This Weekend in Politics, Bulletin 184

… Former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev: “Trump should not think that the video archive of his past immoralities is only in the hands of Mossad.”

… MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian: “Ghislaine Maxwell was technically ineligible to be transferred from to a minimum-security federal prison camp - and the Bureau of Prisons had to waive a rule to facilitate the move, according to public records and a federal prison expert. A prison consultant who deals with the Bureau of Prisons all the time told us he had never seen this done before for a sex offender.”

… The Telegraph: “Having been transferred to a minimum security prison in TX from FL, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend can spend the rest of her 20-year sentence cuddling puppies and pampering herself with anti-ageing face creams. The Fed Prison Camp Bryan in TX offers yoga classes and a fully-stocked gym. Described as a ‘luxury’ facility by her victims, Maxwell will be rubbing shoulders with other wealthy inmates and can spend the earnings from her prison jobs on cosmetics.”

… “Bryan grants its female prisoners the freedom to roam the facility’s expansive grounds with limited to no perimeter fencing to pen them in. There are gardening opportunities for the green-fingered criminals. The 37-acre all-female facility is home to 635 inmates, most of whom are serving time for non-violent offenses and white-collar crimes. The facility is among the best in the country for convicts to serve time in, according to multiple lists compiled by inmates’ rights groups.”

… “Inmates may take classes on foreign languages, gardening and beautification. They can play sports, watch TV and attend religious services. For inmates trying to trim down, the prison has a gym kitted out with treadmills, elliptical trainers, stairmasters and a range of weights. Outside, convicts can take part in sports including football, table tennis, softball, volleyball, weightlifting, yoga, Pilates and the Jumpstart weight loss program. There are also picnic tables, bleachers and TVs available for prisoners to wind down.”

… Economists are reacting to Trump’s shocking move to fire the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics hours after her agency reported dismal jobs numbers for the last 3 months of his admin. Trump sent out the usual suspects to the Sunday shows to try and defend his latest insanely corrupt move, claiming that the downward revisions in some of the numbers demonstrated “incompetence” by the agency.

… WH Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett on NBC: “Q - Does the admin have any evidence that the jobs numbers were rigged? HASSETT: The evidence is that there have been a bunch of revisions. Q - But hard evidence? HASSETT: The revisions are hard evidence.”

… Ahmed Baba: “No, the revisions are not hard evidence. Revisions in jobs numbers have occurred since the BLS began publishing monthly employment data in 1915.”

… Hassett: "The data can't be propaganda. The data has to be something you can trust, because decision-makers throughout the economy trust that these are the data that they can build a factory because they believe, or cut interest rates because they believe. And if the data aren't that good, then it's a real problem for the US."

… Justin Wolfers: “Minister for Propaganda says the data can't be propaganda once his Ministry has had a chance to vet them and ensure they're even true-er.”

… “Q - There are 40 people who put the jobs numbers together. Is the president planning to fire all 40 of them? HASSETT: We're gonna try to get the numbers so they are transparent and reliable. The president wants his own people there, so that when we see the jobs numbers, they are more transparent and more reliable."

… Bill Beach, Trump’s BLS chief in his first term: “These numbers are constructed by hundreds of people. They’re finalized by about 40 people. These 40 people are very professional people who have served under Republicans and Dems. The commissioner does not see these numbers until the Wed prior to the release on Fri. By that time, the numbers are completely set into the IT system. They are simply reported to the commissioner, so the commissioner can on Thurs brief the president’s economic team. The commissioner doesn’t have any hand or any influence or any way of even knowing the data until they’re completely done.”

… Hassett: "There was an 818,000 downward revision making the Joe Biden job record a lot worse that came out after he withdrew from the presidential race. There has been a bunch of patterns that make people wonder."

… James Surowiecki: “Kevin Hassett is a sad hack. The downward revision (which covered Mar 2023-Mar 2024) came out in Aug 2024, a terrible time to announce the revision if the BLS' goal was to defeat Trump. And that initial estimate of 818,000 was very high - the real number turned out to be 589,000. Again, why would the BLS have overstated job losses under Biden if it was trying to keep Trump from getting elected? Hassett doesn't believe the BLS is rigging the data. He's just been sent out to defend Trump, so he had to defend Trump.”

