuts) to working people (tariffs) while also dramatically weakening the fiscal integrity of the United States due to a huge structural increase in our deficit.

Under Donald Trump, for the first time in history, the US no longer holds the highest credit rating in any of the major credit rating agencies. This weakening of our fiscal position will keep commercial interest rates high regardless of what the Fed does. It is another form of tax on working people, will also depress growth, and gives China greater global leverage over the United States - making us less free.

The mass deportation program, in addition to lawlessly and inhumanely terrorizing communities across the country, is creating worker shortages making it harder for businesses to grow or even stay in business; driving up prices; depressing tourism to the US, costing the nation many tens of billions of dollars.

The fourth assault on our economy - the savage attack on higher education and research - will slow future innovation, perhaps the central driver of our collective prosperity and global power.

I’ve called Trump’s agenda one of

sabotage, plunder, and betrayal

And it is.

Susie Wiles Goes Wild - To add to the wheels are coming off sense we have in DC these days today Vanity Fair published the first installment of reporting it has done from inside the White House this year. What you about to read is so f-ing crazy, so Trumpian, and so terrifying that these corrupt vainglorious idiots are running our great country. Here is how the NYT wrote about this new Vanity Fair series today:

Over the course of 11 interviews, Ms. Wiles offered pungent assessments of the president and his team: Mr. Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality.” Vice President JD Vance has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade” and his conversion from Trump critic to ally was based not on principle but was “sort of political” because he was running for Senate. Elon Musk is “an avowed ketamine” user and “an odd, odd duck,” whose actions were not always “rational” and left her “aghast.” Russell T. Vought, the budget director, is “a right-wing absolute zealot.” And Attorney General Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” in handling the Epstein files.

And…..

She attributes her ability to work for Mr. Trump to growing up with an alcoholic father, the sportscaster Pat Summerall. “High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink,” she said. “And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.” While Mr. Trump does not drink, she said he has “an alcoholic’s personality” and operates with “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

And….

Ms. Wiles described frustration with Mr. Musk, the billionaire who early in the year was empowered to eviscerate federal agencies and fire employees en masse with almost no process. “He’s an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it’s not helpful, but he is his own person.” When he shared a post saying that Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions, their public sector workers did, Ms. Wiles said, “I think that’s when he’s microdosing.” Asked what she meant, she said, “he’s an avowed ketamine” user.
Mr. Musk has acknowledged trying ketamine “a few years ago,” but denied reports of more recent use. In the interview with The Times on Monday, Ms. Wiles took issue with the quote attributed to her about his drug use. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “I wouldn’t have said it and I wouldn’t know.” But Mr. Whipple played a tape for The Times in which she could be heard saying it.
Mr. Musk’s demolition of the U.S. Agency for International Development including its lifesaving aid to impoverished people around the globe upset Ms. Wiles. “I was initially aghast,” she told Mr. Whipple. “Because I think anybody that pays attention to government and has ever paid attention to U.S.A.I.D. believed, as I did, that they do very good work.”
Mr. Musk’s approach was “not the way I would do it.” She said she called Mr. Musk on the carpet. “You can’t just lock people out of their offices,” she recalled telling him. She said that Mr. Musk was a disrupter. “But no rational person could think the U.S.A.I.D. process was a good one. Nobody.”

Photo of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (NYT)

And yes, the ongoing GOP meltdown/wheels flying off the bus over health care continues. From Politico this morning:

Even Fox News is getting worried about Trump’s dangerous antivax lunacy:

A screenshot from Fox News of a graphic titled "Rise in U.S. Measles Cases." 2020: 13 As of Tuesday: 1,912 14,608% Increase

And now Trump is claiming he needs to build his gilded, imperial ballroom for national security reasons (OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!):

Yes, It’s Time To Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In two new essays (here, here) I talk about how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up now, be loud now, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land. The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.

Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $58k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $103k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $39,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10)

Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $230,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!

Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Making Hopium Stronger - We have two recommended actions today:

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:

Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his current efforts to force Ukraine to surrender
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy

2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on July 4th, America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.

One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We do not hope tomorrow will be better than yesterday. We do the work to make it so - Simon

Business Blog

Tuesday, December 16, 2025