President Donald Trump touted the “historic” rescue of the downed F-15E airmen behind enemy lines and issued a warning to Iran to make a deal before Tuesday night’s 8 p.m. ET deadline or face being “taken out.”
“This is a rescue that’s very historic,” Trump told the White House press corps in a Monday news conference. “It’ll go down to the books.”
“Late Thursday night, an American F-15 fighter jet went down deep inside enemy territory in Iran while participating in Operation Epic Fury, where we’re doing unbelievably well. Well, at a level that nobody’s ever seen before.”
Trump quickly paused his hailing of the rescue to add a warning for Iran to come to peace.
TRUMP REVEALS IRAN MADE ‘SIGNIFICANT PROPOSAL’ AFTER ULTIMATUM, BUT ‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.
Trump continued to press Iran to come to a peace deal, hours after saying the offers thus far are “not enough,” and War Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed the heaviest bombing of Iran to date.
TRUMP SAYS IRAN ‘NO LONGER A THREAT’ AFTER 32 DAYS — OUTLINES NEXT PHASE OF US WAR
“By the way, per the president’s direction, [Monday] will be the largest volume of strikes since day one of this operation,” Hegseth vowed, taking the mic just before Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan “Raizin’” Caine.
“Tomorrow, even more than today. And then Iran has a choice,” Hegseth added. “Choose wisely, because this president does not play around. You can ask Soleimani, you can ask Maduro. You can ask Khamenei.”
Trump, responding to a question from Fox News, noted there were military leaders warning against the dangerous exfiltration of the two airmen, citing the risks to a multitude of troops.
“There were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it: These two were totally on board, which was very important,” Trump said, noting Hegseth and Gen. Caine.
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“But, no, there were military people that said, ‘You just don’t do this; you don’t go into the heart of a very powerful military.”
Trump noted that “half the people are wearing uniforms” in Iran, exacerbating the challenges of extracting the American airmen.
“I was surprised somebody said it’s the only time it’s ever been done,” Trump continued. “I said, that’s not possible, but it is possible because you’re going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters, how they got hit.”
Trump, in a moment that went from serious to lighter, asked Caine “how many” people conducted the rescue.
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“I’d love to keep that a secret,” Caine shot back.
“I’ll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people,” Trump said.
“Hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares of it. Hundreds of people could have been killed,” Trump added.
“So we had people that were within the military that said, ‘This is not a wise move,’” Trump said.
A Democratic candidate in a crucial Senate battleground showdown is taking plenty of incoming fire from his primary rivals as well as the Republican contender in the race as he prepares to team up on Tuesday with a controversial far-left online streamer.
Abdul El-Sayed, the 2018 Michigan Democratic gubernatorial runner-up who is backed by progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as he seeks his party’s 2026 Senate nomination, is scheduled to hold campus rallies at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University with Hasan Piker, as well as with progressive Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania.
Piker, a potent progressive influencer, could help boost El-Sayed in a competitive and combustible Democratic Senate nomination race thanks to his millions of younger, progressive social media followers on YouTube, Instagram and X.
But the appearance at the campus rallies by Piker — who once said “America deserved 9/11,” and who critics argue is antisemitic due to his sharp criticism of the Israeli government and the downplaying of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel — is alarming to many Democrats.
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El-Sayed’s top two rivals for the nomination have blasted his scheduled appearance with Piker, which was announced less than two weeks after a man rammed his truck into a Michigan synagogue, wounding a guard in what authorities said was a targeted act of domestic terrorism against the Jewish community.
“It is unacceptable for a candidate wanting to represent all Michiganders to campaign with Hasan Piker, a person who is unapologetic about a career of making hurtful and anti-Semitic comments,” Rep. Haley Stevens said in a statement. “With all that’s at stake in this election, we should be focused on the challenges Michiganders are facing and how to fight for them.”
And State Senator Mallory McMorrow, in an interview with the Jewish Insider, called Piker “somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks.”
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“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” McMorrow added. “You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.”
El-Sayed, Stevens and McMorrow will face off in an early August primary.
