SINCERETALK

President Donald Trump has added $2 trillion to America's budget deficit in 2026 , swelling the ballooning debt to $40 trillion. Even as economists continue to express alarm about the daunting math , a top economist argued on Wednesday that the deeper issue is in fact Trump himself. People do not trust him because of things like him running up the deficit, and that impacts the economy. "How they evaluate the job the government is doing on economic policy," Dr. Justin Wolfers , a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and the Peterson Institute and a University of Michigan professor of economics and public policy, wrote on Wednesday regarding American voters. "You can see why this might matter: If policy is good, you might be optimistic about your economic future. If it’s bad, you’re likely more pessimistic." Wolfers described a phenomenon which he dubbed "America’s confidence in our economic managers. To turn it into a single number, take the share of peo...

An appointee of President Donald Trump — who once recused himself from overseeing Trump’s controversial slush fund because he’d planned to tap it for himself — is headed out, sources tell Bloomberg Law . “The Justice Department’s top Capitol Hill liaison, Patrick Davis, is stepping down ahead of an anticipated rush of congressional oversight if Democrats win control of at least one chamber,” reports Bloomberg Law. “Davis, a seasoned Republican investigator in both the Senate and House, will resign at the end of October — one year after he was sworn in to lead DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs, said three people familiar with the matter. Davis initially served as acting chief of the office starting on the first day of Trump’s second term, but he later became a top Justice Department official who made news after plotting to make bank on Trump’s controversial "anti-weaponization" fund. His plan raised alarms at the agency, as he was set to be involved in the communication s...

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board panned President Donald Trump’s emerging alliances with hostile nations China and Russia against U.S. allies. “It’s hard to know what President Trump is up to at any one moment because he operates so much on tactical impulse. But he has long coveted grand bargains with Russia and China, and that may be his motivation now as he hardens his hostility to Ukraine and Europe and courts a Yalta 2 summit with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping,” the board opined. The WSJ was quick to point out that the Yalta analogy doesn’t even apply because the original team of the first Yalta summit, Stalin and Churchill were U.S. allies in 1945. But the trio do resemble Trump’s plan in the way they seek to “ carve up the globe ,” according to the WSJ, and that is “the danger with what Mr. Trump says he’s open to now.” “As we wrote before the 2024 election, this was one of our main fears for his second term,” said the board, pointing out that Putin has floated a meetin...

The president is demented . It's why he lashed out at a reporter today in the Oval Office. Donald Trump said: "Quiet. Quiet ! What's wrong with you? Are you a sick person?" It's also why he acts like there is no future. With the prospect looming over him of a US Congress controlled by the Democrats, Donald Trump is behaving like time is running out. In the last week, he has lifted sanctions on Russian oil, sabotaged Ukraine, and "waived" news laws designed to punish Vladimir Putin. The devil gets his due. And the due date has come.That might sound like a good thing, but a demented, futureless president is dangerous. Consider that right now, before the midterms, Trump has the incentive to end the war against Iran. Prices are extortionate. The solution is restoring the flow of oil. But there may be no such incentive after November. As Cole Bucy and Nate Swanson wrote in Foreign Policy last month, Trump "may no longer feel burdened to pretend to be ...

President Donald Trump is getting away with flirty comments that would have tanked a Democratic leader like President Barack Obama, according to a prominent lawyer and critic of the president. After reviewing in detail his appreciation of the male physiques of Republicans like Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, Georgia Rep. Mike Collins and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, George Conway pointed out the president is avoiding questions about his sexual orientation because of a partisan double standard. "Let’s stop for a second," Conway told Republican consultant Rick Wilson . "Let’s just stop in here for a second. This is the... He did this twice this week, where he’s talking about... He’s in Ohio... And he’s talking about Senator Husted’s a - -. And, you know, he’s on top of all the like, oh, good looking guy. You know, he talked about Arnold Palmer’s wanger in the 24th. Talk to me. Talk to me." Wilson responded, "I think one thing you’re seeing here, Trump’s ...

President Donald Trump has attempted to unilaterally rename Lake Ontario into "Lake America" and the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America." He lacks the legal authority to do either of these things, just as he cannot rename a state on a whim — although he is now attempting to do just that. And even many of his own supporters are turning on him over it. "New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. "We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State! Home Values and Incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American Flag! Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again!" The right-wing website The Daily Caller used Trump's statement to point out the soaring costs of the war in Iran. "BTW, the national average price of diesel hi...