Even Fox Is Struggling to Spin Trump’s Terrible Jobs Report

Fox News is struggling to find a spin as President Trump’s economy continues to perform worse than expected. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States added only 22,000 jobs this month—a massive decrease from the previous month’s numbers—and unemployment has risen, both warning signs for a rough economy ahead.

“Twenty-two thousand jobs added in the month of August, that was much less than the expectation of 75,000, guys; the July number was revised, I will get to the revisions in a moment,” said Fox Business’s Lauren Simonetti on Friday morning. “Unemployment rate coming in as expected, 4.3 percent.… Again, 22,000 jobs added in August.… For June and July together, combined 21,000 jobs lower than previously reported.”

That 22,000 number isn’t just “weaker than expected,” it’s awful—and it once again raises fears of that awful word Trump keeps avoiding: recession. Economists had forecast 75,000 jobs would be added this month.

The coping continued on Fox.

“But again, that 22,000 number, Charles, it’s a weaker than expected number, and these revisions are pretty brutal,” Fox Business host Cheryl Casone said.

“Yeah, extraordinarily,” host Charles Payne replied. “I’ve mentioned health care, 31,000—the 12-month average is 42,000. That had been obviously a massive driver, and we know the demographic situation there. Just a little disappointed in manufacturing, was hoping to maybe see something there.”

Casone then asked guest and “motivational leader” Joanie Bily to share her thoughts on the labor force participation rate, which is at 62.3 percent.

“We’re not seeing much movement in that number, which is disappointing. And surprising, to be honest with you, Cheryl.… We’ve lost jobs again in the professional business service sector, we’ve lost jobs in this report in the temporary help sector, which is not a good sign, so there’s a lot of concern even though the private payroll number is 38,000, that is still a pretty weak number.”

Maybe Trump slashing the health care system and kneecapping the economy with a trade war was the problem all along, and not the BLS commissioner he fired for being too “woke” after last month’s terrible jobs report. What will Fox News say when we’re actually in the recession?

“Weak job growth. Rising unemployment. Soaring costs,” Colorado Representative Jason Crow wrote. “Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ is screwing working people.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released a dismal jobs report for the month of August.

According to the report, the labor market added 22,000 jobs in August—a far cry from the 75,000 new jobs economists had forecast for the month. The unemployment rate rose slightly, to 4.3 percent, which is the highest it’s been since late 2021.

Revisions to prior months paint an even drearier picture, showing, for instance, that 13,000 jobs were actually lost in June (as opposed to the 14,000 gain in jobs initially reported). Before then, job numbers hadn’t been in the negatives since December 2020, when Donald Trump was finishing his first term and the economy was still ravaged by the pandemic.

This is the first jobs report since Trump ousted the BLS chief and nominated MAGA partisan E.J. Antoni in her place due to a poor July report.

But even with the messenger having been shot, the message rings louder than ever. Jobs numbers thus far have been insulated from Trump’s meddling, as Antoni isn’t yet at the helm of the BLS, which is being overseen by its deputy commissioner, a BLS veteran.

Perhaps due to this fact, Trump on Thursday evening sought to downplay the importance of the August report.

At a gathering of tech executives at the White House, the president said, of the then-forthcoming numbers: “Well we’re going to have to see what the numbers—I don’t know, they come out tomorrow. But the real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now when these monstrous, huge, beautiful places—they’re palaces of genius. And when they start opening up, I think you’ll see job numbers that are going to be absolutely incredible.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed he had the “absolute” authority to conduct a military strike on suspected drug smugglers.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Hegseth was asked what legal authority the Pentagon had invoked to carry out its deadly strike on a vessel officials claim was carrying drugs.

“We have the absolute and complete authority to conduct that,” Hegseth said. “First of all, just the defense of the American people alone. 100,000 Americans were killed each year under the previous administration because of an open border and open drug traffic flow. That is an assault on the American people.”

So, in other words, there was no legal authority, as far as we can tell.

“I’d say we smoked the drug boat, and there’s eleven narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean. And when other people try to do that, they’re gonna meet the same fate,” Hegseth continued.

Hegseth’s response echoes Trump’s claim that the 11 slain crew members were “narco terrorists” who belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. While the executive branch has labeled Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization, such a designation does not serve as any legal basis for a combat strike.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the Pentagon was still scrambling to invent a legal basis for its own strike—though it appears that Hegseth doesn’t actually think he needs any. But a strike with no legal basis would violate international and domestic law.

Some officials at the Department of Defense have privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the deadly strike, which is especially concerning considering that the government has offered no evidence to support its claim that the individuals on the boat were in fact drug traffickers.

The Justice Department on Thursday scrambled to address alleged revelations about the Epstein files published by James O’Keefe—founder of the far-right Project Veritas, known for its hidden-camera stings, in which individuals are secretly filmed disclosing information about the organizations that employ them.

