The Internet Schools Trump’s Treasury Department on Economics

Social media users are skewering the U.S. Treasury Department for bragging about something eminently non-bragworthy.

On Friday, the Treasury Department’s official X account shared a chart reflecting that, in 2025, “U.S. Treasuries are having their best year since 2020.” Claiming that this indicates high investor confidence in President Donald Trump’s agenda, the post continued, “Never bet against @POTUS or America!”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent chimed in with a celebratory meme of the children’s book character Franklin the Turtle holding a stack of money while wearing a MAGA hat. (The administration also recently used Franklin’s likeness to make light of its reported war crimes in the Caribbean.)

But, as many observers were quick to note, rising bond market returns actually may signal economic uncertainty, as investors anticipating a slowdown or instability seek safety in Treasuries. The high bond returns in 2020, for example, reflected such a “flight to safety” amid the economic turmoil of the pandemic.

Mike Bird, Wall Street editor at The Economist, shared his own Franklin the Turtle meme, in which the character wears a worried expression as he “discovers that rising bond prices can also imply lower future growth expectations”:

The Treasury Department’s post left some observers in disbelief. Adam Kinzinger, political commentator and former Republican U.S. representative, had the following to say: “Wait. Wut? Higher is bad…. Wait…. No way they’re…. Nooooo, what?!?!”

The ridicule spanned the political spectrum. Progressive MS NOW commentator Chris Hayes said he initially thought the tweet was parody. Libertarian Atlantic staff writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote, “Oh my God. They really don’t know.” Tim Chapman of the conservative policy organization Advancing American Freedom said the Treasury Department’s social media team “needs a crash course in Economics 101.”

Never Trump conservative writer Bill Kristol called the post “total economic illiteracy (or gaslighting),” noting, “This is like saying sales of cold medicine are having a great year, aren’t our health policies working great!”

Amanda Fischer, policy director at Better Markets and former chief of staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission, called it a “hall of fame level derp tweet.” And @3YearLetterman, a satirical internet personality known for sharing comically ignorant takes on sports, culture, and politics, posted, “I can’t top this.”

A new, disturbing detail in the “drug boat” controversy that has enveloped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the past week calls the purpose of the entire operation into question.

According to an exclusive report from CNN, the alleged narco-trafficking boat that the U.S. military targeted on September 2 in a “double tap” strike, which killed 11 people, wasn’t even heading to the U.S.

Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who was in charge of the operation, reported to lawmakers that the boat they struck was actually en route to link up with a larger boat that was heading to Suriname, a country east of Venezuela, two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks said.

Bradley also said that it was still possible that the alleged drug shipment could have eventually ended up in the U.S., the sources told CNN—rather dubious justification for a strike that left several people dead.

President Donald Trump had previously claimed that the strike happened “while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.”

The U.S. military targeted the small boat on September 2, purportedly to stop it from transporting illegal drugs to the United States. After the first strike, two survivors were left, clinging to the wreckage, yet the military struck the boat again and again, killing everyone who had been on board. They ultimately struck the boat four times.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who approved the operation, but sought to shift responsibility to Bradley, has come under intense criticism for authorizing a strike on survivors. Lawmakers and critics on the right and the left have decried the strike as a war crime.

It doesn’t help that the Trump administration’s story keeps changing. As more details emerge, the argument for the deadly boat strike becomes flimsier and flimsier.

As the Republican Party flails on the cost-of-living crisis, President Donald Trump kicked off his Saturday morning with an attack on his beloved Fox & Friends for prodding that sensitive subject.

The show on Saturday hosted Peter Schiff, a stockbroker and financial commentator. He’s also a rising critic of Trump—Schiff has taken the president to task for dismissing economic concerns amid mounting inflation, job losses, and affordability issues.

On Truth Social, the president called Schiff a “Trump hating loser” and questioned the integrity of the Fox News program—of which he is, famously, an avid viewer—for having given him a platform. “Either the show made a mistake, or it is heading in a different direction,” Trump wrote, urging its staff to look into “the ‘booker’ who put this jerk on!”

Schiff, Trump wrote, “thinks prices are going up when, in fact, they are coming substantially down.” The claim is a familiar one from the president, who recently referred to “affordability” as a Democratic “hoax,” while recent polls show concerns about his handling of the economy rising to a fever pitch—and even growing among his own voters.

