Today's job numbers are bad. There's no getting around it. So Donald Trump reacted to this bad news by immediately firing the messenger. Which is really bad. "Banana republic" bad, in fact. We should all expect Trump to name the next head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who will then dutifully report next month that "in August, America added eight million new jobs, thanks to our Dear Leader's brilliance." Because that is obviously what Trump wants to hear, instead of any proof that the fantasy world he inhabits in his head is rosier than the actual reality in which the rest of us live.

First, let's take a look at the job numbers. Last month, the economy added 73,000 jobs, which was far lower than what economists expected. Also, the numbers for May and June were downgraded by a whopping quarter of a million jobs, leaving them at an anemic 14,000 jobs added in June and 19,000 jobs added in May. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent. This is all on top of new numbers released a few days earlier which showed inflation is heading up faster than expected.

When Joe Biden was in office last December, the economy added over 300,000 jobs and inflation was approaching the target of two percent -- Biden oversaw the economy successfully reach a "soft landing," even after much pessimism and many predictions of an impending recession.

In other words, this is all on Trump. He can't blame Biden for any of it. He is singlehandedly wrecking a good economy with his tariff chaos and his depletion of the workforce by ramped-up deportations.

In fact, what we're seeing now is most likely just the tip of the iceberg. Most economists expect the numbers to worsen as time goes on. Several factors have actually been contributing to make the numbers seem better for a number of months now, but this interim period is about to end. Big businesses had the luxury of boosting their imports right before Trump announced his trade war (the day after April Fool's Day, just to remind everyone), but now they're going to have to cope not just with the additional baseline 10 percent tariff Trump slapped on the entire world, but with the increased tariffs which were supposed to go into effect today (but were delayed by another week). That is going to lead to increased costs for any business that imports anything.

So far, the biggest businesses have just been eating the losses. Car companies are reporting losses of over a billion dollars, but they have yet to raise prices in response. They won't be able to eat such enormous losses forever, though. And smaller businesses don't have the luxury of running in the red for months on end and have already started raising prices to stay alive. One of the side effects of businesses trying to cut their losses is that they don't hire more people (or they fire the people they've got), which adds to the weakness of the labor market.

The only reason the unemployment number hasn't spiked is that fewer people are even looking for work now. If the labor participation rate had held steady from April onwards, we would now be at 4.9 percent unemployment, to put this another way.

The main inflation rate is still slightly below three percent, but it seems to be heading upwards -- just as all the economists have been predicting since the start of Trump's trade war. New numbers will be released soon, but these numbers are already somewhat suspect (before Trump even fired the head of the bean-counting bureau):

[The Bureau of Labor Statistics] has scaled back data-collection efforts for its benchmark inflation report amid staffing shortages and proposed budget cuts. Earlier this week, BLS said those reductions, which result in a greater reliance on mathematical assumptions to bridge data gaps, were more extensive than previously indicated.

Which brings us to the trustworthiness of the data. Trump firing the head of the B.L.S. is a tinpot-dictator move, plain and simple. Senator Martin Heinrich got it exactly right when he reacted to the news of Trump's firing by posting: "Pure Soviet shit...." Which, for anyone old enough to remember the Soviet Union's manipulation of numbers in their always-optimistic "five-year plans," should be a scary thing to contemplate. Because they too thought they knew how to make their economy boom (by following a discredited way to arrange it), but the only way they could save face was by just changing the numbers to what they thought they should be (according to their discredited plans). We stand on the brink of Trump doing exactly the same thing, with his own discredited view of the economy.

Trump, of course, likes to live in the world in his own head where everything is peachy-keen and everyone loves him because he is always right. He flat-out makes claims like: "prices on everything are down -- way down," and "gas is selling for $1.99 in five states right now," and he expects everyone to just take his word for it. In the real world, however, prices are going up, not down, and the price of gas is still right where it was when Trump took office -- a little over $3.10 a gallon, nationwide. Trump can claim otherwise until he is blue in the face, but it doesn't change the numbers at the pump or at the supermarket checkout line.