It’s not just El Sayed’s Democratic nomination rivals who are criticizing his decision to team up with Piker.
Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and the Anti-Defamation League have charged Piker is antisemitic and Matt Bennett, a leader of the well-known moderate Democratic group the Third Way, slammed El-Sayed as a “disgrace to the Democratic Party.”
Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who’s on a glidepath to the GOP Senate nomination in Michigan for a second straight cycle, told Fox News Digital in a statement, “If you would have told me a few years ago that Democrat frontrunners would campaign with known antisemites, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But one thing Abdul continues to prove, there’s no limit to how far left Democrats will go.”
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“From calling to defund the police and make Michigan a sanctuary state, to attempting to abolish private healthcare, and now campaigning with an antisemite who claimed ‘America deserved 9/11,’ one thing that’s for certain: Abdul and the Democrats are too radical for Michigan,” Rogers argued.
In the wake of the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack that incited Israel’s war with Gaza, Piker described Hamas, a terrorist organization, as the “lesser of two evils” in the conflict.
Once, when asked if he supported terrorism, Piker answered by saying, “No, I don’t. I don’t support the state of Israel, and I don’t support the state of the United States of America.”
He also faced backlash for praising the “brave” “mujahideen” who injured Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who lost an eye in Afghanistan.
“What the f— is wrong with this dude? Didn’t he go to war and like literally lose his eye because some mujahideen — a brave f—ing soldier—f—ed his eye hole with their d—?” Piker said.
El-Sayed has repeatedly stood his ground in defending his appearances with Piker. The candidate noted that Piker was allowed by Democrats to stream at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“It’s about speaking to a broader audience,” El-Sayed said last week in an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
El-Sayed emphasized that “just because you invite somebody to campaign with you, or you’re engaging with them does not mean that you agree with them…. Every day, 30,000 people and counting tune in to Hassan’s stream. A lot of folks who don’t watch Fox News, they don’t watch CNN, they don’t watch MSNBC.”
The Senate race in Michigan is one of a handful in this year’s midterm elections that will determine if the Republicans hold their 53-47 majority in the chamber. Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, is one of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) top targets as they try to not only hold onto their seats, but also possibly expand their majority.
ROME, GA — Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller says that Tuesday’s special election runoff in Georgia is “extremely crucial.”
Fuller is facing off against Democrat Shawn Harris in the race to fill the seat in Georgia’s solidly red 14th Congressional District — in the northwest part of the state — left vacant when MAGA firebrand Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a bitter falling out with President Donald Trump.
The special election, held on the same day as a state Supreme Court contest in battleground Wisconsin, comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. The GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow the Democrats to pull an upset in the special election, in a district Trump carried by a whopping 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.
“We need the reinforcements,” Fuller, a local district attorney and a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard who’s served in the Air Force since 2009, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff election, as he pointed to the GOP’s fragile majority. “I think the voters in Georgia 14 understand that, and they’re looking forward to sending a MAGA America first fighter up on Capitol Hill to support that agenda.”
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Asked if he was concerned that MAGA supporters would sit out what may be a low turnout election since the president is not on the ballot, Fuller said voters “would crawl through glass to make sure they have a representative up there that fight for them and fight for President Trump, and that’s why we’re going to have the votes pouring out on April 7.”
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Harris, a cattle farmer who spent four decades in the military and retired as an Army brigadier general, needs the support of crossover Republicans in order to pull off an upset.
“I am a Democrat, but I’m not tied to the party,” Harris highlighted as he spoke with Fox News Digital. And Harris argued, “My opponent, Clay, cannot say that. He actually sold his soul to President Trump.”
Harris, pointing to surging gas prices fueled by Trump’s military attack on Iran, said when voters “go to the polls, they will have to stop at the pump, and that’ll be the last thing they think about before they go and vote. And they’re going to say, ‘You know what, Shawn Harris is the only one that’s talking about bringing down costs, Shawn Harris is the only one saying, ‘I’m going to stand up for the people here in Northwest Georgia, period.’”