This mounting frustration with the administration, and apparently resultant GOP losses in recent elections, has created anxiety in the party. Some politicians and strategists are calling on Republicans to rethink their approach so as to actually address voters’ material concerns.

The mother of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew was reportedly engaged in a nasty years-long custody battle with the White House press secretary’s brother before she was detained by Immigration and Customs enforcement last month, WBUR reported Friday.

Bruna Ferreira—a 33-year-old Brazilian immigrant who shares a child with Karoline’s brother Michael Leavitt—was arrested last month in Massachusetts. She is currently detained in Louisiana, hundreds of miles away from New Hampshire, where her 11-year-old son lives with his father.

The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Ferreira had overstayed her visa, which ran out in 1999, and claimed she had a prior arrest for battery. Todd Pomerleau, Ferreira’s lawyer, insisted that she had remained in the country legally and was pursuing citizenship through DACA, and that she had no criminal record. (Melrose police produced a report of an incident from when Ferreira was just 16 years old, where she was summoned to court for assault and battery after an officer said they witnessed her whaling on a girl in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot.)

It seems, however, that Ferreira and her ex-husband had a tumultuous relationship in the years leading up to her arrest.

Ferreira and Leavitt had their son in March 2014, just weeks after she finalized her divorce from her first husband. At first, things seemed amicable, but in April 2015, Leavitt filed a child custody complaint in New Hampshire family court and told police that an “illegal alien from Brazil” had run off with his son and his car.

In the ensuing custody case, Leavitt accused Ferreira of taking the child in the middle of the night, and threatening to take their son to Brazil. Ferreira denied this and alleged Leavitt had threatened to contact ICE in an attempt to have her deported. Although the judge granted Leavitt temporary “sole residential and sole decision-making” responsibilities in 2015, the two continued to squabble for a year until they agreed to split parenting time and Leavitt agreed to pay child support.

In 2020, Ferreira asked for full custody and accused Leavitt of failing to make child support payments, claiming he owed her $70,000. Instead the judge ruled that the child would remain with Leavitt during the school week, and with Ferreira just three weekends a month.

During an incident in June 2022, police officers found that Ferreira’s home appeared to be derelict, and filed a report of suspected child abuse or neglect with the Department of Children and Families.

There has been some speculation that Karoline Leavitt, as the head cheerleader of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, was involved in directing immigration authorities to arrest Ferreira, a claim that her brother has previously denied. The two women have reportedly not spoken in years.

Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, Ferreira’s sister, told WBUR that there was no bad blood between their families. She said that she’d spoken to Michael Leavitt and his father, who advised that Ferreira’s best option was to self-deport. Still, Dos Santos was adamant about keeping her sister in the United States, and said she’d reached out to Karoline Leavitt but has yet to hear back.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear arguments over the legality of Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship, the 1868 constitutional detail that entitles any person born on U.S. soil to an American passport.

In doing so, the nation’s highest judiciary has set the stage for a decision, expected by the end of June, that could undermine the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment guarantees citizenship to everyone born or naturalized on U.S. soil.

Trump attempted to end the constitutionally enshrined right mere hours after he was sworn into office in January by signing an executive order stating that children born to immigrants on temporary visas or who are in the country illegally should not be entitled to birthright status. That order was blocked by multiple judges in multiple court circuits over the last year.

In the case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, which stems from qualms in New Hampshire, the Trump administration argues that language included in the amendment—specifically, “subject to the jurisdiction of”—requires applicable children to not only be present in the country at the time of the birth but also to confer their allegiance to the United States. Exactly how newborn babies would be expected to do so, however, is not clear.

“Long after the Clause’s adoption, the mistaken view that birth on U.S. territory confers citizenship on anyone subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law became pervasive, with destructive consequences,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in legal arguments on behalf of the administration.

Sauer added that the intent of Trump’s executive order is to “restore the Clause’s original meaning.”

It’s not the first time this year that the Supreme Court has heard arguments on the topic.

In May, justices on both ideological sides of the court flamed the Trump administration’s efforts to rewrite birthright citizenship through America’s courts, questioning why the government’s attorneys would even bring the case to the judiciary’s doorstep when “every court has ruled against” the administration on birthright citizenship.

At the time, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Sauer into a corner, forcing the solicitor general to admit that the Trump administration doesn’t even know how it would enforce its birthright citizenship order. Sauer managed to appall another Trump appointee—Justice Amy Coney Barrett—by arguing that Trump has the “right” to disregard legal opinions that he doesn’t personally agree with.