The thing I like about Karoline Leavitt is… well, nothing. I don’t like anything about her if I’m honest, and I’m quite sure the feeling would be mutual if we ever had occasion to meet.
That said, her zeal for the contemptuous — the extent to which she seems to genuinely revel in sneering disdain — is at least amusing. Suffice to say Sarah Huckabee Sanders hasn’t anything on Leavitt, who’s every bit as shameless as her boss, no small feat of effrontery.
On Wednesday, while berating reporters at a press briefing, Leavitt revealed the timeline for the missing October jobs report and CPI data: Never.
“The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system,” she said. “October CPI and jobs reports [will] likely never being released.”
This isn’t a surprise, per se, but it’s highly unfortunate all the same. Whoever you want to blame — and allow me to reiterate that all “obstructionist” critiques aside, there’s something pretty rich about a party which controls both chambers of Congress and the presidency faulting the other party for an inability to keep the lights on — this is a damning indictment of the US government, and a high-profile manifestation of America’s institutional credibility crisis.
Speaking of credibility deficits, Kevin Hassett. He sat down Wednesday for a chat with David Rubenstein and — wouldn’t you know it — parroted the party line while lobbying for Jerome Powell’s position.
“[T]he president thinks rates could be a lot lower, and I agree with him,” Hassett said, before unironically telling Rubenstein that the Fed’s recent decisions have looked “uncomfortably [like] what a partisan might do.” Trump, Hassett mused, “knows I won’t do that.” Again: The unspoken irony’s unbearable.
On Tuesday, Hassett was on CNBC, where he effectively wrote off October as a lost cause. “Some of the [data] is lost forever,” he said. “[W]e’ll never, perhaps, even know what happened [last] month.”
If you’re Powell, that means you don’t rush into another rate cut. At the October FOMC press conference, he cited the government data blackout as a reason to be wary of lowering rates again in December. He put it as a question: “What do you do when you’re driving in the fog?”
Powell later answered his own query: “The data may come back. But it’s certainly a possibility that you might say ‘We really can’t see so let’s slow down.'”
Not if you’re Stephen Miran. He’d speed up. “Failing new information, yeah, I would think that 50 is appropriate,” Miran told CNBC this week, arguing again that the Fed should press on, and preferably with bigger cuts.
And to think: We might find ourselves riding in the backseat next year with Kevin driving and Stephen in the passenger seat. Buckle up and pray for no fog.
Annual CPI is required for everything from Social Security benefits to TIPS principal adjustment. When Federal government releases annual CPI then a missing month can be determined. As for the monthly BLS jobs report, it is required by law. 29 USC sec 2 “The Bureau of Labor Statistics shall also collect, collate, report, and publish at least once each month full and complete statistics of the volume of and changes in employment . . . “
“Required by law.” Trump, um, isn’t especially concerned about that sort of thing, John.
True but bondholders and the SSI hordes will be mighty concerned and this isn’t something even Bondi wants to take to the Supreme Court. There’s $1.5TR of outstanding TIPS; not the best place to start Mar-A-Lago’ing. Social Security isn’t called the “third rail” for nothing.
You can’t quote laws to the Trump administration. If the U.S. applied them, the whole group should be dressed in prison garb.
Please stop pointing to specific laws. TRUMP IS THE LAW, period. The only way that changes is for the GOP to start doing what they were sworn in to do.
Stop acting brand new.
The numbers were great–trust him.
I sure hope Putin’s and Xi’s underlings are as stupid and incompetent as Trump’s are. We see ours making idiots of themselves every day, we don’t see theirs, but human nature dictates that they must all be alike.
You could use the format of her quote (“October CPI and jobs reports [will] likely never being released.”) in a number of other situations, as well.
For example: The Epstein files (will) likely never be released.
I’m sure everyone here does realize that the real problem here is that people continue to believe things like “blame the democrats” every time things go sideways when the GOP has power. And then blame the democrats for things the GOP did when they had power but delayed until after they lost power.
As long as people continue to naively trust “experts” because they claim to be on the same side as them (the “right” side) we’re never going to solve any of this.
What baffles me is that I assume at some point, everyone comes across someone in their personal lives who never takes accountability. Trump exhibits every single characteristic of a narcissistic toxic liar who never ever takes accountability for anything bad, but takes credit for anything and everything supposedly good (which is highly subjective for most of the “good” things Trump claims).
The basic lack of pattern recognition tells me our evolutionary advantage is disappearing quickly, but then again, maybe tribalism was the primary evolutionary trait that got us here today. I guess if that only gets half of us killed, that does technically mean humanity has survived and the march of evolution continues.
Missies Leavitt and Huckabee are two peas in a pod. Karolina does at least one press conference every day. What does she do in between talking trash. Does anyone suppose she ever read an actual book not written by a silly Republicate? Who supports her? Does she have Sugar Daddie protecting her, besides Trump? Does anyone suppose she can make an existential mistake? Musk did. Kennedy is getting near edge.