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The U.S. national debt exceeded the total amount of output from the entire economy as of March 31, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The country’s publicly held debt was $31.265 trillion, while the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total value of goods and services in the economy, was $31.215 trillion. The ratio of GDP to Debt was 100.2%, up from 99.5% in September 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal. The government now spends $1.33 for every dollar it collets in revenue, with budget deficits running consistently at around 6% of GDP. That figure will continue to rise...

SNIP Summary: Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran following a Monday Situation Room meeting, rejecting both a resumption of bombing and acceptance of Iran's current proposal The blockade is aimed at forcing Tehran to dismantle its entire nuclear programme, with Trump demanding at minimum a 20-year suspension of enrichment Iran's three-step proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while deferring nuclear talks was rejected as evidence of bad faith The Strait of Hormuz is seeing its lowest transit levels since the conflict began, driving up energy costs and weighing on Trump's poll numbers ahead...

The U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold, on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II. As of March 31, the country’s publicly held debt was $31.265 trillion, while GDP over the preceding year was $31.216 trillion, according to data released Thursday. That puts the ratio at 100.2%, compared with 99.5% when the last fiscal year ended Sept. 30. That figure will likely climb for the foreseeable future because the federal government is running historically large annual deficits of nearly 6% of GDP, which add to...

The fight against Russia in Ukraine is now firmly Europe’s war. The European Union this week signed off on the equivalent of $105 billion in loans to keep Kyiv afloat through the end of next year—but officials warned that it may not be enough. With Russia determined to continue its four-year invasion until it dominates its neighbor, and President Trump pulling back from Europe and focused on the Middle East, Ukraine finds itself reliant on the traditionally gun-shy EU in its war for survival. The confirmation of the loan ahead of a summit in Cyprus on Thursday, long blocked by...

And it came to pass at that time that a man named Donald came forth from the land of Queens, across the great East River from the city they called the New Jerusalem. Now this Trumpite was a master builder and a skilled storyteller, but he was not at first a man of God. He built vast temples to Mammon, some of which, heavy with debt, collapsed in a heap. He had lain with many women, numbering more than his wives. It was even said that he had kept company with a man from Sodom known as Epstein the Onanite....

Dustin@r0ck3t23·Apr 19Larry Ellison just asked the one question no journalist on Earth can answer.A Wall Street Journal writer told Ellison to his face that Elon Musk doesn’t know what he’s doing.Ellison didn’t argue. Didn’t get emotional. He just asked a question.Ellison: “This guy is landing rockets on robot drone rafts in the ocean, and you’re saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You ever land a rocket?”One question. No recovery.Ellison: “Who are you? Why should I believe you as opposed to my friend Elon?”This is the question the entire media class has been dodging for a decade. Who are you...

As media hype falters and globalists posture, Trump’s campaign to secure the world’s chokepoints reshapes power—and leaves Iran and its allies with little leverage left. Possibly the most amusing fake news item Saturday morning came from The New York Times. Under the rubric “Iran War Live Updates,” a headline screamed, “Iran’s Military Says It Has Reimposed ‘Strict Control’ of Strait of Hormuz.” To which an inquiring mind wants to know, “What Iran military?” It’s gone, Kemo Sabe. The floating bits are at the bottom of the sea. The terrestrial bits have been crushed, blasted, pulverized, or incinerated. Ditto most of...

Iran lost its own mines. Swalwell lost control of an exploding narrative. The WSJ lost the real cause of our health crisis. A terrific judicial appointment should delight MAHA. And more. Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your weekend edition roundup includes: how Iran’s mines are the most convenient excuse since the dog ate the homework — and why Trump is quietly delighted about it; the spectacular self-destruction of Eric Swalwell, who ran his entire campaign on protecting women and now faces four accusers, a surfaced NDA he said never existed, and a Democratic Party that just handed him his hat;...

The Wall Street Journal, quoting Middle Eastern officials, reports that Iran has only cut off its "direct" communications with the US not its talks with ceasefire mediators.While the move has temporarily complicated efforts to make a deal by Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline, it hasn't ended the talks, the report said."Iran intended to send a signal of disapproval and defiance by severing communications," one official was quoted as saying.Iran's state-run Tehran Times later reported that "diplomatic and indirect channels of talks with the US are not closed."The Tehran-based paper had earlier reported that Iran had cut "all diplomatic and backchannel talks"...

Could the Iran war do what even Vladimir Putin couldn’t and blow up the North Atlantic Treaty alliance? That’s no longer an idle question as most of Europe refuses to help the U.S., and President Trump responds by threatening to leave NATO. This would be the dumbest alliance breakup in modern history. The immediate fault here lies with Europe. Spain and Italy are blocking U.S. military flights for Iran from their bases, and Mr. Trump says the Macron government has blocked flights over France. Add its reluctance to help clear the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe is playing into every...