… Lawrence Summers: “Firing the head of a key govt agency because you don’t like the numbers they report, which come from surveys using long established procedures, is what happens in authoritarian countries not democratic ones. This is surely not the most serious threat to our democracy that Trump poses, but it is the one closest to what we economists do. I don’t see how serious members of the economics profession can stay in his admin.”

… Andrew Cohen: “I worked at BLS for years and can tell you that revisions are completely legitimate. Many field-reported stats simply come in late after the close of the month. Would you prefer that they just ignore the newer stats that come in? In fact, as a senior BLS economist I myself led a study to detect any systematic direction of post-publishing inflation revisions. It was a perfect bell curve (normal distribution) centered around the mean of 0% revision.”

… Cohen: “Economists take their responsibility seriously. There is no political bias. Just the facts as well as they can be calculated. What y’all don’t understand is the number of economists and analysts involved in producing BLS statistics and revisions. In order to collude or fudge the data, literally hundreds of people would need to be in on the conspiracy. But amazingly there has never been one ‘leak’. Take off your tinfoil hats and take a look at reality.”

… Joseph Brusuelas: “The BLS Monthly Job Report is based on two surveys - the establishment and household. The survey in question is the former. It’s based on a 121K survey from non-farm private employers and govt agencies comprising 631K worksites. The response rate has recently slipped below 60% down from pre pandemic rate of 70% and well below the 80% rate typical over a decade ago. The survey has a +/- of 100K each month. Typically with a 3 month window the response rate for a single monthly survey time improves to 90% which is why there are ongoing rolling revisions that are rarely as large as the downward 258K revision in June. The numbers are not rigged and they are the gold standard internationally.”

… Cullen Roche: “Funny thing about criticism of the BLS is that US data sources are light years better than any other govt. Go use EuroStat, China's NBS or Japan's SBJ. They're garbage compared to the BLS, FRED or other US govt sources. Hot garbage.”

… Pablo Duran Steinman: “The CES survey is still one of the most comprehensive and timely employment indicators available, grounded in sound statistical principles, and revisions are actually a STRENGTH, as they incorporate better data over time (e.g., late reports with higher response rates or the near-complete QCEW benchmark) If you didn’t like the revisions, which came primarily from state and local govts, maybe spend some time mapping Trump policy impact, restrictive policy rates and TPU to these weak job numbers NOW.”

… Duran Steinman: “The sampling methodology does have inherent limitations in a dynamic economy. The fixed sample frame can lag behind real-world changes, and the birth-death model, is based on past trends that may not predict future disruptions (e.g., during recessions or booms). This leads to ‘revision whiplash,’ where initial reports mislead markets or narratives, only to be corrected later. I’m all for better data, better processes in data collection, ideally real time data as we get deeper into the digital realm. But please stop pretending real time economic measurement is a precise exercise.”

… Ernie Tedeschi: “BLS's first-release estimates of non-farm payroll employment have gotten more, not less, accurate over time:

… Slava Malamud: "Q - Why was the flight delayed for an hour? The pilot saw a problem with one of the engines, but it's okay now. Q - Wow, you've replaced an engine in an hour? No, we've replaced the pilot. (An old Soviet joke... Congrats, America).”

… Axios: “It's a very good time to be an employed, married homeowner in America, and a very bad time to be looking for those things. Unemployment is low, but so are new job postings. Divorce is down, but so is marriage. Home values are at historic highs in much of the US, but home sales are the slowest in a generation.”

… As Trump was shown on screen in the stadium at WWE’s huge “Summer Slam” event this weekend he was loudly booed, which was a little surprising because usually wrestling fans are pretty MAGA. We posted the video of it. No other media outlet covered that though.

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… NYT ran a lengthy story detailing big donors to Trump’s PAC who have received big benefits right after making them: “A guest at an April dinner was Elizabeth Fago. While Fago had raised money for Republican candidates for decades, her previous largest federal donation on record was $100,000 to the RNC in 2002. Yet the day before the dinner, she donated $1 million to MAGA Inc.”

