Sam Seder & Sen. Tammy Duckworth

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And the Senate has passed a sanctions bill named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham. We have such a great show for you today, The Majority Report, Sam Seder stops by to talk about Trump's bad economy and the increasing bill for the endless war in the Middle East. Then we'll talk to Senator Tammy Duckworth about her new resolution addressing the Trump administration hiding the death toll of the war in Iran. But first, the news.

**Jesse Cannon** (0:37)
So, Molly, we got some rough, rough job numbers. Everybody's been astounded. Our economy has stayed strong this long, but a lot of those people who've been thinking, wow, we've averted the recession, are starting to go row.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:53)
So, listen, this is a bad, these are bad numbers.
This is revised, the prior two months job reports by 100,000 jobs. It shed 23,000 jobs in July. That's a sign that the labor market hasn't stabilized. The unemployment rate ticked down. There's another problem with the two, right? Which is that it also showed that workers' average hourly earnings also fell short. And wage growth was just 0.1 from June or 3.2 from a year ago, and that's below inflation. So that means that things are still getting more expensive and your wages are not keeping up. And look, we all know, I mean, this is the elephant in the room, right? Like we know tariffs are making things more expensive. We know tariffs are not bringing back manufacturing. I mean, look, there are three things this administration is doing that are making things more expensive. Tariffs, deportation, because it means people aren't coming to work and the labor market is tight. And if you're building a house, you know, one day all your workers might be arrested. It creates instability in the market, which makes things more expensive and makes people more freaked out and less likely to build things. And then the tariffs and then the high price of gasoline.
And then the president gasses up like almost $2.
And then you have Donald Trump saying, you know, the war is over, the war is starting, we're going to blow them to smithereens. I mean, what Donald Trump has done, which is what's really, I think, hurting the economy ultimately, is like all the credibility of the White House has been squandered. So it used to be that when the government did things, you may not like it, but you sort of trusted it. And all of that has sort of been eroded by almost two years of Trumpism. So we find ourselves in a situation where, and we know this to be true, it feels like the president is the most interested in things that benefit him and the least interested in things that benefit the people who put him in office. And even with these executive orders, like he has just signed a bunch of orders, one is a birthright citizenship, another birthright citizenship order. Like these are things that will not make life less expensive. Like if you were laser focused on affordability, the first thing you would do is you would end the tariffs, you would end the trade war, you would encourage everyone to bring their prices down. That would cut inflation by a little bit. And then you would end the war in Iran and that would cut gas prices. But that's not what's happening here. He's just focused on stuff like that. And supposedly, the reporting is that he's going to pay executive order on childhood vaccines, another thing that is both unpopular and unhelpful and that does not help anyone. So that's where we are, and it's just such a stupid time to be alive. Is it the stupidest time to be alive? Yes, yes, it's the stupidest time to be alive.

**Jesse Cannon** (3:53)
Well, that will be evidenced by our next headline, which is that Trump is freaking the fuck out, just nonstop truths about the judge who ruled his ballroom is illegal.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (4:04)
Remember, like earlier in the week, we had Donald Trump almost firing Judge Box of Wine over the reflecting pool. Why? Because she would not support his lie that the reflecting pool was actually somehow damaged by vandals. When it's very clear, like on Earth One, we know that the reflecting pool was damaged by shoddy workmanship. So here's the new thing. He's crashing out over a federal appeals court ordering him to stop construction on the illegal White House ballroom. Remember, he never was meant to do this in the first place. He got no approvals. You know, like this was all illegal to begin with. So the reason why he's crashing out is because he knows this is a problem for him. Okay, it's a two-to-one ruling that said that he has to seek approval from Congress for the exclusive authority to demolish White House structures.