TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2025
Normalization forever: We said we were going to do it, and so, by gosh, we will.
Our observation involves the questions Kristen Welker asked—and the type of question she abandoned—on Sunday's Meet the Press.
Welker was stuck with the task of interviewing Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council under President Trump. She was asking him about the president's latest remarkable bit of behavior—the accusation he had directed at Erika McEntarfer, the highly regarded former Director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On Friday, the BLS had issued a jobs report the president didn't like. Within hours, he had launched a Truth Social post, saying the numbers were "RIGGED:"
Truth Details
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad—Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were “taken away” on November 15, 2024, right after the Election, when the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs—A TOTAL SCAM. Jerome “Too Late” Powell is no better! But, the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!
It functions now like a law of physics. Any time a fact turns up which isn't the fact the president wants, the fact is denounced as a bit of fake news—a bit of fake news which has been RIGGED in order to make him look bad.
Not just RIGGED, but a TOTAL SCAM!
Later that day, as he spoke with the press, he announced that he had fired McEntarfer, accusing her of being the one who had done the RIGGING. In that Truth Social post, and then when he spoke with the press, he included wildly inaccurate claims about the earlier (imagined) rigging of BLS data in the run-up to the November 2024 presidential election.
Those factual claims were flagrantly wrong—but so what? The president just kept repeating the claims as he assailed McEntarfer's reputation and character.
Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, it's a human tragedy—but it would also be a dangerous situation.
We've asked that question many times, noting that the mainstream press corps has sworn a blood oath to avoid that question.
Our big news orgs have never been willing to center that fairly obvious question as a basic framework for reporting and news analysis. Nor will they speak with medical specialists who may have experience with this oarticular kind of disordered behavior.
In this case, this extremely peculiar man had directed an extremely serious charge at a life-long public servant. Needless to say, he had offered no evidence in support of his claim—and the claims he made about last November were just clownishly wrong.
Judged by traditional norm, there's no excuse for behavior like that. As she fought off Hassett's filibusters, Welker started her interview by asking a pair of appropriate questions:
WELKER (8/3/25): Let's start with President Trump's decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, who he accused of manipulating job numbers.
Mr. Hassett, what evidence does the administration have that she manipulated the jobs numbers?
HASSETT: [Filibuster]
WELKER: But just to be very clear, do you have— Does the administration have any evidence that it was “rigged,” as the president said? And will you be presenting that to the American public?
Those were Welker's first two questions as Hassett played "Beat the Clock." As part of an opening parry, that second question had landed quite close to the mark.
That said, Hassett continued to filibuster, and Welker seemed to lose her focus, or possibly just her nerve. In our view, she slowly gave ground as Hassett kept avoiding the subject at hand.
Ever so slowly she turned. At the end of about a half dozen questions, here's where she ended up:
WELKER: But bottom line, were the numbers wrong? Do you have any hard evidence that you can present to the American public that these numbers, these revisions that were reported--and there were plenty of revisions under former President Biden including right before the election.
Do you have any hard evidence that these numbers were wrong?
Were the numbers wrong? That's a relevant question too—almost surely, the answer is yes—but along the way, she had somehow abandoned the path on which she had started.
Why on earth would a sitting president make an accusation like that? It would have been possible to ask Hassett something like this as the endless back-and-forth neared its end:
Director Hassett, the president made a remarkable claim about a well-regarded public official. As far as you know, does the president have any evidence whatsoever with which he can support his claim?
Welker is an appealing person. Frequently, it seems to us that she doesn't much like to stand her ground.
However you choose to explain it, this president's inappropriate behavior just keeps getting normalized. In our view, Welker started with an approximation of the right question, then slowly began to slide.
Such is the nature of television. If Welker had chosen to "stand her ground," the exchange with Hassett would have ended up looking as ridiculous as Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch.
ReplyDeletePoliticians have carefully practiced the non-answer answer and Republican pols have proven especially adept. So far, broadcast media have chosen breadth over depth.
No, it wouldn't have.
DeleteYes, it would.
DeleteWife watches Sunday mornings faithfully. I make her go downstairs. Don't want my beautiful mind stained by that gross Repuke bullshitting to cover for the demented idiot felon child rapist. And no, I'm not talking about David in Cal.
DeleteStop believing anything a Right-winger says. If it isn't bigotry, they don't even believe it.
ReplyDeleteNot that it matters, but Trump left himself an out by using weasel words. He said, "In my opinion" job numbers were rigged. So, he didn't assert it as a fact, just his suspicion. But IMO that doesn't excuse his POMA statement. It's too serious and accusation to be excused by weasel words.
ReplyDeleteGo fuck yourself, Dickhead in Cal. That's who you voted for, you fucking fascist freak.
DeleteDiC,
Deletehe fired someone based on his 'opinion'. That speaks a lot more forcefully than the word games you'd like to play with how he phrased it.
"Not that it matters, but Trump left himself an out..."
DeleteIt doesn't matter. See Hector @6:49.
Director Hassett, the president made a remarkable claim about a well-regarded public official. As far as you know, is the president out of his fucking mind, incredibly stupid, or both? Also, fuck fascist David in Cal, disgusting human being.
DeleteTrump on Truth Social:
Delete"Last weeks Job's Report was RIGGED, just like the numbers prior to the Presidential Election were Rigged," he wrote. "That's why, in both cases, there was massive, record setting revisions, in favor of the Radical Left Democrats."
"Those big adjustments were made to cover up, and level out, the FAKE political numbers that were CONCOCTED in order to make a great Republican Success look less stellar!!! I will pick an exceptional replacement. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAGA!"
Where's the "out" he left himself?