… “Fago had particular incentive to curry favor with Trump at the time - she was appealing to the president to pardon her son, Paul Walczak, who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes late last year. Less than 3 weeks after Fago attended the dinner, Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for Walczak. It spared him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence.”

… NBC: “Federal officials are investigating former special counsel Jack Smith after Trump and other prominent Republicans have alleged that his investigations into then-candidate Trump amounted to illegal political activity. The US Office of Special Counsel confirmed that it's investigating Smith for alleged violations of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits certain political activities by govt officials. Trump and his allies have not presented specific evidence of wrongdoing.”

… “Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel is stalled in the Senate. A WH official said that Paul Ingrassia, a former podcast host with a history of incendiary commentary, is meeting with senators in one-on-one meetings over the next month before a confirmation vote takes place.”

… Ingrassia became a lawyer on July 30, 2024.

… Rep. Marge Greene (R-GA) told Daily Mail that she has become disillusioned with the Republican Party: “I don't know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I'm kind of not relating to Republican Party as much anymore. I don't know which one it is. I think the Republican Party has turned its back on America First and the workers and just regular Americans.”

… Marge complained that govt spending hasn’t been cut, the deep state hasn’t been prosecuted, Epstein Files haven’t been released, and foreign aid to US allies like Ukraine hasn’t stopped: “Like what happened all those issues? I don't know what the hell happened with the Republican Party. I really don't. But I'll tell you one thing, the course that it's on, I don't want to have anything to do with it, and I just don't care anymore.”

… Marge predicts Republican turnout in GA is going to be down in 2026 because of these issues and Trump not being on the ballot, which will likely result in Jon Ossoff winning reelection: “It's a very lukewarm, not exciting Republican ballot, you're just not going to get the turnout there that's needed, especially when we came off the last election and only won the state by 115,000 votes.”

…Marge, who has the largest social media following of any Republican woman with 7.5 million followers on X, also complained about how the Republican Party treats women: “I think there's other women in our party that are really sick and tired of the way men treat Republican women. I think there's other women - Republican women who are really sick and tired of them. And the one that really got shafted was Elise Stefanik.”

… She said Trump should not have pulled Stefanik’s nomination for US Ambassador only to be replaced by fired NSA Mike Waltz: “She got screwed by Mike Johnson, and she got screwed by the WH. I'm not blaming Trump, particularly. I'm blaming the people in the WH. How does he get awarded after 'Signalgate? Isn't that weird? Who awarded him that?”

… He failed upward to take a woman’s job. This is not breaking news in America. Maybe to Marge it is, I guess.

… I think what’s really happening here is that Marge really wanted to run for Senate, the internal polling showed her losing by 17 points to Ossoff (reportedly), and Trump told her that he wasn’t going to endorse her and she shouldn’t run. This is how she is dealing with that, and she’s only getting started.

… NYT: “The Democratic Party is turning to an unusually large crop of military veterans in an effort to flip the House in 2026, recruiting and promoting veterans in some of the top battleground districts in a reprisal of a strategy that helped deliver the House in 2018 during Trump’s first term. The veteran recruiting push is part of the Dem Party’s long-running battle to reclaim the mantle of patriotism from the GOP. In June, House Dems formed the Democratic Veterans Caucus, with 18 members.”

… “One candidate in Michigan would be the first Navy SEAL to serve in the House as a Democrat. Another Democrat in AZ is a former Marine drill instructor seeking to be the first woman from the Marines to serve in the House. A third Democrat in NJ is a former Navy helicopter pilot whose campaign logo incorporates pilot wings.”

… “Travis Tazelaar, the political director of VoteVets, which recruits Democratic veteran candidates and runs ads supporting them, said veterans have a crucial advantage in that voters tend to presume they are politically moderate: ‘The average voter looks at a veteran and doesn’t see them as a hard conservative right or a hard liberal left.’”

