We should not find Donald Trump’s rotten economic results “unexpected.” The man who managed to bankrupt casinos, presided over a slew of failed businesses, and crashed the economy in his first term has demonstrated month after month that he is utterly inept when it comes to economic performance or even making D.C. real estate upgrades, which is supposed to be his wheelhouse. And yet time and again, the legacy media greets monthly jobs report as “unexpectedly” negative.
It’s long past time to stop calling consistently dismal results part of a “unexpected contraction.” There is simply nothing “unexpected” about Trump’s economic failures rooted in the same flawed policies.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union (and formerly a superb reporter for the Washington Post, before it imploded) called the July jobs report “bleak”:
The U.S. labor market is stalling again and that is going to make the Federal Reserve’s job harder and life for job seekers rough. The big surprise was job losses in July. But that was only the beginning of the bad news. The unemployment rate fell for the wrong reasons. People continue to leave the labor force. Labor force participation is at the lowest level since February 2021. Even worse is that wage growth cooled to a mere 3.2%, the lowest level in five years. This is not what workers need as inflation soars again.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also announced a downward revision of more than 100,000 jobs for May and June. The results are especially embarrassing for a MAGA crew that promised to stay ahead of inflation (hourly earnings rose just 3.2 percent) and that derides Democrats for failing to promote work. (The labor participation rate has receded to 61.4 percent; when Joe Biden left office, it was 62.6 percent.)
All Trump’s incompetent minions can do is lamely spin. The New York Times dryly reported: “Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, tried to make the case that the economy remained strong despite the poor jobs report that was released today.”
Trump may wind up “delivering” on something we have not seriously worried about since the 1970s: stagflation. “A weakening labor market and elevated inflation is the toughest of combinations for the Fed to manage. It pits its two goals of low, stable inflation and a healthy labor market against one another and causes officials to have to make difficult trade-offs over which one to prioritize,” the Times explained.
Trump’s jobs/inflation/growth results are bad enough. But let’s not forget that the self-proclaimed real estate maven was supposed to make great deals for America. Unfortunately, while the grift, scams, and self-dealing parts of his personal portfolio seem to have paid handsomely, his record of public deals (a Qatari jet now in the shop, a series of failed Iran agreements, non-existent Gaza rebuilding plans) and botched projects in D.C. (ranging from the faulty helipad design to the Reflecting Pool debacle to his garish gold-flocked White House) have become testaments to his tacky taste and incompetence.
In the most spectacular mess, his leveling of the East Wing will remain an eyesore and national embarrassment indefinitely. The Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, by a 2-1 vote, held that of course he doesn’t have the power to unilaterally level the People’s House and try to scrounge up outside funds to pay for his monstrosity:
Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people. …
We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.
Congress is statutorily and constitutionally charged with the upkeep of and funding for the White House, and nothing Trump says can alter that.
Aside from that, Trump’s handiwork would be a visual abomination. “The Park Service determined that the project ‘would have permanent adverse impacts on the cultural landscape’ of President’s Park because the proposed ballroom would ‘depart[] from the traditional aesthetic values and architectural integrity’ of the White House complex,” the court wrote. As the court found:
The government’s Environmental Assessment also found that the ballroom “would disrupt the historical continuity of the White House grounds” because the “new building’s larger footprint and height would dominate the eastern portion of the site, creating a visual imbalance with the more modestly scaled West Wing and Executive Mansion. The planned second-story addition to the East Colonnade would exacerbate the asymmetry. According to the assessment, this discrepancy would “chang[e] the traditional spatial organization and sightlines of the grounds[.]” In combination, the proposed construction would “adversely alter the design, setting, and feeling of the White House and the grounds over the long-term.” … The Environmental Assessment further concluded that the proposed ballroom’s size would permanently alter the views of President’s Park for visitors in “certain locations, particularly Lafayette Square and portions of the Ellipse[.]” The Park Service added that “[t]he removal of the current East Wing” to build the ballroom “will result in a permanent adverse impact for those who value the experience of this specific space.”
The court all but called him a barbarian for his assertion that, for example, no one would be “injured by a decision to raze the Statue of Liberty, to obscure the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, or to install a political billboard atop Mount Rushmore ... [since p]eople wounded by the lost historical view could just ‘shift [their] gaze[.]’”
The court slammed Trump for “simply brush[ing] off the signification, emotion, meaning, and particularized value to individuals of witnessing certain places where their history happened, looking upon architectural marvels, reveling in sweeping landscapes, and viewing buildings, memorials, and monuments that tell the American story.”
The man has no taste, but he also has no power to conduct the world’s ugliest real estate makeovers. Because he lacks the ability or desire to consult with people who know what they are doing (and would do something other than enable his worst impulses) and to follow the rules that are inherent in government endeavors (follow due process, respect Congress’s powers, ensure public transparency, abide by open bidding rules, etc.), whatever he touches turns into a disaster zone.
Washington, D.C., is full of Trump’s wreckage, from the massive hole in the ground at the White House to the empty Reflecting Pool with a shredded tarp to a mound of toxic debris at a public golf course to a partially shrouded (and mostly shuttered) Kennedy Center. The president who was supposed to show us how business prowess could remake government has taken a wrecking ball not only to the capital but also to our economy. There is nothing “unexpected” about his streak of cringeworthy failures.
I believe what is happening is that his goal is the debasement of not only DC, but the US overall. He is destroying our cultural heritage because: a) he's pissed that he was held accountable for fraud and sexual assault; and b) because he truly despises a constitutional republic under the rule of law.
No one is mentioning the loss of 300,000 employees due to the termination of TPS status for that many Haitians. And who is going to give them food and housing while they wait to be deported? ICE?