“We will win this war militarily. However, if we don’t watch it and be clear with the American people, based on these gas prices and diesel prices, we could actually lose this war politically.”
Harris said he “will support President Trump on things like the…southern border.” But he added “when it comes to things like…a forever war. Send me. I will push back.”
Fuller said that “the voters in Georgia-14 support the president in this endeavor. They understand that the Iranian regime was a long term threat to our national security…they understand that President Trump is making the world safer, and they understand that there may be short term pain at the gas pump, and they’ll expect those prices to drop as soon as this conflict is over.”
Harris grabbed 37% of the vote, with Fuller at 35% amid a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the first round of voting in early March. Since no candidate topped 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to Tuesday’s runoff.
The congressional seat — which stretches from Atlanta’s outer suburbs to the state’s northwest borders with Alabama and Tennessee — was left vacant when Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
While Greene remains popular among Republicans in the district, Fuller said the voters he’s talked with on the campaign trail “are focused on the fights of the future, not anything that had happened in the past.”
Asked if he’s talked with Greene, Fuller said he “reached out to Rep. Greene, had conversations with her and got advice on the district, and I’ll keep those conversations confidential.”
Harris, who as a first-time candidate lost to Greene by nearly 29 points in her 2024 re-election, emphasized that “I’m not running against Marjorie Taylor Greene anymore,” and that his name “carries more weight than any other name in this district.”
If Harris loses but holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in nearly 15 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they overperformed.
HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
The ballot box brawl in Northwest Georgia isn’t the only electoral showdown on Tuesday. There’s also a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin.
While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin have become extremely partisan in recent years.
With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contest, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.
Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.
With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although if state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former democratic state representative, wins, liberals would expand their majority on the high court to 5-2.
If Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, a conservative, wins or keeps the margins close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.
The White House tore into Democrat activist and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Monday after she argued President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to rein in mail-in voting was “patently illegal.”
“Has Stacey Abrams conceded the multiple elections she lost yet or is she still pretending to be Governor?” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital. “Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump, and the American people sent him back to the White House because they overwhelmingly supported his commonsense election integrity agenda.”
The comment was in response to Abrams, who said during an appearance on MS NOW over the weekend that Trump’s order would disenfranchise voters, resurfacing long-held tensions with the president amid his latest push to enhance voter security ahead of the midterms. Abrams previously ran for Georgia governor twice and refused to formally concede her 2018 election.
“It is patently illegal, and it is entirely in the playbook of voter suppression that Republicans, including Donald Trump, have been using for the last decade or so,” Abrams said.
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Trump’s order, called “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” directed the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration, in coordination with state leaders, to create a list of citizens, and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver mail-in ballots to people on the list.
“The president will do everything in his power to defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them – that’s only controversial for Democrats like Stacey,” Jackson added.
Abrams founded Fair Fight Action after her 2018 loss to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, saying Georgia’s election system suppressed voters. The group was later ordered to reimburse the state more than $200,000 in legal costs after an unsuccessful lawsuit.
Separately, Abrams-linked advocacy groups have faced campaign-finance and nonprofit-compliance scrutiny, including a Georgia Ethics Commission case involving the New Georgia Project and a 2025 IRS complaint targeting Fair Fight Action.
Abrams has since criticized Republican-led voting initiatives at the federal and state level as relics of the Jim Crow era and designed to disenfranchise racial minorities.
“The Constitution gives to the states the authority to determine how elections are held,” Abrams said. “What the Republican regime is upset about is that democracy has been working.”
Trump criticized Abrams as far back as 2018 over her stance on voting, accusing her of wanting “illegal aliens to vote.” Abrams “opposed requiring proof of American citizenship at the ballot box,” Trump said at the time.
Trump has long argued that noncitizen voting, which is illegal, is a widespread problem in U.S. elections. In addition to his executive order, Trump has urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act before the 2026 elections to impose a physical identification requirement on people registering to vote, though it lacks the needed support from Democratic senators to advance in the upper chamber.
While the White House has framed Trump’s executive order as an effort to bolster election integrity, Abrams and other critics argued it intruded on state authority and would unfairly suppress votes.