O’Keefe shared a video that, he said, showed an undercover operative eliciting eyebrow-raising statements from a top DOJ official, acting Deputy Chief of Special Operations Joseph Schnitt, about the department’s files on the notorious late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, as well as a supposed deal with Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

In the secret recording, Schnitt acknowledges that the Epstein files do exist—“thousands and thousands of pages of files”—and goes on to detail the DOJ’s plan.

“They’ll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files,” the official said over lunch. He also noted that Maxwell was “transferred to a minimum-security prison too recently, which is against [Federal Bureau of Prisons] policy because she’s a convicted sex offender.” He added, “They’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.”

O’Keefe’s supposed bombshells here, as always, warrant skepticism, as they are notoriously sensationalized and often deceptively edited.

According to O’Keefe, the Justice Department provided a statement asserting that Schnitt’s claims were false—but effectively confirming the veracity of the video. The statement said, “Joseph Schnitt had no role in the Department’s internal review of Epstein materials,” and his comments “have absolutely zero bearing with reality and reflect a total lack of knowledge of the DOJ’s review process.”

Later, the official X account of the Department of Justice sought to clear the air in the most bizarre way: by posting an unedited iPhone screenshot (complete with airplane-mode icon and battery percentage) of an email from Schnitt to his superior.

The email states that the recorded meeting took place in August, when Schnitt met twice with a Hinge date who claimed to be “an au pair in Georgetown” named Skylar. She “gave no clues that she was a reporter or recording our dates,” he said, and his comments were based “on what I’ve learned in the media and not from anything I’ve done at or learned via work”

“I have no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Maxwell other than what is reported in the news,” Schnitt wrote, per the DOJ’s screenshot. “I also never divulged anything about what I do at work.”

Stephen Miran, President Donald Trump’s nominee for a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said that he would keep his job at the White House even if he’s confirmed to the Fed.

At a hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday, Miran said that he planned to take an unpaid leave of absence from the White House, but retain his job. His admission shocked senators, who grilled him about the plan.

“Your independence has already been seriously compromised,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed said. “You are going to be technically an employee of the president of the United States, but an independent member of the board of the Federal Reserve. That’s ridiculous.”

Senator Reed has good reason to be worried. The president would clearly prefer for the Federal Reserve to bend to his whims, rather than serve as an independent body. He’s been pressuring the institution to lower interest rates for months, he’s threatened to sue Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and he’s also attempted to illegally remove Governor Lisa Cook from her position.

Were Miran to be employed by the White House while also serving on the Fed board, the public would likely lose trust in the Fed’s independence. And that could have serious economic consequences—not just in the U.S. but all over the world.

Miran denied accusations that he would act as a political pawn, saying, “If I’m confirmed to this role, I will act independently, as the Federal Reserve always does, based on my own personal analysis of economic data.”

However, his idea of what acting “independently” means is concerning: In 2024, he co-wrote a paper for the Manhattan Institute where he argued that presidential control over the Fed should be increased.

But who knows whether he’ll stick to his recommendations.

He also wrote, “To further insulate board members from the day-to-day political process, they should be prohibited from serving in the executive branch for four years following the end of their term.”

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s shady attempt to claw back funds through a rare legal move called a pocket rescission, ordering the president to unfreeze billions of dollars of foreign aid.

U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ruled Wednesday that while the Trump administration retained “significant discretion” as to how the funds ought to be spent, it had no power over whether or not to spend the nearly $5 billion in funds that had already been allocated.

Last week, Trump wrote to Congress requesting back $4.9 billion in funding approved for international aid efforts, including $3.2 billion in development assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Congress then had 45 days to decide whether to approve Trump’s request, but the White House Office of Management and Budget asserted that it could freeze the funds until the fiscal year ended on September 30, ensuring the funds’ cancellation.

Trump had already bypassed Congress to dismantle USAID, and now he planned to do it again.

But the judge wrote that Congress would have to approve the rescission, because the law was “explicit that it is congressional action—not the President’s transmission of a special message—that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”

Ali couched his decision by saying that it would likely not be the final word in the case, and that “definitive higher court guidance now will be instructive.”

Vice President JD Vance didn’t take well to senators pressing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his wanton mismanagement of the Department of Health and Human Services. In response to the health secretary’s contentious Thursday Senate Finance hearing, the vice president lost his cool on social media.

“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vance wrote on X, adding, for good measure, “You’re full of shit and everyone knows it.”

Senators had questioned Kennedy’s various concerning moves since taking the helm of the Health Department—grilling him, for instance, on his firing of the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his anti-vaccine agenda, promises he broke from his Senate confirmation, and his general ignorance on public health matters.

Kennedy frequently flailed under the pressure, which came not only from Democrats but also Republicans—such as Thom Thillis, who highlighted Kennedy’s shady penchant for self-contradiction, and Bill Cassidy, who raised concerns about his vaccine skepticism.

But the vice president apparently can’t distinguish between conducting oversight on an official wreaking havoc on the nation’s health system and cheerleading child mutilation.

Senator Bill Cassidy deftly grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Senate hearing Thursday, forcing Kennedy to contradict himself on the topic of vaccines.

Cassidy, who chairs the Health Committee, is a Republican and a medical doctor. He’s had to walk a fine line when it comes to Kennedy, who holds many views not based in scientific fact. Cassidy wavered on confirming Kennedy, before ultimately casting a key vote in his favor after securing promises from the future health secretary on vaccines.

On Thursday, he managed to tie Kennedy in knots.

He began by praising President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 vaccine development and rollout, Operation Warp Speed. “President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed,” Cassidy said. “Mr. Secretary, you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kennedy replied.

“But you just told Senator Bennet that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid?” Cassidy asked.

Kennedy denied it. However, he did tell Senator Michael Bennet that he agrees with Dr. Retsef Levy, one of his new appointees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, who said that “evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people.” Previously, during his confirmation hearing, Kennedy had also called the Covid vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made”—an outright lie.

Cassidy continued to press Kennedy, saying he was “surprised” that the secretary had canceled $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research—the technology that made Operation Warp Speed, and the remarkably quick development of the Covid-19 vaccine, possible.

To defend himself, Kennedy claimed that he supported the Covid-19 vaccine when Trump pioneered it because there were low levels of natural immunity to the virus and people were getting dangerously sick.

He also said that under Trump, the vaccine was “perfectly matched” to the virus, and there were no mandates—unlike under Biden.

So essentially: Trump vaccine good, Biden vaccine bad. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Secretary!

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an absolutely vexing answer to a basic question on why he fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head Susan Monarez.

“Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?” asked Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, cutting off the shouting RFK Jr. was doing moments before.

“No, I told her that she had to resign ’cuz I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said ‘no.’”

“What?” Warren replied. Next to her, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders laughed and smiled in disbelief.

“So if you had an employee who told you they weren’t trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, Senator?”

On Thursday, Monarez published a piece in The Wall Street Journal accusing RFK Jr. of firing her for refusing to preapprove the recommendations of his handpicked advisory panel.

But even the White House has admitted she was fired over a difference in opinion. Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Monarez was fired because her views were “not aligned with [President Trump’s] mission.” That same day, former CDC director and Monarez confidant Richard Besser told the media that Monarez was fired because she had refused to capitulate to Kennedy’s MAHA agenda.

“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” Besser said. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber-stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”

Now RFK Jr. has dumbed the excuse all the way down to “She told me I shouldn’t trust her,” framing the situation as if Monarez was begging to be fired. It’s clear that Monarez—who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology—was not sufficiently committed to carrying out Trump and Kennedy’s massive destabilizing attacks on our health care and vaccine systems.

At a Thursday Senate Finance Committee hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under fire for his mismanagement of the Department of Health and Human Services—and the criticism didn’t just come from the Democratic side of the aisle.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina delivered a series of withering remarks and questions to the man he—like all but one of his GOP colleagues—voted to confirm in February.

First, Tillis skewered RFK Jr.’s decision to fire Susan Monarez as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just weeks after her Senate confirmation. The senator quoted Kennedy’s prior praise of the official whom he’s since ousted and cast aspersions on.

“I don’t see how you go, over four weeks, from ‘a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials,’ ‘a longtime champion of MAHA values,’ ‘caring’ and ‘compassionate’ and ‘a brilliant microbiologist,’ and four weeks later fire her because, at least the public reports say, because she refused to fire people that work for her,” Tillis said.

“So, as somebody who advised executives on hiring strategies, number one, I would suggest, in the interview, you ask them if they’re truthful, rather than four weeks after we took the time of the U.S. Senate to confirm the person,” the senator continued.

But he wasn’t done using Kennedy’s words against him. Whereas Kennedy vowed to “empower the scientists at HHS to do their job,” Tillis said, “I’d just like to see evidence where you’ve done that.” Whereas Kennedy promised to do nothing “that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines,” Tillis noted, “there seem to be several reports that would seem to refute that.”

And whereas Kennedy said he would not “impose my belief over any” HHS employees, Tillis observed this was contradicted by “the firing of a CDC director, the canceling of mRNA research contracts, firing advisory board members, attempting to stall [National Institutes of Health] funding, eliminating funding for, I think, a half a billion dollars for further mRNA research.”

The North Carolina Republican was not the lone GOP senator and Kennedy-confirmer to grill the health secretary on Thursday.

Republican Senator John Barrasso, a physician, told Kennedy, “In your confirmation hearing, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, also a doctor, questioned how Kennedy could both be staunchly anti-vaccine and sing the praises of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which developed and distributed Covid-19 vaccines.