UPDATE - Trump demands ‘unconditional surrender’, jobs report and Beirut
episodePreviously titled “Noem out, Trump interview and Kurdish forces” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmins in Dublin. And I'm Sharon Reich-Garson in New Jersey. Today... The U.S. economy loses 92,000 jobs in February. President Donald Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Trump demands Iran's unconditional surrender.
What recent job losses occurred in the U.S. economy?
And China rolls out its new five-year plan at the National People's Congress. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The U.S. economy unexpectedly lost jobs in February and the unemployment rate increased to 4.4 percent, possibly hinting at a cooling labor market. Economics editor Dan Burns is here to break down the latest jobs report.
Why did Trump fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem?
So it was a real surprise. The 92,000 jobs lost last month was, frankly, larger than even the most pessimistic estimate in the Reuters poll of economists going into the number, the most pessimistic. The most downbeat estimate was about 9,000 among 72 economists. And the expectation on balance was for nearly 60,000 new jobs to have been created. So to have missed by that margin was really quite large and very unexpected. Dan says that despite some factors like labor strikes and severe weather, the report calls into question the overall strength of the job market over the last year. And if you go back to April of last year when Trump famously had his Liberation Day tariffs announcements, there's been no job creation at all in the economy in that time.
In fact, 19,000 jobs have been lost. Now, some of that is because of deliberate policy choices by Trump to target government employment. But if you look at just private sector employment for all of 2025 now, it was just under 300,000 for the year. And that was the weakest year for private sector employment outside of the pandemic since 2009. These bleak numbers could put the Federal Reserve in a difficult spot as oil prices rise. But in an exclusive interview with Reuters, Trump brushed off concerns about spiking gas prices. If they rise, they rise, he said. And they're certainly doing that, heading for their largest weekly gain since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Trump is now calling for Iran's unconditional surrender.
It's a dramatic escalation and comes just hours after Iran's president, Massoud Pazeshkin, said several countries have begun mediation efforts. The U.S. president writing on social media that, quote, there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. And he says the U.S. must have a say in choosing Iran's next leader. He made those comments just before Israel began pounding Beirut. Strikes have been carried out on more than 500 targets shortly after Israel ordered residents to leave the southern suburbs. An attack in the Dahiya suburb focused on a command center that's used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy unit, while others targeted command centers used by Hezbollah. Around 300,000 people have been displaced in the past four days in Lebanon, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
There was no let-up in Tehran's night skies either, the Israeli military saying it had started a broad-scale wave of strikes against the Iranian regime's infrastructure in the early hours of this morning. Meanwhile, Iran launched an overnight drone attack on the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, the biggest US base in the Middle East. Missiles continued to rain down on Tel Aviv and Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted airbases in Israel, Kuwait and Erbil, Iraq. In that exclusive interview, Trump said he doesn't think Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's son will succeed him as the Islamic Republic's new supreme leader. And he refused to rule out the son of the former Shah taking over. White House reporter Steve Holland spoke to Trump over the phone on Thursday.
The president said he wants to have a role in selecting the next leader of Iran. And this is very similar to what happened in Venezuela. Trump picked or was involved in the selection of Delce Rodriguez as the acting leader of Venezuela now. He's been able to get along well with her.
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