“The biggest risk for Americans right now is that we see these as piecemeal, and we don’t recognize it’s part of a pattern,” Abrams said. “This is step 10 in an authoritarian playbook. You end democracy.”
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Abrams also alleged that the executive order would serve to create a master list of voters, effectively usurping state control over voter registration lists and federalizing elections.
“The creation of a database … should terrify all of us,” Abrams said. “That is an attempt to do national surveillance.”
In addition to Abrams’ criticisms, roughly two dozen states and voting rights groups filed lawsuits seeking to block the executive order, arguing Trump’s directives violated the Constitution by encroaching on states’ authority to administer elections.
Fox News Digital reached out to an Abrams representative for comment.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called President Donald Trump an “unhinged lunatic” in a Monday post on X, advocating for him to be ousted from office.
“This is not ok. Invoke the 25th amendment. Impeach. Remove. This unhinged lunatic must be removed from office,” she asserted.
The left-wing lawmaker made the comments while sharing a screenshot of the president’s controversial Easter Sunday Truth Social post threatening attacks against Iranian power plants and bridges.
TRUMP WARNS IRAN HE MAY STRIKE ‘EVERY POWER PLANT’ AS DEADLINE TO REOPEN HORMUZ NEARS
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump wrote in the post, referring to the Strait of Hormuz.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., warned in a Monday post on X, “Threatening to target power plants and other non-military targets is not strength. If those words become orders to destroy civilian infrastructure with no valid military purpose, it’s hard to see how they would not violate the laws of armed conflict. America leads best with strength, discipline, and professionalism. Illegal orders to make civilians suffer would be a black mark on our military and our country.”
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Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., declared in a Sunday post on X, “President Trump’s profanity-laden Easter threat to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure—power plants and bridges—are the words of a frustrated and immoral madman. Many experts agree that such attacks would be war crimes under international law. To our military leaders, remember this: You are legally required to refuse orders to commit war crimes.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., characterized Trump’s comments as “the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual,” asserting in a Sunday post on X, “Congress has got to act NOW. End this war.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment early Tuesday morning.
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During remarks on Monday, Trump indicated the U.S. has “a plan … where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock.”
Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signaled his political career may not be over, telling Sean Hannity he still has “more to give” just under three months after leaving office.
“I have more to give. I just do. The one year of campaigning and the four years of running, so five years, went by in five seconds. It was amazing,” Youngkin said on the “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” podcast.
In the full episode, debuting Tuesday, Youngkin sat down with the Fox News host to discuss his time in office, as well as what things have been like since his term expired in January.
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“Every morning [when I was governor], I woke up literally bounding out of bed, ready to roll, and that was the most purposeful I’ve ever felt in my whole life.“
Youngkin oversaw a range of conservative measures passed in the state, including a push to ensure age-appropriate curriculum in public schools.
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He also pushed for tax cuts, including efforts to reduce the state’s grocery tax, rolled back COVID-19 restrictions early in his tenure and emphasized tougher public safety policies.
His time in office concluded earlier this year, when Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration succeeded his.
“I’ve been out of office for six weeks. I took [my wife] Suzanne on vacation, which she so deserved. She’s been amazing. I think she’s one of the best first ladies in America,” he said.
“But six weeks has felt like six years… You’re chomping at the bit.”
While Youngkin stopped short of outlining specific plans for the future, his comments suggest he is keeping the door open to a return to public office.
Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
Oil prices surged Thursday, threatening to further drive up the price of gas as hopes for a near-term resolution to the Iran war faded following President Donald Trump’s address to the nation.
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Stocks were volatile, with major indexes plunging early in the day before moving higher at the close on shifting headlines about the war in the Middle East.
U.S. indexes recovered their early losses on news that Iran’s deputy foreign minister said his country would outline a “new navigation regime” in the Strait of Hormuz after the war ended, injecting fresh optimism into markets over the future of the key waterway.
At the closing bell at 4 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 closed up 0.11%, the Nasdaq Composite ended higher by 0.18%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 61 points. The Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller companies, rose 0.7%.