… Candidate JoAnna Mendoza said voters are sometimes surprised when she tells them she was once a Marine drill instructor: “Listen, I tell people, ‘I am not as lean, not as mean, but still a Marine, so don’t get confused. I still know how to freaking take people out.”

… “Mendoza will look to take out Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican who represents much of southeastern AZ. She described herself as a single mother by choice who joined the Navy and then the Marines because her rural community had ‘no job opportunities, the system isn’t designed for people like me.’”

… “A second female Marine veteran, Maura Sullivan, is running for the House in NH. They could both make history as the first female Marines in Congress. Mendoza and Sullivan are two of the four female veterans who have connected with one another in a group chat they’re calling ‘Hellcats,’ after the female Marines who served in WWI. The veteran-recruiting group New Politics recently set up a shared fund-raising account for the women using the same name.”

… The Atlantic on the impact of tariffs: “The worst might be yet to come. Many companies stocked up on imported goods before the tariffs kicked in; others have been eating the cost of tariffs to avoid raising prices in the hopes that the duties would soon go away. Now that tariffs seem to be here to stay, more and more companies will likely be forced to either raise prices or slash their costs—including labor costs. A return to the 1970s-style combination of rising inflation and unemployment is looking a lot more likely.”

… NYT: “Indian officials said that they would keep purchasing cheap oil from Russia despite a threat of penalties from Trump. The defiance of PM Modi’s govt reflected increasing frustration with a relationship that was once much praised but has been souring rapidly. There is a growing sense in India that its leaders should not allow increasingly volatile American policymaking to shape its choices on vital energy supplies for its huge population of 1.4 billion people.”

… “Trump said last week that as part of his latest round of tariffs, he would impose an unspecified penalty on India in addition to a tariff rate of 25% if the country did not cut off its imports of Russian crude oil. Trump said on Friday: ‘I understand that India is no longer going to be buying oil from Russia. That’s what I heard. I don’t know if that’s right or not. That is a good step. We will see what happens.”

… Indian foreign policy spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that is fake news: “Our bilateral relationships with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country. India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.”

… Another Indian govt official to Reuters: "These are long-term oil contracts. It is not so simple to just stop buying overnight."

… Jay Bookman from the GA Recorder on the 50% tariffs Trump put on products from Brazil: “So Americans will soon pay a LOT more for their morning coffee - Brazil is the leading coffee exporter to the US - just so Trump can try to punish Brazilians for daring to defend their democracy against a coup attempt?”

… Economist Anders Aslund: “Trump's tariffs have already started causing higher consumer prices in the US, but only partially. Importers purchased large stocks in Q1 and appear to raise prices only for new imports. The evidence from Trump's tariff hikes last time suggests that eventually importers pass on all the cost of the higher tariffs to end consumers. This means that tariff hikes are not single events but a process of rising prices as previously imported stocks run down.”

… “That is a gradual inflationary process. The goods inflation caused by the tariffs will be balanced by the deceleration in economic activity they will also cause. Unemployment may rise, but salaries will be supported by the decline in the foreign labor force. Presumably, the balance will be a steady rising inflation, but it will not be high because of the deteriorating economy. This is a stagflation scenario as in the 1970s.”

… “The Fed will become ineffective with rising prices and rising unemployment. In such a scenario, the Fed cannot boost the economy by cutting the interest rate, but it can stimulate inflation by doing so. If I were on the FOMC, I would do nothing but keep the rate as it is.”

… Polygon: “Nintendo says that the price of the Switch and many of its accessories will now change in the US ‘based on market conditions.’ Nintendo's not saying what, exactly, those pricing changes are, but they're going into effect on Aug. 3. This is on top of the previous increase in price for Switch 2 accessories, announced earlier this year. You can expect pricing adjustments for some of the Switch accessories, such as controllers and amiibo. The list also includes every console in the Switch family (OLED Model, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite) and its accessories.”