And now Trump is going to appoint some apparatchik (to use the appropriate Soviet term) to lead the statistics bureau who will assumably manipulate the numbers just to blow sunshine up Trump's skirt. This is a very dangerous thing to do, for obvious reasons. If the numbers are whatever Trump says the numbers should be, then it will further destroy the trust in the United States, both at home and abroad. And once that trust is gone, it's going to be extremely hard (if not impossible) for it to come back again.

Again, this is all on Trump. His pointless and destructive trade war is harming the American economy. And the bad news is just beginning. If the numbers do continue to be real (and not just some Trumpian fantasy), they are probably going to get worse for at least the next few months. Trump can scream about how "hot" the economy is (his new favorite word for it), but the rest of us will still be living with the reality of it all.

In another ominous move, Trump is in the midst of a hissy fit with the former president of Russia, and just announced he had moved two nuclear-armed submarines into position. We're headed for another tariff showdown (with Russia) next week, which is the new deadline Trump set for Vladimir Putin to see the error of his ways and strike a peace deal with Ukraine. If Putin doesn't, Trump is threatening not only to slap tariffs on Russia but also to slap bigger tariffs on any country which does business with Russia -- which includes India. Trump has made incremental progress on striking handshake-agreement "trade deals" with a handful of countries, but India isn't one of them (and they're a big trading partner). If Trump follows through and does institute such tariffs, trade with India might grind to an absolute halt -- which sure won't help with the economic picture here. China also has economic ties to Russia, it's worth mentioning.

So far, Trump has thrown around his tariff threats willy-nilly and the markets have gone through rollercoaster-rides and it hasn't had all that bad an effect on the overall economy -- yet --because these things take time to work their way through the supply-chain system and show up in hard data. Now that the bad news is beginning to show up, Trump is making everything worse (with all the tariffs that will snap into place in one week's time). He is hoping that somehow this will magically make all the numbers better. It won't. Unless, of course, he finds some lickspittle to hold the B.L.S. job who will tell him eight million jobs were created in August, and inflation is down to 0.1 percent.

This is where we are as a country, folks.

There's a word for it, even. If the labor market softens considerably while prices stay high (or go higher), then we'll experience "stagflation." This will put the Federal Reserve in a bind, because their answer to each of these problems is impossible to achieve, since they are mutually exclusive. They can't both raise interest rates and lower interest rates at the same time, to put this another way.

Trump has been making other banana-republic moves behind the scenes that could have even more dire impacts. The Republican Senate just confirmed Joseph Kent to head the National Counterterrorism Center, which is a job that only the most qualified person should hold. Here's Kent's qualifications, such as they are:

Democrats warned that [Joe] Kent's embrace of unsubstantiated theories, including that the FBI played a role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and his past association with white-supremacist groups made him uniquely unqualified to run a key intelligence unit.

. . .

As an aide to [Director of National Intelligence Tulsi] Gabbard, Kent earlier this year pressured analysts at the National Intelligence Council, a prestigious analytic hub, to alter a report that concluded the Venezuelan government did not direct the activities of the Tren de Aragua cartel, according to emails that emerged later. That analysis undercut Trump's rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process under the Alien Enemies Act.

The intelligence report was not changed. Gabbard quickly fired Michael Collins, the head of the NIC, and his deputy.

Kent's past comments on Russia had clouded his nomination by Trump. Shortly after Russia's invasion, Kent described President Vladimir Putin's demands on Ukrainian territory as "very reasonable."

Just who we need, right when we're approaching some sort of showdown with Russia, eh?