Fourth-generation Iowa farmer Mark Mueller is no stranger to the ups and downs of the agriculture industry. But right now, he thinks America is on the cusp of a farm crisis.
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“I am more concerned now than I have been in my 30 years of farming,” Mueller told NBC News.
Even before the Iran war, Mueller said, many farmers felt they were being squeezed. Consolidation in the fertilizer industry and increased competition from abroad have resulted in higher prices for fertilizer and feed — and smaller returns on Mueller’s corn and soybean crops.
Many farmers who couldn’t pay their bills in recent years went under. In 2025, the number of Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies reached 315, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That was up 46% from the previous year.
Now, the Iran war is putting even more pressure on farmers.
Before the war, roughly a third of the world’s fertilizer ingredients and a fifth of its oil supplies passed every day through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast. But since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the strait has been effectively closed by Tehran, leaving scores of tankers stranded.
The strait’s closure has driven up global prices for fertilizer and for the diesel fuel that powers most of America’s heavy agricultural equipment.
The double whammy is hitting farmers just as they head into the spring planting season.
“This is that perfect storm where everything comes together and hammers the farmer,” said Mueller, who also serves as the president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association.
Mueller said his fertilizer supplier was selling a nitrogen fertilizer he needs for $795 per ton on Feb. 22, a few days before the war started. At the end of March, it was $990, Mueller said, a nearly $200 jump in just a few weeks.
Meanwhile, the price he’s paying for diesel has jumped, too. Diesel is now averaging $5.51 nationwide, up from $3.76 right before the war, according to AAA.
Mueller said he got most of the fertilizer he needs for spring before the war — but had to buy some at the higher prices. He’s holding off on purchasing the additional fertilizer he needs for summer, hoping prices will come down.
Mark Mueller, a farmer and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, thinks America is on the cusp of a farm crisis.Courtesy of Iowa Corn
President Donald Trump’s tariffs have also added to the cost of goods that farmers import from overseas — and frustrated many of the foreign buyers of America’s agricultural products.
“Our government made our life more difficult by walking away from trade deals or instituting tariffs or just basically making our customers angry — our customers being other nations and companies in other nations,” said Mueller.
Lance Lillibridge, a corn and cattle farmer from Vinton, Iowa, told NBC News he plans to use less fertilizer this year.
“I’m probably going to see a reduction in yield,” said Lillibridge. “If there’s not the supply out there, then the price is going to go up.”
If the war continues, the higher prices could ripple through the supply chain and ultimately result in higher prices at the supermarket.
“We’re talking about all the crops and all the food products that we consume on a daily basis,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
“Anything that is grown and that requires fertilizers, which is most of everything that we consume, is potentially affected by this rise in fertilizer prices,” said Daco. “And as a result, we may see these prices rise rapidly across grocery stores in the U.S.”
Take corn, for example. If corn prices spike, then feeding cattle becomes more expensive for many farmers. Plus cattle farmers are also dealing with the higher fuel prices. The cost of beef has already hit record highs — in part from shrinking cattle herds and drought — and it could surge even more.
“I worry about how much more consumers will continue to pay for beef,” said Will Harris, a fourth-generation cattle farmer in Bluffton, Georgia. “I think that I can produce it as cheap as anybody else, but I don’t know where consumers draw their lines.”
It may take a while for price increases on the farm to show up at the grocery store. Farmers are just planting their spring crops now, and it could take months for them to be harvested and sent off to distribution centers and eventually grocery stores.
But consumers may see higher prices sooner rather than later, because of higher transport costs with pricier diesel.
“If you’re feeling these costs now, it’s only going to continue to increase as the supply chain fills with higher-cost goods,” said Lillibridge.
“Corn is used in over 4,000 products,” he added. “It’s not just food — it’s industrial products, like your paper that you would put in your printer has cornstarch in it, plastics, just tons of things have industrial uses from corn.”
Economists say the longer the war stretches on, the larger the effects could be.