… “Sorry to anyone who was holding out on buying Nintendo's Alarmo clock. At least one US retailer may have outed those price changes early, however. On Friday, Target temporarily adjusted pricing on all original Switch models, revealing the impending hikes on MSRP as follows:

• Nintendo Switch - $339.99 (up from $299.99)

• Switch Lite - $229.99 (up from $199.99)

• Switch OLED Edition - $399.99 (up from $349.99)

Target's pricing also indicated a $5 bump for Joy-Con 2 controllers to $99.99 and a $10 increase for Alarmo to $109.99.”

… Sen. John Fetterman was asked by Fox if he thinks Trump is winning the trade war. This is his exact quote: “I mean, absolutely. Well, I think that, I mean, obviously, I think the EU, um, and again, I’m a huge fan of Bill Maher, and I think he’s one of the oracles for my party and he acknowledges - he thought the tariffs were gonna tank the economy and he acknowledged that they didn’t. So for me, it’s like, I mean, again, it seems like the EU thing has been going well and I guess we’ll see how it turns out.”

… The New Republic: “An internal memo circulated inside DHS suggests that Trump’s use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse. The memo provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve DOD more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation.”

… “The memo lays out the need to persuade top Pentagon officials to get much more serious about using the military to combat illegal immigration—and not just at the border. It suggests that DHS is anticipating many more uses of the military in urban centers, noting that LA-style operations may be needed ‘for years to come.’ And it likens the threat posed by transnational gangs and cartels to having ‘Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,’ hinting at a ramped-up militarized posture inside the interior.”

… Carrie Lee to TNR: “The memo is alarming, because it speaks to the intent to use the military within the US at a level not seen since Japanese internment. The military is the most powerful, coercive tool our country has. We don’t want the military doing law enforcement. It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”

… “The memo was authored by Philip Hegseth—the younger brother of Pete Hegseth—who is a senior adviser to DHS secretary Kristi Noem and DHS liaison officer to DOD. As such it also sheds light on Hegseth the Younger’s role, which has been the subject of media speculation labeling him an obscure but influential figure in his brother’s MAGA orbit.”

… Joseph Nunn from the Brennan Center: “Normalizing routine military support to law enforcement could create a kind of domestic ‘Forever War,’ but one that is uniquely dangerous. As the Founders well understood, a military that is turned inward is a threat to both democracy and individual liberty.”

… NYT: “Trump unveiled plans to construct a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot state ballroom off the East Wing to be completed ‘long before’ the end of his term. The project would be one of the largest renovations to the iconic building in decades. The WH, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol and all their ‘related buildings and grounds’ are exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek consultation through a formal review process.”

… “Questions about who is funding the project are also still largely unanswered. WH officials said the president and ‘other patriot donors’ would pay for the renovations but declined to give details. When asked if he would block foreign donations, Trump said he hadn’t thought about it: ‘I’m not looking for that. You have very strong restrictions. And we go by the restrictions.’”

Here is the White House before and after Trump:

… The Senate confirmed former Fox host Jeanine Pirro as US Attorney for DC by a vote of 50-45. No Democrat voted for her.

… WaPo reported that Trump is breaking one of his major campaign promises to require health insurers to cover IVF. Trump in Aug 2024: “The govt is going to pay for it, or we’re going to mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that. We want to produce babies in this country, right?”

… “More than 6 months into his second term, however, the Trump admin has not publicly proposed new federal subsidies to make IVF free or more affordable. In addition, WH officials are backing away from proposals discussed internally to mandate IVF coverage for the roughly 50 million people on the Obamacare exchanges.”

… Trump made this bizarre post which seemed to take a shot at Lara Trump while also failing to explain where she put Charlamagne: “The very wonderful and talented Lara Trump, whose show is a big ratings success, put racist sleazebag Charlamagne ‘The God’ (Why is he allowed to use the word “GOD” when describing himself? Can anyone imagine the uproar there would be if I used that nickname?). He’s a Low IQ individual, has no idea what words are coming out of his mouth, and knows nothing about me or what I have done.”

… Trump returned from a 5-day golf trip to Scotland only to head out to another golf trip this weekend at his club in Bedminster to play in the Senior Club Championship. You will never guess who won his 30th club championship in his own tournament.