On the campaign trail last fall, President Donald Trump promised a “new era of soaring income, skyrocketing wealth, millions and millions of new jobs, and a booming middle class. We are going to boom like we’ve never boomed before.” On Fox News this weekend, he promised a “period of transition.” He added: “It takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great.” When the host asked, “Are you expecting a recession this year?” he didn’t say no.

The White House has traded a message of prosperity now for a message of prosperity soon, forecasting that the budget cuts and tariffs the Trump administration is implementing will redound to the country’s welfare in the near future: Businesses will bring their overseas operations back to America; a leaner government will leave more income for American firms and households. But economists doubt that the Trump administration’s policy changes will promote growth. And Trump’s message isn’t inspiring confidence among businesses and consumers. That alone might be enough to pitch the country into a downturn.

Already, Trump’s policies are slowing down the economy. The administration has kicked off a global trade war. It announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, spurring the Canadian government to retaliate with its own tariffs, which then spurred Washington to retaliate for the retaliation; abruptly reversed some of the levies; increased tariffs on China, causing China to impose tit-for-tat measures; added tariffs to aluminum and steel products; proposed “reciprocal” tariffs on countries with taxes on American goods; and floated the idea of putting export tariffs on American agricultural products.

The tariffs are slowing trade and increasing costs for American consumers. Companies including Best Buy, Target, and Walmart have warned that they will have to bump up prices as import costs rise. Moreover, the unpredictability around the implementation of the tariffs has led to chaos in the markets. An index of policy-related uncertainty hit its highest-recorded level, aside from the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses are less sure of the country’s prospects now than they were after 9/11 or during the housing-market collapse in 2007. Manufacturing firms are pulling back on investment; companies are slowing down mergers and acquisitions; firms are downgrading their earnings estimates. The stock market has lost $4 trillion in value, as traders dump equities for safer investments.

Asked to clarify the White House’s trade policies this weekend, Trump responded: “We may go up with some tariffs. It depends. We may go up. I don’t think we’ll go down, or we may go up.” Businesses should stop whining about needing policy certainty, he said: “They always say that we want clarity,” but they “have plenty of clarity.” The real issue, he argued, was that “our country has been ripped off for many decades, for many, many decades, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore.”

Beyond new taxes on businesses and consumers, the Trump administration is rescinding federal contracts and firing tens of thousands of federal workers, in many cases illegally. These cuts have not yet shown up in the jobs report, but economists expect them to, starting next month. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm, estimates that the government has let more than 60,000 workers go—enough to wipe out nearly half of the employment gains the economy notched last month—and notes that private businesses are amping up layoffs as well.

The Trump administration argues that the country has to go through a “detox period,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it. Yet the administration is not just cutting waste and eliminating fraud. The cuts at the IRS, for instance, are likely to reduce federal revenue by denying the government the resources it needs to audit high-income taxpayers. The Social Security cuts could interfere with seniors’ ability to access their retirement benefits.

The chaos emanating from Washington comes at a time when the economy is already slowing. Consumers are still being battered by high prices, particularly for housing; credit-card debt and default rates are climbing; the labor market is seizing up, with workers afraid to quit their jobs and hiring rates falling. As a result, indexes of consumer sentiment and small-business optimism are plunging. Last month, households became more pessimistic about current labor conditions, future business conditions, future income, and future employment prospects, the Conference Board reported.

Voters’ fear of a “detox period” or a “period of transition” could itself force the country into a literal vibecession, as households, feeling dour, pull back. Consumer spending makes up roughly two-thirds of the economy, and consumers make spending decisions not only on the basis of their own finances but also on their sense of where the country is headed. Reading the headlines on tariffs and hearing about DOGE-related job cuts, some families might put off the purchase of a new car. Others might cut short a summer vacation, decide to wait on a home-improvement project, or quit ordering pizza on Fridays. At the same time, firms might decide to wait on building a new plant or expanding into a new region, reducing employment gains and sapping revenue from other firms.

A downturn could result—or, even worse, given the tariffs’ impact on prices, a period of stagflation. Congress and the Federal Reserve would be faced with the choice of increasing spending and lowering interest rates to help create jobs, or lowering spending and increasing interest rates to hold down prices, incapable of doing both at the same time. The Trump White House might compound the pain by, as Elon Musk suggested, slashing Medicaid and Social Security benefits to finance tax cuts for rich households.

“It takes a little time,” Trump said of his promised boom. “But I think it should be great.” Instead, we might have a recession. We might have it soon. It definitely won’t feel great.