In other tinpot news, two NOAA officials were just put on leave, for the sin of contradicting Trump years ago in what became known as "Sharpiegate." They had the temerity to insist that a hurricane wasn't going where Trump said it was going to go, and so they've been relieved of duty for their sin against the Dear Leader. Also, the top vaccine and gene therapy scientist at the F.D.A. resigned under pressure from one of Trump's "influencers," Laura Loomer. And the E.P.A. is going to try to revoke its own authority over greenhouse gas emissions, because the Dear Leader says global warming is a "hoax." And to top it all off, the Smithsonian quietly removed any mention of Donald Trump from a display on presidential impeachments. Down the memory hole!

Well, at least Trump got one thing he wanted today. The jobs numbers were so bad and his reaction so petulant and tinpotty, that it successfully pushed the Epstein files scandal out of the headlines. There were developments on this front (there are every week), including Trump musing about the possibility of pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, but nobody's paying attention to it today. The bad economic news pushed it right out of the spotlight (at least, for now).

 

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has an interesting proposal: that members of Congress should be compos mentis. And we're not talking about folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene spouting crazy things on a regular basis, but rather Congress members who have quite obviously deteriorated to the point where they cannot function in their jobs.

Here's the story:

So last month, [Representative Marie Gluesenkamp] Perez offered an amendment to a federal spending bill that aimed to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs "unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment."

Her amendment was unanimously rejected, which Ms. Perez chalked up to the fact that it prompted an "uncomfortable conversation" and that Congress does not like to make new rules for itself.

. . .

Her measure would have directed the Office of Congressional Conduct, the independent watchdog that investigates members of Congress, to develop a standard that the Ethics Committee could use to evaluate any complaint received about a lawmaker alleged to be suffering from cognitive impairment. The Ethics Committee could then release its findings, which she says would make Congress more transparent.

"We have all of these rules about dumb stuff -- hats -- and not this more significant question of who is making decisions in the office," she said.

There is one (non-voting) member of Congress who currently has a lot of people worried, but it's a fellow Democrat so Perez can't be accused of playing partisan politics here, it is worth mentioning. And Republicans have been making lots of political hay over Joe Biden's mental decline while in office, so you'd think they'd be supportive of the idea in general, at least.

Unfortunately, this is one of those good ideas that is going nowhere. The average age of Congress is higher than it has ever been before, and in many states and districts you essentially get a lifetime job, since unseating an incumbent is an incredibly hard thing to do. So it will likely remain up to each and every one of them to decide whether to take their own car keys away, or to just keep getting re-elected until they die (no matter how mentally competent they may be).

This affects both parties. There are elderly senators and House members who should have already retired by now. So it would be a helpful thing for voters to hear what doctors have to say about certain members once it becomes painfully obvious to everyone around them that they shouldn't be working any more. But they'd have to vote to do that themselves, which doesn't seem highly likely.

Nevertheless, it's a good (and original) idea. If the Ethics Committee gets complaints about cognitive impairment, it could examine the member of Congress and let the public know what the doctors had to say. That, to us, sounds like a beneficial public service. Which is why we're handing the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week to Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, for coming up with such a proposal in the first place.

[Congratulate Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

 

This week we had no major disappointments with any Democrats, although a few minor ones did pop up.

So we'll keep the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award on the shelf for the week and instead just hand out one (Dis-)Honorable Mention award, to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was found this week to have violated ethics rules by accepting tickets to the Met Gala and underpaying for the dress she wore.

Now, don't get us wrong -- we still thought the stunt with the "Tax The Rich" dress was one of the best photo ops we've seen in a long time. But A.O.C. didn't follow the rules on gifts by attending, so she's going to have to fork out $2,700 more for that dress.

As we said, that doesn't really rise to the level of a MDDOTW award, but it's still a bit disappointing to hear.

 

Volume 806 (8/1/25)

We have to mark the passing of a comedic/musical great this week, as Tom Lehrer passed away. If you don't know who he is, spend some time looking up some of his songs. In the depths of the Cold War, he gave America a little comic relief that was sorely needed.

Requiescat In Pace.

OK, this week's talking points are mostly focused on the economic bad news (of course), although we tossed a few others into the mix just for flavor. Enjoy!