Not satisfied with being commander-in-chief, Donald Trump has become the White House’s very own shoe salesman. The US president has been buying his favourite shoes for his staff so frequently that they have become the unofficial White House uniform. One female White House official told the Wall Street Journal: “All the boys have them. It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.” Mr Trump has fallen in love with Florsheim, a brand that sells some pairs for as little as $49.90 (£37.27) – a far cry from his expensive Brioni suits. The president has been buying the shoes for...

A 6-3 Supreme Court majority on Friday struck down President Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs (Learning Resources v. Trump) in a monumental vindication of the Constitution’s separation of powers. You might call it the real tariff Liberation Day. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Court’s decision for the law and the economy. Had Mr. Trump prevailed, future Presidents could have used emergency powers to bypass Congress and impose border taxes with little constraint. As Chief Justice John Roberts explains in the majority opinion, “Recognizing the taxing power’s unique importance, and having just fought a revolution motivated in large part...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a bigger budget than any other U.S. law enforcement agency at $85 billion. That’s far greater than the budget for the U.S. Marines, yet it’s hard to see any of the same competence and professionalism in ICE operations. Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to slash government waste and inefficiency through a Department of Government Efficiency. Congress should now create a DOGE to rein in wasted taxpayer money, poor management, incompetent behavior and mission creep at ICE....

A funny thing happened this week that you wouldn’t think possible from reading the common narrative of President Trump as a Frankenstein’s monster unchained to do whatever he wants: He backed down from his demands to own Greenland. And he did so after financial markets, European allies and the U.S. Congress raised objections. The “authoritarian” Trump narrative was wrong again. This isn’t to dismiss Mr. Trump’s often wild demands and threats. They have consequences in lost trust among allies and doubts about American reliability. These costs are hard to quantify, but they are real and may show up in a...

If imitation is the sincerest form of politics, President Trump is paying Elizabeth Warren great homage by copying the Senator’s ideas. In November he asked the Justice Department to investigate meat-packers for price-fixing. On Wednesday he endorsed a ban on large institutional investors buying homes. Mr. Trump is searching for ways to lower housing costs and now he’s seizing on a favorite of the anti-business left. “People live in homes, not corporations,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to...

... Mr. Romney’s lead idea is to eliminate the income limit on the Social Security payroll tax. He imagines that a huge 12.4% hike to the marginal rate on an essential cohort of the striving will have a “relatively small impact on economic growth.” Moreover, this whopping increase in social-insurance premiums wouldn’t come with better coverage. Mr. Romney would largely sever the link between Social Security contributions and benefits. We think these changes are poor policy—and we also note that they aren’t taxes on the rich but on salarymen. Mr. Romney dismisses the doomed-from-the-get-go DOGE effort to end the deficit...

Claudio Neves Valente, the suspect in the Brown and MIT shootings, had flashes of temper; former classmates describe him as confrontational and socially awkward Twenty-five years ago, two promising physicists graduated from a prestigious science university in Lisbon. On Monday, one gunned the other down at his home outside Boston after firing on a classroom of Brown University undergrads, authorities say. Claudio Neves Valente, the suspected shooter, once had a bright future. He graduated at the top of his college class, ahead of classmate Nuno Loureiro. But by the time Neves Valente confronted Loureiro at his Brookline, Mass., apartment building...

The New North Carolina plant is aimed at selling more hybrid cars and trucks to AmericansLIBERTY, N.C.—Toyota, a longtime hybrid car and truck promoter, is making one of the industry’s biggest bets on green transportation and opening a $14 billion battery plant here. For years, Toyota held out against electric vehicles while rivals retrofitted factories and launched models in preparation for an all-electric future. Now that the EV market in the U.S. is vanishing as tax credits expire and sales disappoint, Toyota is doubling down on its hybrid strategy. The Japanese automaker’s gamble: that American consumers—many of whom won’t touch...

An indecipherable email about my mother-in-law’s checkup has me reaching for the pitchfork.‘How do you come up with things to write about?” a young George Will once asked William F. Buckley Jr. That’s easy, said the National Review founder, “the world irritates me three times a week.” Most people seek to avoid the feeling of irritation. But for newspaper guys, irritation equals inspiration. Let me tell you an irritating little story that I think you will find relatable. It’s about my mother-in-law. She’s 86 and has been ill for a while. For the past few years she’s lived in a...

If only the peasants would just surrender! When I saw this headline in the opinion pages of the WSJ, I had high hopes that some scientist pointed out that politicians and bureaucrats can’t control the climate: We Can’t Stop Climate Change, So We Need to Prepare for ItSadly, I was wrong. The article was a pure piece of garbage, essentially claiming that despite the work of green pushers to scare everyone into capitulation to the radical green agenda, people just won’t cooperate. The writers complain that, “Around the world, people are giving priority to higher living standards, economics, and access...