For all the norms Donald Trump flouted in his first term, his approach to filling out his administration was familiar. He rooted around the same sets of professions as his predecessors, hiring lawyers, CEOs, academics, and military leaders, among others. Liberals may not have liked his picks—Jeff Sessions for attorney general, say, or Michael Flynn for national security adviser—but regardless of ideology, most of his top advisers had recognizable credentials. In his second term, Trump has found a new talent pool to draw from: podcasters.

In the past week, Trump has tapped two podcasters, Dan Bongino and Graham Allen, for high-ranking jobs in his administration. Bongino, who hosts one of the most popular right-wing podcasts in the country, will become the deputy director of the FBI. Allen, of the Dear America Podcast, will serve as a top communications official at the Defense Department. Even accounting for their unconventional backgrounds, their appointments are surprising. Each has used his platform to trade in extreme conspiracist beliefs. On his show, Bongino has claimed that the pipe bombs found near the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were actually an “inside job,” that the results of the 2020 presidential election were false, and that checks and balances in the government matter less than “power.” (Though a former Secret Service agent, Bongino has no previous experience at the FBI—a departure from those who have held the role in past administrations.) Allen has reportedly claimed that climate change is part of a liberal plot to control people and has called Taylor Swift “a witch and a devil.”

Bongino and Allen, neither of whom responded to requests for comment, are part of a cohort of right-wing media figures who have been assigned top roles within the administration. That includes Darren Beattie, the founder of the conspiracist website Revolver News, who joined the State Department, and Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host who is now secretary of defense. Many, if not most, of these figures earned Trump’s loyalty by using their platforms to be obsequious stewards of MAGA—in effect, creating a quasi–state media. But as these figures make the move to government, the Trump administration is also now becoming a media-run state.

[Read: The white nationalist now in charge of Trump’s public diplomacy]

It’s hardly unprecedented for media journalists to make the jump into politics—especially in communication roles. In his first term, Trump picked Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, as his chief strategist, and then–CNBC host Larry Kudlow as the head of the National Economic Council. In 2008, Jay Carney left Time to join Barack Obama’s administration, eventually becoming the president’s press secretary. But something odder is going on now within the Trump administration: a breakdown of the barriers between media and government.

Trump’s recent appointments are only part of the melding. Consider the likes of Charlie Kirk, who doesn’t have an official government position but still seems to hold influence. In November, Politico reported that Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder and right-wing media figure, advised Trump on whom he should select for significant roles in his then-forthcoming administration. Jack Posobiec, a right-wing influencer who rose to prominence by pushing conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate, was invited by Pentagon officials to travel on Hegseth’s first trip overseas. He then claimed to have joined Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on a trip to Ukraine, meeting with the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The right-wing media’s formal and informal roles in the administration mark a new kind of singularity. The podcasters now do policy and dabble in politics. And some right-wing politicians, including Ted Cruz and Dan Crenshaw, have their own podcasts. So do some politicians on the left, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, who announced a new show this week. But on the right, politicians and media figures more explicitly mingle and work toward the same goals.

That is especially the case now that the Trump administration has barred media outlets including the Associated Press from covering many White House events, while welcoming in right-wing media figures such as Lara Logan. Although Fox News and Newsmax have cut ties with Logan for her extremist views, she was recently included in a State Department listening session. Similarly, yesterday, the Department of Justice chose to first give documents regarding the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein to right-wing influencers—including Posobiec and Chaya Raichik, who runs Libs of TikTok, a high-profile right-wing account on X—instead of actual journalists. (The documents reportedly contain little new information.)

This blurring is indicative of a substantive shift in how the contemporary right operates. The conservative media ecosystem has long functioned as the id of the right wing. But in the media-state singularity, there is not even the pretense of space between the two worlds. President George H. W. Bush hosted Rush Limbaugh overnight in the White House, in a likely attempt to ingratiate himself with the radio host. Trump doesn’t need to do such a thing, because the modern equivalents of Limbaugh are inside his administration as high-ranking staff members. (After Limbaugh’s death, in 2021, Bongino took over his slot on many radio stations.)

The practical effect of this union is an ongoing rightward lurch. That the conservative media has infiltrated the White House explains some of the current administration’s policies—proposed mass deportations, vindictive tariffs, attempts to gut entire federal agencies. The new direction of the executive branch is a far-right podcaster’s fever dream. As Bongino posted in November: “We are the media now.” Since the election, the phrase has become popular among an online right distrustful of legacy news outlets. It’s only partially correct. Right-wing influencers such as Bongino are the media to swaths of America. They are also now the government itself.