 

   Tinpot dictator

All hail the Dear Leader!

"Donald Trump is a wannabe tinpot dictator. When anyone brings him bad news, he denies it and shoots the messenger. If he says the sky is green, the according to the United States government, the sky is green. Any pointy-headed scientist who says otherwise will be summarily fired. This is banana republic stuff, folks. It is governing by tantrum. It is a three-year-old screaming 'No No NO!!!' when confronted with anything they don't like. How much more damage is Trump going to do to the American economy and the American government before some Republicans in the Senate grow a pair and stand up to this nonsense? What is it going to take for these people to wake up and smell the coffee? Just because Donald Trump says something does not make it so. We live in America -- not some tinpot dictatorship where everyone must tell the Dear Leader how wonderful his new clothes are!"

 

   Bankrupting the country

Tear down this myth.

"Donald Trump is just not some sort of financial genius. He just isn't. Donald Trump does not understand the economy, because it is a large and complex thing with lots of numbers. Heck, Donald Trump doesn't even understand basic math, much less how the unemployment numbers are calculated. How many businesses has he bankrupted? Six? He even ran a casino into the ground -- a casino! How is that even possible? He's now attempting to bankrupt the American economy. So much for economic genius, eh?"

 

   The easy answer

Democrats should point out the obvious.

"Of course, there's an easy answer to this mess, folks. Just end the trade war, period. Roll back all of the destructive tariffs, now! We are in this mess because Trump is having lots of fun bullying the rest of the world. Now that it's becoming more and more obvious that he's also shooting the American economy in the foot, it is time to take his toy away from him. Congress should reassert its constitutional right to control tariffs and remove that right from Trump's bullying hands. Because he is never going to back down and admit that he's been wrong all along about how destructive tariffs would be. The longer Trump's trade war goes on, the more damage it will do. But remember this -- there is a very easy answer to this problem. End the Trump trade war now!

 

   No soup for you!

Point out Trump's petulance, too.

"Trump's ostensible reason for his trade war is that he doesn't like trade deficits with other countries. So he's slapping high tariffs on them in an effort to bring trade deficits down. But he just slapped Brazil with a whopping 50 percent tariff even though they run a trade surplus with us. Trump did this because he doesn't like the country, plain and simple. They are prosecuting a former leader for attempting a violent coup, which scares Trump (for obvious reasons). So American trade policy is done on a whim. Trump could wake up one day and decide he doesn't like some country's leader for any reason under the sun and decide to wipe out all American trade with them. This is beyond tinpot dictator stuff, folks. It is governing by tantrum."

 

   Support disappearing

There's one group of Americans where Trump's support has already collapsed. So point it out!

"When Trump entered office, his poll numbers with younger voters was at an impressive 55 percent. The latest poll showed this number had collapsed by 27 points, and now stands at only 28 percent. A whopping 72 percent of people age 18-29 now disapprove of the job Trump is doing. And that's before the bad economic news broke."

 

   Trump doesn't care about you

What's most astonishing about this is that it's happening in very red areas of the country, where lots of people voted for Trump.

"When disaster strikes, Americans can expect precisely nothing from Donald Trump. He wants to abolish FEMA, after all. So if your town experiences massive flooding, don't look to Trump because he does not care what happens to you. Trump will either just flat-out turn down your request for assistance, or he will helicopter in for a photo-op before yanking all the people out soon after. People in Western Maryland and the hill country of Texas are finding out exactly how little Trump cares about them after disaster strikes. And these are areas that voted heavily for Trump. He used to care about his own voters, while leaving blue Democratic areas to fend for themselves, but he's not even doing that much any more."

 

   Really?

We end with a very simple question, to be asked to all the Trump voters out there.

"Is this what you voted for, folks? Really? Seriously? You voted for prices to go up, unemployment to get worse, and a big fat trade war with the rest of the planet? For anyone who brings Trump bad news to be fired? For government by whim? Is this what you voted for? Really?"

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground