Hey everyone. I am returning from the August/Labor Day break, and have a pretty crazy announcement to make about future Jackals in the near term (read to the very end). But this will be a very short Jackal for you, just going over the jobs data from Friday and R.F.K., Jr.,’s hearing last week.
First, jobs…or the lack thereof.
The jobs report for August is out and it continues to be bad. We added just 22K jobs in August, and jobs across June and July were revised downward. The biggest alarm bell is from June, where the numbers were revised to negative 13,000. Yes, we lost 13,000 jobs in June. That is the first negative jobs report we’ve seen since December of 2020. Do you know who was president back then? Let’s just say, it’s nice that Donald Trump is returning to his old habits. To put this in context, that means we had positive job numbers in:
January 2021
February 2021
March 2021
April 2021
May 2021
June 2021
July 2021
August 2021
September 2021
October 2021
November 2021
December 2021
January 2022
February 2022
March 2022
April 2022
May 2022
June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
December 2022
January 2023
February 2023
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
This is not a real month but just making sure you’re paying attention
June 2023
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
November 2023
December 2023
January 2024
February 2024
March 2024
April 2024
May 2024
June 2024
July 2024
August 2024
September 2024
October 2024
Hell Month 2024
December 2024
January 2025
NOW DONALD TRUMP IS PRESIDENT
February 2025
March 2025
April 2025
May 2025
It was a 53-month run of positive job numbers, one of the longest in the country’s history, and it took Donald Trump 5 months to end it. Truly incredible incompetence.
And here’s the thing: It is only going to get worse. Trump is doubling down on tariffs and will enact more over the next few weeks. The tariffs are backed by roughly three people in the Administration:
Trump himself.
Howard Lutnick.
Scott Bessent.
This is a bad trio, because only one of the people in it can be relied upon for any coherent thought. Trump is violently stupid, so he’s out. Lutnick is a nice guy but he is fully bought-in on Trump and will walk off a cliff with him.
Bessent is the only one really knows what he’s doing, but he is similarly all-in on tariffs. His reasoning - according to people close to the Administration - is that tariffs are Trump’s policy and he won in 2024, so they have to make it work. Bessent has apparently said (privately) that people within the Administration know that if tariffs don’t work out, it will be a black mark on the GOP for a generation. So, they’re going to try their best to get it right.
Spoiler alert, Kev: They are not working out. If you look at the actual numbers in the jobs report, you can see an alarming trend: Black unemployment and youth unemployment are both skyrocketing. According to the jobs report, 1 out of every 10 young adults from the ages of 16-24 is unemployed. In a recession, black Americans and young people lose their jobs first. If we aren’t already in a recession (and we might be), one is coming.
It really is a remarkable example of how bad presidential policy can ruin an otherwise healthy economy. A few years ago, I wrote a piece that basically said the American economy is self-sustaining, and presidents take often credit for job growth when they shouldn’t.
But Trump is a lesson in the inverse: A bad president can truly ruin an economy on their own, and Trump is doing that through his tariff policy and (less discussed) crackdown on immigration.
And, if you are thinking that this will push the Federal Reserve to lower rates and make money cheap again, those two things don’t always correlate. Yes, the Federal Reserve is going to drop rates later this month, but borrowing costs may not go down because a lot of them (like mortgages) are tied to treasury bonds. While they were previously considered a “safe” investment, that has changed since Trump came into office and passed a giant bill that adds three trillion dollars to our debt over the next decade. So, it is entirely possible that mortgage rates will go up, thanks to Trump. This is where you would see a melty face emoji.
R.F.K. and his brain worm.
In case you missed it last week, R.F.K. testified1 in front of the Senate. I’ll do a longer post about the contents of his testimony some time in the future. But I wanted to focus on the questioning he got from senators.
