'INCREDIBLY WEAK': Trump goes off the deep end over bad jobs numbers; Fox panel stunned

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump's reckless manhandling of the levers of the U.S. economy, from tariff chaos to cruel anti-immigrant policy is reflected in poor numbers in the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unsurprisingly, though no less shockingly, Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following a pattern of attacking data whenever it doesn't serve his preferred narrative.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It is nearly impossible to get more than 80 votes on something in the Senate these days.
0:05.0	I mean, maybe if you're renaming a post office, but it rarely happens.
0:10.0	It occasionally happens, though.
0:12.0	Nominations confirmed.
0:15.0	The ayes are 86.
0:17.0	The no, the nays are eight.
0:19.0	The nomination is confirmed.
0:22.4	Okay, that was the vote just last year on the nomination of Erica McIntyre to be the
0:28.0	commissioner of labor statistics.
0:29.8	And she was nominated by then President Biden, but she was seen as such a non-controversial
0:35.6	choice for a completely apolitical kind of nerdy job that she got 86
0:40.5	votes for her confirmation. And she had the support of many loyal Trump fans, like say Tommy Tuberville,
0:48.2	the current secretary of state Marco Rubio, some guy named J.D. Vance. Wonder what he's up to these
0:53.8	days. What's he up to? You know,
0:56.1	lots of things. Along with 35 other Republicans, they all voted to confirm Erica McIntyre for
1:02.3	to be the Commissioner of Labor Statistics. Now, most people were probably not following that vote
1:08.1	at the time. I don't think we were taking it live or anything. Most
1:11.1	people probably do not know what the Commissioner of Labor Statistics does, although if you're
1:15.0	watching right now, you very well may by this time today. But it is actually an important, and yes,
1:20.6	very, very wonky job overseeing the nation's economic data, which is why experienced and
1:26.0	qualified data scientist Erica McIntyrefer
1:28.3	held that job, right up until today, when Donald Trump fired her in a post on his social media
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 21 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NBC News, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NBC News and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.