Newly harvested corn in Inwood, Iowa. Consumers may see higher prices sooner rather than later because of higher transport costs with pricier diesel. Jim West / UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty images file
“Right now, our farmers can get the product — it’s just really expensive,” said Faith Parum, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, an advocacy group for farmers and ranchers. “We’re slowly starting to hear the longer this goes on, we’re also going to have issues with even the availability of the fertilizer.”
That could further strain farmers.
“We’re going on to year four of losses across the farm economy,” said Parum. “It’s going to become harder and harder for them to put a crop in the ground.”
Before the war, the Agriculture Department estimated that farm sector debt could reach a record $624.7 billion in 2026.
Farmers have received some financial assistance from the federal government over the years. In December, the Trump administration announced a new tranche of $12 billion in aid to farmers.
At a White House event for farmers in March, Trump said that he would push for more aid and urged Congress to pass a new farm bill.
Trump also pledged to ask Congress to permit year-round sales of E15, an unleaded fuel blended with 15% ethanol that the American Farm Bureau Federation says could save consumers money at the gas pump and create markets for American-grown crops.
Farmers listen as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on Friday. During the event, Trump urged Congress to pass a new farm bill. Alex Wong / Getty Images
Mueller was among the farmers last month at the White House, where he listened to Trump.
“I guess I would liken it to empty calories,” he said of the president’s remarks. “It was like a pep rally with very little being said.”
Mueller fears that the mounting pressures on farmers, exacerbated by the war, could lead some to hang up their hats for good.
“I really do see fewer farmers when it’s all done,” he said. “In the end, the consumer will still have fewer choices, probably have a little higher prices, and farmers will have less margin than they did before.”
The United States added 178,000 jobs in March, blowing past expectations and showing a resilient labor market just as the war with Iran began escalating, sending up oil prices.
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The unemployment rate fell to 4.3% last month, down from 4.4%. The gains were concentrated in health care, construction, transportation and warehousing.
Despite the outsized headline figure, there were further indications that the job market remains wobbly. Wage growth declined to 3.5% in March from 3.8% in February, falling short of forecasts.
Jobs report estimates from January and February were also revised, upward and downward respectively. Combined, they show that U.S. payrolls fell by a net 7,000 over those two months.
The labor force participation rate, or the share of the overall population either employed or looking for work, fell to its lowest level since November of 2021.
“While this month’s jobs report delivered an upside surprise, we continue to believe that risks to the labor market remain elevated and higher oil prices from the Iran conflict could prove an additional impediment in the months ahead,” Scott Helfstein, head of investment strategy at Global X financial group, said in a note to clients.
Surveys conducted by the BLS for this report were completed by March 12. At the time, the full brunt of the war had yet to hit the job market.
Three weeks later, gasoline prices have surged to more than $4 a gallon, a level that, if it is sustained, would sap U.S. consumers of hundreds of dollars in annual discretionary income.
On Wednesday, the Atlanta Federal Reserve lowered its real-time gross domestic product estimate to 1.9%, down from more than 3% just before the start of the war.
On Tuesday, the BLS reported the hiring rate in February fell to just 3.1% of the U.S. workforce, a level last recorded in April 2020, as the Covid pandemic bore down.
Job openings also fell in February, though they appear to be stabilizing overall. The rate of layoffs also remains at an all-time low.
Meanwhile, many Americans’ views of the economy and Trump’s handling of it continue to sink to new depths.
A CNN poll out this week found that just 31% of respondents approved of how Trump is managing U.S. economic performance, with just 27% saying they approved of his handling of inflation, down from 44% a year ago. His overall approval rating appears to have stabilized at about 35%.
A construction worker at a new building in Pasadena, Calif.Mario Tama / Getty Images file
A debate is now underway about how many jobs the U.S. would need to add each month to keep the unemployment rate — 4.3% as of Friday — stable.
Over the past year, a massive drop in overall immigration to the U.S., coupled with a growing number of baby boomers leaving the workforce, mean fewer overall jobs need to be created for the economy to absorb newcomers to the labor force and keep the overall unemployment rate steady, according to economists with the Dallas Federal Reserve.