While he got demolished by a few Democrats, what really stood out to me was the questioning from Republicans on the Committee. Specifically, Senators Tom Tillis, John Barrasso, and Bill Cassidy all went after Kennedy. Cassidy went after him particularly hard:
The whole thing is worth watching. Cassidy, in particular, is going after Kennedy because he was the deciding vote on getting R.F.K. out of Committee and onto the Senate floor for a confirmation vote. Cassidy (apparently) only did so after Kennedy testified that he wouldn’t make any huge alterations to things like the vaccine schedule or scientific research. Spoiler: Kennedy lied.2
I am sure Cassidy regrets that vote and is trying to absolve himself of his sins. But you are starting to see the GOP twist the knife into Kennedy because they want Trump to fire him or force him to resign.
No matter what Republicans like Cassidy, Tillis, or even Ted Cruz say on T.V., they all know vaccines are safe and save lives. All of them similarly know that the COVID-19 vaccine3 was incredibly effective and also saved countless lives, because their IQs are over 85. All of them get the COVID-19 vaccine every year. All of their kids are vaccinated.
They also know Kennedy is a nutcase. The problem with R.F.K., is that he is a clown with a flamethrower. Yes, he is a clown, but he still has that flamethrower. And he is going to do real harm to children in the United States. Here is Charlie Sykes’s newsletter from Friday (you get two cites from him in one Jackal) and it is worth reading in full:
At the federal level, RFK, Jr. is gnawing away at the foundations of vaccination policy, stacking key committees with fellow crackpots and demanding that their anti-science conclusions be rubber-stamped. In Florida, Ron DeSantis wants to drop all vaccine mandates. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” said Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida's surgeon general.
The stupidly. It burns.
DeSantis’ bonfire of vaccines would include eliminating requirements that students attending public and private schools be immunized for:
• Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR)
• Polio
• Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis (DTaP)
• Hepatitis B
• Varicella (Chickenpox)
• Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) – for younger children
• Meningococcal vaccine – for certain age groups
What could possibly go wrong?
Last year, the number of whooping cough cases in Florida soared as the vaccination rate dropped. A measles outbreak in Miami-Dade resulted in nine infections in 2024. with four cases in the state so far this year.
Actual, real doctors are sounding the alarm: Dr. Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said Florida's move was "going to be a major disaster."
"You're going to get multiple outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease and spread of these diseases," she said. "These kids are going to bring it home."
But what happens in Florida will not stay in Florida. The elderly, the immunocompromised, those who are unable to get vaccinated will be put at risk of disease and death. “And because Florida is a major vacation destination, the move could spread diseases to other states.”
Read the whole thing and grieve, but also watch the R.F.K. space. The Administration is fully defending him as of right now, but Republicans who want him out (and Democrats too, if they’re smart) will use Trump’s major accomplishment in his first term - the COVID vaccines - to create a wedge between him and Kennedy. Even Fox News got in on the act: They brought in a vaccine expert to trash Florida’s suspension of all vaccine mandates on a show that they know Trump watches.
Mandates for vaccination in schools is incredibly popular, with somewhere around almost 80% of Americans supporting. If parents start seeing diseases like measles turn up in schools (and they will in Florida), expect Trump to turn and blame Kennedy for that when the bill comes.
Big news.
I know I just got back from vacation, but the Jackal needs a break in the coming weeks because Elisabeth and I are welcoming another baby. Last time that happened in 2021, I had a few guest stars fill in. I’ll try to do the same thing this time around.
I’ll probably be writing right up until the baby comes, but just know that I may drop off the face of the earth without notice.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
I use the term “testify” loosely, because he wasn’t sworn in. After Kennedy started to lie a bunch, Senator Ron Wyden asked for him to be sworn in under oath. The Republicans on the Committee refused.
The statute of limitations for perjury in front of Congress is longer than it is for most things: Five years. Just a note to keep for any aspiring Democrat with presidential ambitions.
I do not think Trump will ever get the Nobel Peace prize for anything, mostly because of politics, but the COVID-19 vaccine really is the sort of thing that normally would get someone the award. Cassidy does have a point that President Obama had released it, the Nobel committee would have given it to him yesterday.