Alden man in Capitol breach becomes first WNY riot defendant sentenced to jail

CNN contributor and New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro warned on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is taking a "double-edged" sword to the economy, as evidenced by the latest job numbers.

The Department of Labor published data on Tuesday that revised the previous quarter's job numbers downward by 900,000, which was the largest downward revision in the agency's history. The revision came about a month after Trump removed the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner because the agency published what he described as unreliable data.

Garcia-Navarro said the data BLS published shows there are "real problems" surfacing in Trump's economy.

"To me, what's most interesting about these numbers is manufacturing," Garcia-Navarro said. "There are some real problems in manufacturing."

Trump has made it a goal of his second administration to re-establish America's manufacturing base. To that end, he has implemented numerous tariffs that seek to protect American manufacturers from foreign competition.

"This whole idea that somehow manufacturing is going to be resurgent, I think, is showing a lot of weakness," Garcia-Navarro said.

The data also adds to the growing skepticism about the state of the U.S. economy. Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. economy is in good health, although some experts like J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon have their doubts.

“I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon told CNBC on Tuesday. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

Garcia-Navarro said part of the economic weakness is being driven by decreased federal spending.

"You're seeing a double-edged sword here, where they are actually limiting the economy in two different ways that are showing," she added. "I think the word recession is a word that we haven't seen in a while, but we might be due for it."

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A top-ranking public health official changed the subject when CNN's Kate Bolduan asked him to comment on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s past statements on vaccines.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary appeared Wednesday morning on "CNN News Central," and Bolduan asked him to comment on new eligibility guidelines for vaccinations that had been reportedly keeping pregnant women from getting Covid shots.

"If this is the case, well, first of all, Kate, we've been very clear that anybody who wants a vaccine can get a vaccine," he said.

"They're not," Bolduan interjected. "They're not. You heard that from members of Congress. You heard that from, you've absolutely heard that from members of Congress when they even spoke to Robert Kennedy Jr. about that. You may want them to be able to get it if they want to, but because of the way the guidance has been rolled out and the way the recommendation has been pulled back, they are not able to either because pharmacists are afraid of liability or insurance is not covering it. It is not, if everybody wants it, they're not able to get it."

Makary once again insisted there were no barriers to patients receiving the shots, and he then tossed out a few red herrings and questioned whether they were safe and effective.

"Well, Kate, first of all, there is absolutely no regulatory barrier preventing somebody from getting it whatsoever," Makary said. "Now you can't get it at every Starbucks, but there is no rule that somebody cannot get it. What we have is a regulatory framework at the FDA that says we have to approve pharmaceutical claims based on the data that they presented to us, and so that's the standard. Now, some say we should just close our eyes and blindfold, blindly stamp, rubber stamp Covid vaccines in perpetuity every year without any updated clinical trial data."

The FDA commissioner then asked whether any healthy pregnant women had died from Covid in the past year and said administration officials were examining whether the vaccines had killed young people, and Bolduan challenged him on Kennedy's past statements on vaccines, in general.

"They do want they do want your leadership, absolutely, commissioner," she said. "FDA approves vaccines, the FDA is is is the gold standard in terms of approving vaccines, just as baseline. Since this is the topic, Secretary Kennedy, before he was secretary, had said that there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. Do you agree with that?"

Makary declined to answer directly but compared vaccines to the prescription medications advertised on television.

"Well, look, with every single medical product, I can just tell you as a physician, what we have to do is evaluate the safety to risk-benefit ratio," he said. "That is, every single product in all of medicine has some side-effect profile, and for some it's rare, and so that's the general framework, and that's what I think he was referring to."

The commissioner then changed the subject to pharmaceutical ads, saying the administration will now require ads to thoroughly list information related to all product risks, which Makary argued would lower drug prices and give consumers more data about medications, and CNN's host John Berman commented on his refusal to answer Bolduan's question.

"It's interesting," Berman said, as the segment ended. "His answer to the question about what Robert Kennedy said about vaccines, no vaccines being safe and effective, his answer was, we're trying to get rid of pharmaceutical ads. Really addressed the question there."

Watch below or click the link.

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MAGA firebrand Laura Loomer escalated her fight with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after the lawmaker discussed a slain conservative activist in a podcast interview on Thursday.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan interviewed Omar on Zeteo News on Thursday. The two condemned Kirk's murder and expressed sympathy for Kirk's widowed family. However, right-wing internet accounts began spinning parts of the interview to make it seem like Omar was happy that Kirk was murdered.

"Right-wing accounts trying to spin a false story when I condemned his murder multiple times is fitting for their agenda to villainize the left to hide from the fact that Donald Trump gins up hate on a daily basis," Omar posted on X.

MAGA influencer Laura Loomer responded to Omar's post, calling her a "terrorist sympathizer" and "the enemy from within."

"Ilhan Omar needs to be removed from Congress," Loomer posted on X. "How much more damage are we going to allow Muslims to cause our country before we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH with these invaders coming into our country and terrorizing Americans with their caveman ideology?"