Conservative Host Grills Trump on Terrible Jobs Report Excuse

President Trump faced a surprisingly tough interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box Tuesday morning, as host Joe Kernen, who has often praised the president in the past, grilled him on his ousting of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over his claims that the job numbers were “rigged.”

Trump fired accused the former commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, last week after accusing her of propping up former President Biden and attempting to undermine himself. The firing came after an abysmal July job report, leading many to the reasonable conclusion that Trump is shooting the messenger while wrecking the economy, and now plans to install a lackey to replace McEntarfer.

On Squawk Box, Kernen noted that Elaine Chao, a former Trump transportation secretary and Bush II labor secretary, had said there’s no way that McEntarfer could have rigged the numbers.

“She said the commissioner doesn’t even really get involved with the actual minutiae of putting all these things together and there’s no way she could have chosen to rig these numbers to make ’em look bad,” Kernen said. “It’s just a big leap to go to rigged—and also it makes, Mr. President, it makes anyone you pick—critics are going to say, ‘Hey, he’s picking a guy or gal that’s giving him the numbers he wants.’ So it undermines confidence in the system to some extent.”

Trump replied: “I think when somebody says the commissioner is not involved, I don’t want to get into any arguments with anybody—why should I? She’s a very nice woman. But when they say that nobody is involved, that it wasn’t political—give me a break.”

Earlier in the interview, Kernen also fact-checked Trump on his claims that the BLS put out fake jobs numbers to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

“And so they gave phony numbers in order to win the election,” Trump said. “After I won the election—I said, ‘Too big to rig’—but, after I won the election, then they announced a downward number. In other words, to bring them back to reality. And I said, ‘Wow, supposing I would have lost, I would have blamed that and people would have said I was a conspiracy theorist.’”

In reality, that narrative is completely backward. The November BLS jobs report, released just days before the 2024 election, showed “weak growth” of 12,000 jobs for the month prior, as well as downward revisions for September and August. (Trump’s campaign even seized on this with a statement that said it showed “how badly Kamala Harris broke our economy.”) However, a month after the election, the October figure was revised upward.

And, as Kernen pointed out, Trump’s claim of a downward revision of “almost 900,000” (actually 818,000) came months prior to the election, in August 2024. (Trump, at the time, baselessly hailed this routine revision as evidence of Biden and Kamala Harris “fraudulently manipulating job statistics.”)

President Donald Trump claimed in a CNBC interview Tuesday that he had “nothing to do with” Attorney General Pam Bondi’s grand jury probe into Obama officials—but he’s certainly not mad about it.

Anchor Joe Kernan asked the president, who called in to the program, “You’ve talked about how you want success, not retribution. The Justice Department is now tapping a grand jury to look into the intelligence community’s assessment of what was happening with Russia [in the 2016 U.S. election]. You have nothing to do with directing the Justice Department in that?”

“Nope, I have nothing to do with it. Pam is doing a great job,” Trump responded. “I will tell you this: They deserve it. I was happy to hear it,” he continued.

Years after a bipartisan Senate panel and the CIA confirmed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents that she claimed proved otherwise. Now Bondi plans to subpoena Obama-era officials for their purported role in what Trump has deemed the Russia “hoax.”

Whether or not Trump directed Bondi to relitigate an already-closed chapter of his history—conveniently launched at the same time he’s being walloped by his base for his mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and documented proximity to the dead pedophile—we can’t say for sure. But it’s certainly in line with the years of disinformation he’s spread about the matter, and his appetite for revenge.

Speaking of relitigating, Trump continued in his response to Kernan, claiming that multiple elections have been “rigged”: “What they did with the election—what they did with the last election too, but it was too big to rig—what they did in the 2020 election is grotesque, I mean that was a rigged election 100 percent.”

Kernan laughed, responding, “We can’t relitigate that. We can’t relitigate that.”

Hearing his interviewer’s casual comeback, Trump observed, “You know, a year ago you would’ve been upset if I said that. Today it’s different. Now I say it all the time: It was a rigged election.”

He’s not wrong. Trump’s relentless lies have browbeaten the American people into submission, and his administration’s claims that there was no Russian interference in the 2016 election are just another example, whether Trump’s behind the probe or not.

Now that Congress is in summer recess, homebound Republican lawmakers are learning just how much their constituents hate the president’s policies.

In his first town hall since voting in favor of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Nebraska Representative Mike Flood had no remedy for the fire and fury of his base, who practically roasted him alive Monday night for Flood’s ongoing support for Trump.

