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By Eli Okun |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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BREAKING: The Senate has passed the major Russia sanctions bill, named for and championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. After more than a year of negotiations, the bill ultimately sailed through in a lopsided 86-11 vote, which advocates hope will be enough momentum to push it down an uncertain path in the House.
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National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett put a positive spin on a dreary jobs report. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP |
JOBS DAY: President Donald Trump’s Teflon economy just got dinged. The labor market has looked like a source of some resilience this year, even as Americans’ struggle with wartime inflation incited a political backlash against Republicans. But the July jobs data released today provided an unwelcome surprise: Contrary to economists’ predictions that job creation had strengthened, the economy actually shed some 23,000 jobs last month, POLITICO’s Sam Sutton reports. Worse still, the tallies for May and June were revised downward by a collective 103,000, pointing to a longer spring/summer stretch of softness in the jobs market. The unemployment rate did fall to 4.1 percent, but that was principally due to more people giving up on the job hunt. The share of Americans who are employed or applying for jobs is now at the lowest point since the pandemic. Just as crucially, wage growth slid to 3.2 percent year over year — slower than the pace of inflation, which has risen due to the war with Iran. If salaries don’t keep up, life gets more expensive for Americans. The unexpected jobs stall was felt across a number of sectors, as government, leisure and hospitality, retail and finance contracted. Health care continued to be a rare source of growth, adding 22,000 new jobs.
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A message from Anthropic: Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant means financial pressure and moving parts. At Shy Bird, owner Eli Feldman uses Claude to help solve problems from kitchen organization to manager coaching, so he can give more to the people who make the restaurant run. Learn more. |
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New signs of employment weakness could change the calculus for the Fed’s interest rate decision-making. Though higher inflation had led some policymakers to advocate for raising rates, new signs of employment weakness on the other side of the equation might pump the central bank’s brakes. Another month of numbers will come in before the Fed’s next decision, but economists are bracing for more layoffs to show up due to the elimination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. That would be music to Trump’s ears. He told Punchbowl he’d prefer Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to lower interest rates to help juice the economy, though Trump lacked the vitriol he often reserved for former Chair Jerome Powell. But but but: Trump isn’t done going after the Fed. Despite losing at the Supreme Court, the White House told Lisa Cook in a letter this week it’s again considering trying to fire her from the central bank, ABC’s Katherine Faulders and colleagues report. Another legal battle could follow. It would be hard to find many other bright spots for Trump in today’s report, which reinforces the economic troubles that have driven his party’s political vulnerability in the midterms. But National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett put a positive spin on the news, casting it as a blip in an otherwise strong economy. The administration remains “very bullish,” Hassett said, “even when there’s numbers like today.” Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling likewise lauded “trillions of dollars of investments that are pouring into the United States.” If Trump has concerns about the midterms, he at least isn’t taking them personally. Many GOP voters are “angry at Republicans,” he told Punchbowl. “But they’re not angry at me.” Trump also acknowledged some of his voters may not turn out when he’s not on the ballot. And he said he will spend his $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest to help Republicans in the midterms — despite the fact he doesn’t have to. “I could spend it on pretty much anything I want,” he said. Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
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Pete Buttigieg talks AI wealth, 2028 and Democrats’ next chapter In the latest episode of On the Road, Jonathan Martin sits down with Pete Buttigieg in Traverse City for a conversation on the future of the Democratic Party, the Michigan Senate race, economic inequality and why Buttigieg says the next era of American politics will require bigger ideas.
Watch now. |
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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. CARTE BLANCHE: Todd Blanche is finally on his way to confirmation as permanent AG. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) today announced he’ll support Blanche, providing Republicans’ decisive 50th vote after defections from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). It’s a significant win for the White House, which worked hard to sway skeptical Republicans who recoiled from the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and Trump’s open politicization of law enforcement. Blanche should be on the glide path to confirmation before senators leave for recess. “The choice is not between perfection and Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “It is between Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not be as good as Blanche.” More from POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Riley Rogerson 2. BIG DREAMS: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told Semafor’s Burgess Everett he’s optimistic about expanding Democrats’ Senate map in a wave election to include long-shot targets Kansas and Mississippi. In the latter, Democrat Scott Colom’s allies are hoping to bolster Black voter turnout and boost him to about a quarter of the white vote, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Jackson. The state’s cheap media markets could make late-breaking national investments pretty easy. First in Playbook: A new internal poll for Adam Hamilton’s campaign in Kansas shows the Democratic nominee down 4 points (within the margin of error) to GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, who leads 47 percent to 43 percent, POLITICO’s Samuel Benson writes in. Notably, Trump’s favorability is 10 points underwater. The polling memo Not to be outdone, NRSC Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is eyeing offensive targets into blue territory: “Minnesota? Don’t sleep on Michele Tafoya,” he told Semafor. 3. THE SQUEEZE: “‘No escape’: Inside Rubio’s Cuba pressure campaign,” by Axios’ Marc Caputo: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio is waging an unprecedented economic war on Cuba — and wants to make sure the island’s communist leaders know it’s going to get worse. … Rubio told Axios that Cuba is playing for time by faking reforms while seeking ways to evade sanctions. ‘Every time they create a new mechanism in which they try to get out of the noose, we just close it off,’ Rubio said. ‘They certainly can’t wait us out. Certainly this isn’t going to go away for the next 2½ years.’”
