Urgent Friday Afternoon Update: Economic Disaster, War Escalates, and Trump Spirals — 3/6/26

It’s Friday afternoon. We’ve finally made it to the end of the week, and if you’re trying to keep track of everything happening right now, let me do my best to bring you up to speed. The economic news is grim, the war in the Middle East is escalating in ways that is already shaking global economy, and the behavior coming from the White House is beyond erratic.

Let me walk you through the biggest developments I’m tracking right now. Remember to like and re-stack this post to spread the word. Consider subscribing if you haven’t yet to support our work.

We started the morning with devastating economic data.

The U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, wrecking expectations that the country would add tens of thousands of jobs. I’m not sure why the experts expected a better report, to be honest, but here we are. Instead, hiring stalled across much of the economy and unemployment rose to 4.4 percent, one of the highest rates we’ve seen in several years.

The broader trend is even more disturbing. Since April 2025, when Donald Trump declared what he called “Liberation Day” and rolled out sweeping tariffs, the U.S. economy has consistently shed jobs overall. The labor market is weakening, and the uncertainty caused by the tariffs and the widening war is freezing hiring decisions. The only thing Americans got “liberated” from on that day, apparently, was their jobs.

Even industries that had been relatively stable are now losing workers. Health care alone shed 28,000 jobs in February, largely due to strikes but also due to slowing growth across the sector.

Economists are warning that the labor market is clearly softening. And remember, these numbers are from February, before the war with Iran escalated dramatically this week.

Markets reacted immediately.

Stocks opened sharply lower Friday morning as investors absorbed the weak jobs report and rising geopolitical risks.

At the same time, the global energy picture is deteriorating. Fast.

Despite Trump’s false and insane claims yesterday hat oil was already “stabilizing,” Crude oil prices surged above $90 per barrel, the highest level in two years, as the war in the Middle East intensifies. The Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important shipping lanes on the planet, is effectively grinding to a halt.

Traffic through the strait has dropped more than 90 percent, according to maritime tracking reports.

There are also reports of attacks on vessels in the region, including a ship that appears to have been struck by projectiles near Oman and left burning.

To make matters worse, the United States doesn’t even have the financial capacity to support the shipping insurance program Trump announced earlier this week.

Trump ordered the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to provide insurance guarantees to ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. But according to reporting from the Financial Times, the agency is about $200 billion short of the funds required to cover the policies that were promised.

So once again, we’re seeing a familiar pattern: grand announcements without the infrastructure to back them up.

Meanwhile, leaders in the region are sounding increasingly dire warnings.

Qatar’s energy minister said the war could “bring down the economies of the world” and warned that oil prices could surge to $150 per barrel within days if Gulf producers shut down exports.

Even if the conflict ended immediately, some analysts believe energy markets could take months to stabilize.

The geopolitical risks are growing by the hour.

According to three U.S. officials cited by the Washington Post, Russia is now providing Iran with intelligence about the locations of U.S. ships, aircraft, and military assets in the region.

Officials described the effort as comprehensive.

In other words, one of America’s main nuclear-armed adversaries is now actively helping Iran target U.S. forces.

And yet earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth dismissed concerns about outside powers becoming involved, saying Russia and China were “not really a factor here.”

That statement looked detached from reality the second it came out of Hegseth mouth. Now, it looks even more so.

There are also growing reports that China may be preparing to assist Iran with financial support and missile components, according to sources cited by CNN.

The conflict that began as a regional war is now beginning to draw in global powers.

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So how is Donald Trump responding to all of this?

This morning he posted a message demanding “unconditional surrender” from Iran and insisting that the country must choose what he called an “acceptable leader.”

He even pushed his new slogan.

“Make Iran Great Again.”

Yes, seriously.

While the global economy teeters and the war escalates, Trump also spent much of the morning posting eight separate attacks on comedian Bill Maher, sharing articles from mid-February and ranting about them on social media.

That’s what the president of the United States was doing during one of the most volatile geopolitical moments in years.

Trump then spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash and gave the war with Iran a rating of “12 or 15 out of 10.”

He said the military situation was going incredibly well and predicted that Cuba would “fall pretty soon” as well.

When asked about rising gas prices, Trump brushed them off.

“That’s alright,” he said.

Meanwhile, we continue to get more clarity on deeply disturbing information about U.S. strikes on Iran.

U.S. military investigators now admit it is likely that American forces were responsible for a strike on an Iranian girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran.

Iranian authorities say the attack killed more than 150 children.

Investigations are still ongoing, but the possibility that U.S. forces struck a school full of girls is already fueling outrage across the region.

The admission from U.S. officials comes after confirmation from outlets like the BBC and The New York Times yesterday.

I mentioned the economy at the start, but it’s important to note all of this is causing growing stress inside the broader financial system as well.

BlackRock, one of the largest asset managers in the world, has begun limiting withdrawals from a major $26 billion private credit fund after a surge of redemption requests.

Investors asked to withdraw 9.3 percent of shares, but the firm capped withdrawals at 5 percent. This is the first time in history they have done this.

That kind of restriction is rare and signals that investors are rushing to pull money out of certain assets amid rising economic uncertainty.

The news sent BlackRock’s stock tumbling in early trading.

And then there’s another development that emerged late this week.

The Department of Justice released additional FBI interview notes from 2019 involving a woman who accused Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor.

According to the interview summaries, the woman said she encountered Trump and Epstein in the 1980s when she was between 13 and 15 years old.

She alleged that Trump asked others to leave the room and then attempted to force her to perform oral sex. She told investigators she resisted by biting him and was then struck and removed from the room.

The allegations have not been substantiated. However, investigators interviewed the woman four separate times, and a DOJ source told the Miami Herald that agents considered her credible enough to warrant extensive questioning.

Notably, the Justice Department still has at least 37 pages of interview notes that have not yet been released.

So as we close out the week, here’s the reality.

The U.S. economy just lost tens of thousands of jobs. Markets are sliding. Oil prices are surging as the world’s most important energy chokepoint effectively shuts down. Russia is helping Iran target American forces. And the president of the United States is posting about Bill Maher and thinks he can end a war he started via social media post.

This situation is evolving quickly, and I’ll keep tracking every development.

Stay safe, stay informed. And we’ll keep you updated as the news continues to unfold.