Flood faced a barrage of excoriating questions during the jam-packed town hall, in which voters demanded to understand why their local lawmaker would vote in favor of the president’s tax bill and his immigration policies, accusing him of supporting a “fascist machine.” At one point, the crowd broke into a furious chant: “Tax the rich.”

“My question is fiscal. With 450 million FEMA dollars being reallocated to open Alligator Alcatraz, and 600 million taxpayer FEMA dollars being used to now open more concentration camps, and ICE burning through 8.4 million dollars a day to illegally detain people—how much does it cost for fascism?” one woman pressed Flood as the crowd behind her cheered. “How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?”

But Flood’s response was no different from the party line, effectively echoing Trump’s “mandate from the people” ideology to advance undemocratic ideals.

“Americans went to the polls in November, and they had a choice between a Democratic candidate that had an open border, no enforcement, fentanyl, drugs, human trafficking, and they had a choice between that and a candidate that said close the border, get illegal immigrants out of our country, stop the fentanyl, stop the human trafficking, stop the drugs, stop the crime, stop the violence,” Flood said. “That’s what Americans voted for.

“Americans voted for a border that is secure, and I support the president enforcing our immigration laws, which, by the way, were written by Congress,” he added.

Flood’s constituents also harangued him for failing to protect SNAP benefits, veterans’ programs, and health care access, and for supporting Trump as the president circumnavigates and avoids his own home-brewed Epstein scandal.

“Let’s be very clear—at the next pro forma session of the Congress, you will find my name as a sponsor on a resolution from the House Rules Committee to release the Epstein files to protect the victims and not re-victimize them again,” Flood said, stating that he was for the release of the records despite the fact that he—along with every other Republican in the House—voted against a Democrat-led effort last month to make the files public.

The crowd, which at 750 people was the largest at one of Flood’s town halls yet, repeatedly booed the lawmaker almost from the very start. At one point, unsatisfied with his answers, constituents broke out into chants of, “Vote him out!”

Flood is unlikely to be the only conservative facing enormous backlash at home. Republicans have been instructed by the National Republican Congressional Committee to focus their time at home in August on selling Trump’s agenda to voters.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows plans to sign warrants to track down and arrest more than 50 Democrats who left the state over the weekend in order to deny Republicans the quorum needed to create a new gerrymandered congressional map at President Trump’s behest.

The Texas House voted 85–6 to issue arrest warrants for those absent when the House convened on Monday afternoon.

Texas House rules state that lawmakers who are absent from “calls of the House” without sufficient excuses “may, by order of a majority of those present, be sent for and arrested, wherever they may be found, by the sergeant-at-arms or an officer appointed by the sergeant-at-arms for that purpose, and their attendance shall be secured and retained.”

In doing so, Burrows escalates the warpath that state Republicans have forged against the Democratic walkout.

On Sunday, Governor Greg Abbott—claiming powers that legal experts say he doesn’t actually possess—threatened to oust Democrats from office unless they returned to the Capitol by 3 p.m. Monday. (“Come and take it,” the Democrats replied verbatim.) State Attorney General Ken Paxton also promised to “use every tool at our disposal” to “hunt down” Democrats, who, he said, should be “found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”

But we’ll likely not see Texas Democrats physically forced back to the Capitol as the warrants only apply within state lines, and most truant Democrats departed for other states.

No arrests took place in 2021 when warrants were issued for 52 Texas Democrats who similarly fled to block a GOP bill to restrict voting rights, before returning after 38 days.

Back then, warrants were blocked as they underwent legal challenges, but the state’s Supreme Court eventually ruled that lawmakers could be arrested under Texas’s Constitution, which, it said, “enables ‘quorum-breaking’ by a minority faction of the legislature” but also “authorizes ‘quorum-forcing’ by the remaining members.”

First lady Melania Trump—who five years ago asked, “Who gives a fuck about Christmas?”—is hosting open auditions for the White House’s upcoming Christmas celebration.

Now we’re not saying that you should apply, get selected, and then not show up on the date of the actual performance … but if you wanted to, it would be pretty easy.

“Americans from every U.S. state and territory are invited to apply for the opportunity to assist with decorating at the White House or showcase their talents as a performer at the holiday open houses,” the White House stated in a Monday morning press release. “Starting today, applications are open for those interested in volunteering for the 2025 Christmas Season.”

The performer application process is simple. “School bands, choirs, and holiday-themed entertainers” are all eligible, and if accepted they are responsible for their own lodging, food, and any other expenses. Performance dates will take place throughout December, and you can select which dates you are available. The application deadline is September 5, and decisions will be announced by October 13.

Anyone interested in providing a lovely, MAGA-aligned Christmas performance (or not) may apply here. A link to previous performances is required.