President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union speech since returning to the White House for a second term, largely ignoring the real economic conditions of the American people. Trump declared economic success, claiming “the interests of hardworking American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.” “The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” Trump said.
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In JD Vance’s most recent Fox News interview, the vice president gave Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law a sneak peek into this year’s State of the Union address. The president, Vance said, would tout the “Trump boom” in the economy.
That’s going to be a tough sell.
There’s already ample evidence the American mainstream isn’t buying what the White House is selling. The latest national Associated Press poll found just 39% approved of Trump’s handling of the economy. The latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed similar results.
But the problem is not just public perception. There are a variety of metrics to consider when evaluating the economy, but let’s consider the three benchmarks that are arguably the most important.
Jobs: It was just a couple of weeks ago when we learned that (excluding the 2020 pandemic) the first year of Trump’s second term was the worst for U.S. job creation since the Great Recession. If we exclude years in which the economy fell into recession, 2025 was the worst year for U.S. job growth since 2003. To date, the White House has made no effort to explain why job growth in the United States got so much worse after Trump returned to power. (The unemployment rate also inched higher in 2025, which the president also hasn’t explained.)
Economic growth: Just last week, the public learned that the nation’s gross domestic product grew at a 2.2% pace across all of 2025, down from 2.8% in 2024. Excluding the pandemic, the first year of Trump’s second term showed the weakest economic growth in the U.S. in nine years. The White House hasn’t explained why this happened, either.
Inflation: There are
On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump is slated to deliver a State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, in which he’s expected to give himself and his administration glowing praise, particularly on the economy, immigration enforcement, and foreign policy. Viewers at home will largely disagree with his rosy assessments. Multiple polls in recent weeks demonstrate that…
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The United States Supreme Court ruled on Friday that most tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on nearly every country in the world were done so illegally. The decision upholds a lower court ruling that found the tariffs to be unconstitutional, and thus, unenforceable. In a 6-3 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the majority opinion, explained that the court disagreed…
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On Nov. 24, 2025, in a major and hardwon victory, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members finally returned to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after more than three years on strike. Then, on Jan. 7, 2026, workers were notified that Block Communications Inc.—the company that owns the Post-Gazette as well as the Toledo Blade, the Buckeye Sports Network, and a number of TV stations in Ohio and Kentucky—said that it will be ceasing operations at the Post-Gazette on May 3 of this year. We speak with Steve Mellon, a veteran photographer and writer who was on strike for over three years at the Post-Gazette, about how workers are processing this devastating news, and about their push to launch a new news source by and for working people.
Additional links/info:
Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting (PAPER) website
Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh website, Facebook page, and Instagram
Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette owners couldn’t bust the union, so they shut down the paper”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “The longest-running strike in the US is over—and the workers won”
Kris B. Mamula, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Post-Gazette to publish final edition and cease operations on May 3”
Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.Maximillian Alvarez:
I got work to do. All right. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News
The Trump administration is deliberately plunging Cuba into a national and humanitarian crisis, and the US-imposed blockade of oil imports is wreaking havoc on daily life for Cubans. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Cuban journalist and documentary filmmaker Liz Oliva Fernández about the unfolding nightmare in Cuba and what the international community can do to stop it.
Guest:
Liz Oliva Fernández is a Cuban journalist with the outlet Belly of the Beast, and she is the presenter of documentary series The War on Cuba, for which she won a Gracie Award. Apart from her journalism and filmmaking, Oliva Fernández is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist.
Additional links/info:
Belly of the Beast website, Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube channel
Belly of the Beast, The War on Cuba
Al Jazeera Staff & Reuters, Al Jazeera, “Waste piles up in Cuba as US-imposed fuel blockade halts collection trucks”
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, ““Policy of aggression”: Cuba’s U.N. ambassador denounces U.S. oil blockade, push to topple government”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with this. One of my great passions in life is Cuba and I’ve been to Cuba numerous times and now it’s at the center of Trump attacking Cuba again and trying to isolate it and want to try to overthrow the Cuban government. All that’s taking place as we speak and we are lucky to have today our