No weasel words in this post:
DeleteI was just informed that our Country’s “Jobs Numbers” are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory. This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records — No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under “TRUMP” despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting “Kamala” elected – How did that work out? Jerome “Too Late” Powell should also be put “out to pasture.” Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Hector, Trump fired a female expert in a position of authority because he could, not for any cause.
DeleteHector - I don't mind Trump firing this person based on his opinion. There's little downside. If the person really was finagling against Trump, it was a good move. If the person was doing a proper, professional job (which I think was the case), Trump will find another professional to do the job.
DeleteWhat I do mind is what Trump said. Accusing someone of rigging the figures without evidence is despicable.
God David, is there anything worse than a brainwashed fascist POS twerp like you? I think not.
Delete"Trump will find another professional to do the job."
DeleteWhat makes you think so? We're talkin.g about an administration where a part-time news reader is SecDef
Go fuck yourself, Dickhead in Cal. Federal workers used to have rights before you crawled naked thru a Paris sewer to install a fucking king.
DeleteDavid in Cal,
DeleteWill it hurt your feelings if I point out that you never cared about the deficit in the least?
11:42: DiC, maybe he can find the statistical equivalent of RFK Jr. You are either a professional troll or an aging moron.
DeleteBrilliant Innovation Shot Down
ReplyDelete"The Trump administration has ended the practice of asking federal workers to outline what they accomplished over the last week in five bullet points, which was started at the direction of former special adviser Elon Musk."
This just encourages people to lie. There was a brief moment in the 1960s when innovative university profs asked students to tell them what course grade they thought they had earned. They nearly all said "A" so that proved to be a useless exercise. (Women were more honest than men.)
DeleteWhy is that innovative? It been done before. Much more so than women being honest, they found Democrats were very much more honest, honestly.
Delete"Were the numbers wrong? That's a relevant question too—almost surely, the answer is yes—but along the way, she had somehow abandoned the path on which she had started."
ReplyDeleteOn what basis does Somerby say that the numbers were almost surely wrong? He has no expertise in this subject.
Is Somerby expressing a bias in which all numbers are assumed to be wrong because exactitude is difficult, or because there is always some margin of error? If so, he is misunderstanding what margin of error means. It does not mean that the numbers are wrong. It means a probability is attached in which the true number lies within some range of numbers with some degree of certainty.
Accuracy is not an all or nothing phenomenon because there is measurement error in every single form of measurement humans have devised. So, we define accuracy differently than whatever oddball idea is behind Somerby's assertion that jobs numbers are almost certainly wrong.
Somerby weaselly way of writing and thinking is tiresome. It obscures meaning not clarifies it. It makes it impossible to take him serious because it is so difficult to tell what he is willing to say. That isn't how humans communicate, much less opinion writers. For one thing, opinion writers are willing to express their actual opinions, unlike Somerby.
"On what basis does Somerby say that the numbers were almost surely wrong?"
DeleteThe numbers were revised--therefore, at some point, the numbers were not correct. (It's like Our Host frequently tells us regarding the man with two watches.)
Jobs data are calculated from a sample of employers and households, not a detailed survey of every worker in America. Calculations from samples are, by their nature, "wrong." But with a sufficiently large sample, we can determine a range of likely values and the probability of significant errors.
So yes, "Are the numbers wrong," is a poor question because the answer will be (as Hassett soon replied), "Yes, they are wrong."
"Wrong" and "rigged" are far from the same thing.
We are not disagreeing. But the idea Somerby seems to promote is that someone is putting out knowingly false numbers instead of making an estimate on partial data in a consistent manner in order to measure the job market. Wrong is not the right word to be using in such a situation. Somerby's claim that the numbers are almost surely wrong is specious and misleading. It is where some of the wrong impressions about the efficiency of govt come from, when guys like Somerby say the numbers are wrong, as if those producing them were inexpert or worse, intending to malign the president.
DeleteWhen you yourself, who know better, call the numbers wrong instead of preliminary or incomplete, you are not helping the situation. Rigged adds intentionality to deceive.
"But the idea Somerby seems to promote is that someone is putting out knowingly false numbers..."
DeleteIt doesn't seem that way to me.
Rigged and wrong mean the same thing to Welker. When Trump claims the numbers are rigged, he is saying they are wrong and not as positive as his real accomplishment. Does Somerby not understand that?
ReplyDelete"Rigged and wrong mean the same thing to Welker."
DeleteThen she defines at least one of those words with a nonstandard meaning.
Rigged means false numbers. Trump has said that the report was rigged to embarrass him and undermine his accomplishments. His meaning is clear.
DeleteOnly thing the demented moron orange felon has accomplished is chaos.
DeleteThe president has been rage-tweeting in all caps today. But Somerby worried that Trump's claims about the jobs report is being normalized.
ReplyDeleteTrump is batshit and has dementia. There is nothing normal about him. He is closely associated with a guy who ran a sex-trafficking ring selling sex with underage girls, but Trump was elected president anyway. Yesterday he cheated to win another golf club championship.
It is harder to find anything normal about Trump than to claim that his misbehavior is being normalized. OF COURSE IT IS ALL BEING NORMALIZED. THIS MAN HAS NEVER BEEN NORMAL IN HIS LIFE. WHY IS HE STILL PRESIDENT. WHY ISN'T SOMERBY CALLING FOR HIS REMOVAL INSTEAD OF PRETENDING CERTAIN ODD TRAITS AND BEHAVIORS ARE BEING "NORMALIZED" WHEN THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NORMAL ABOUT HIM.
Thank you for your non-attention Bob Somerby. What game are you playing with this bullshit?
In the words of Stephen Colbert, "What the Fuck is Wrong With This Guy?"
DeleteHmmm. Was it a fanny-burp?
ReplyDeleteYes, it was one.
Delete