Weekend Report: What's happening?

DOJ defies federal judge, leaves man in brutal foreign prison. Immigrants working in U.S. declared dead at Social Security Administration. Consumer confidence plummet breaks records, as economy reels.

The story of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was mistakenly deported by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security thugs in a self-admitted “administrative error” shook the country and the world. It’s a story media is covering and people are paying attention to. And yet, even with all eyes on them, Trump officials are brutally determined not to facilitate the man’s return, defying a judge’s order and a ruling from the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court itself is exacerbating a crisis by issuing vague and tepid rulings that give credence to this dangerous regime.

A senior official was marched out of the Social Security Administration after he stood up to an Elon Musk stooge who went into the agency’s database and changed the status of thousands of immigrants to list them as dead. This illegal action—the weaponization of Social Security, including against people who’ve been here with legal work permits—financially paralyzes the people targeted, possibly causing them to lose jobs, housing, health insurance and other benefits, as well the ability to function in society.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index released yesterday is absolutely stunning, flashing red lights showing an economic downturn. Measuring how people feel about the economy—obviously after a week of jarring stock market plummets because of Trump’s tariffs—it showed people petrified about what is coming. It didn’t just drop to a level far lower than the month before; it dropped to levels not seen during the Covid economic crisis or even the Great Recession, plummeting to the lowest level in decades.