That overall number of new jobs needed is known as the “breakeven” employment rate. The economists wrote in a note published this week that the breakeven employment rate now may be close to zero.
If the overall workforce continues to shrink, even fewer new jobs will be needed to incorporate workers entering the labor force, such as recent college graduates or parents who put their careers on hold for a few years.
That won’t necessarily make looking for a job any easier. The median spell of unemployment is now about 2½ months, with the average much longer — about six months. About 25% of all unemployed workers are out of work for at least 27 weeks.
Savannah Guthrie returned to the “TODAY” anchor desk Monday, more than two months after her mother disappeared.
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“We are so glad you started your week with us, and it is good to be home,” Guthrie said at the start of the show. She wore a bright yellow dress, echoing the yellow ribbons and flowers left at her mother’s home.
“TODAY” co-anchor Craig Melvin, wearing a yellow tie, patted Guthrie’s hand and replied: “Yes, it is good to have you at home.”
The two anchors then turned to the morning’s top headlines, including an opening segment about the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. “Well, here we go, ready or not,” Guthrie said. “Let’s do the news.”
Savannah Guthrie on Monday’s “TODAY.”TODAY
Guthrie, who has co-anchored “TODAY” since 2012, stepped away from her role in early February after Nancy Guthrie, 84, went missing from her home near Tucson, Arizona. Authorities have described the case as a possible kidnapping or abduction.
Guthrie told Hoda Kotb last month that she believed returning to the “TODAY” anchor desk is “part of my purpose right now,” even though it was difficult to imagine going back to a workplace she associates with “joy and lightness.”
“I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family,” Guthrie said in the interview, her first since the start of the ordeal. “I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I’ll belong anymore, but I would like to try.”
Savannah Guthrie greets fans Monday in Rockefeller Plaza.TODAY
In the second hour of Monday’s show, Guthrie greeted “TODAY” fans gathered outside on Rockefeller Plaza, some wearing yellow pins and holding signs with her mother’s photo. Guthrie fought back tears as she held co-host Jenna Bush Hager’s hand and thanked her supporters for their prayers and letters.
“You guys have been so beautiful,” she said. “I’ve received so many letters, so much kindness to me and my whole family. We feel it. We feel your prayers.”
Savannah Guthrie walks with Jenna Bush Hager outside the “TODAY” studios.TODAY
Nancy Guthrie’s family reported her missing around noon Feb. 1 after she did not show up at a friend’s house for virtual church services, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office. She was last seen the previous night around 9:45 p.m. after having dinner at her daughter Annie Guthrie’s home, according to authorities.
The investigation into her disappearance gripped the nation and put an intense spotlight on the quiet Catalina Foothills area of Tucson. Authorities have not identified a suspect or motive, though the FBI released chilling doorbell camera video of an armed and masked man outside Nancy Guthrie’s home on the morning she was reported missing.
The bureau described him as a man of average build, 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, wearing a black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack 25-liter backpack.
Guthrie and her siblings, Camron Guthrie and Annie Guthrie, have provided updates on the case via social media. In emotionally wrenching videos on Instagram, they have thanked members of the public for their prayers and made direct appeals to Nancy Guthrie’s possible abductor.
“Someone knows how to find our mom and bring her home,” Guthrie wrote in the caption to a Feb. 24 video post.
The family is offering up to $1 million for information that leads to the 84-year-old’s recovery. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for “information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.”
Kotb, a “TODAY” contributor, substituted for Guthrie. In that period, Guthrie withdrew from NBC’s coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics; Mary Carillo stepped in to co-host the opening ceremony alongside NBC Sports’ Terry Gannon.
Guthrie visited the “TODAY” set March 5. In photos taken from outside the studio by a photographer for The Associated Press, Guthrie could be seen wiping tears and embracing her colleagues. The visit was not televised.
Savannah Guthrie hugs Al Roker during a visit to “TODAY” on March 5.Charles Sykes / Invision / AP
“I really wanted to come and see everybody. I just love this beautiful place that we call home, where we get to come and be every day,” Guthrie told Kotb, adding: “When times are hard, you want to be with your family.”