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Introducing Canberra Playbook POLITICO is coming to Australia. Canberra Playbook, our new daily briefing on the people and power shaping federal politics, launches 17 August. Free, daily, in your inbox before Canberra's day starts.
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4. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Poll position: A new internal survey for Oliver Larkin, the democratic socialist primarying Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz in a Florida swing seat, finds Larkin only narrowly trailing, 38 percent to 40 percent. The Center for Strategic Politics surveyed 403 likely voters this week. The full poll The rising left: The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll finds strong support among independents for some progressive ideals, like raising taxes on the wealthy and universal government health care. At the same time, independents overall have a negative view of democratic socialism — though not as negative as they feel about MAGA — and one-third say communism is influencing the Democratic Party. The pushback: Socialism and progressives will be the stars — or boogeymen — of Republicans’ midterm convention next month, which intends to go hard on messaging that Democrats have been taken over by the far left, Axios’ Alex Isenstadt scooped. The GOP plans to focus heavily on figures like Abdul El-Sayed, Hasan Piker and James Talarico, playing video footage of past remarks to try to convince voters who’ve soured on Trump that the alternative is worse. There will also be talk of tax cuts, the border, fighting fraud and MAHA. 5. UNDER THE RADAR: “‘Build it in Mar-a-Lago!’ Trump’s aluminum smelter upends Oklahoma governor’s race,” by Reuters’ Ernest Scheyder: “Trump’s push to build the Western Hemisphere’s largest aluminum smelter in rural Oklahoma has divided the state’s Republican voters and emerged as a key issue in the contentious race … ‘I’m not going to let it be built,’ Gentner Drummond, the state’s attorney general, said at a candidate forum last month with his opponent, former state Senator Mike Mazzei. … It became a major campaign issue in May after Trump endorsed Mazzei for the June 16 gubernatorial primary. Mazzei had opposed the smelter until the day Trump endorsed him.” 6. PLAYBOOK PREVIEW: Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas) are this week’s guests on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” with Playbook’s Dasha Burns, where the two lawmakers discuss Congress’ role in the war with Iran and whether a peace deal is still a possibility. “You need to come to the American people if you wish to deploy our troops in harm’s way,” Krishnamoorthi said. “The current hostilities are illegal, because it hasn’t been done in that way.” Sessions said he agreed “with almost everything, except the word ‘illegal.’” He added: “The plan about ‘winning the war,’ I think, is an old idea.” Watch the clip
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A message from Anthropic:  
Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant comes with pressure. At Shy Bird, Claude helps Eli Feldman do more for his team. Learn more. |
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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STRICTLY BALLROOM — A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 to block President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, though the ruling is paused for two weeks to give Trump a chance to take this to the Supreme Court, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. If the decision stands, Trump would have to stop construction. The judges said Trump couldn’t undertake such a transformation without lawmakers’ green light. “Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House — the People’s House — to fit a particular President’s desires,” the judges wrote. POOL REPORT — “How the Reflecting Pool Came to Mirror Trump’s Washington,” by NYT’s Maxine Joselow and colleagues: “[T]he pool, which was supposed to reflect the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, became a striking reflection instead of the second Trump administration’s willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth tellers in service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital.” TRANSITIONS — Victor Shi is now director of comms for the Alliance for Local Leaders International. He previously worked for the Committee for the First Amendment, and is a Harris campaign and Voters of Tomorrow alum. … Matthew Swift is transitioning out of his role as president and CEO of Concordia and will become executive chair. He will devote more time to his strategic advisory firm Montfort Group. Rodney Ferguson, former CEO of Winrock International, will take over as head of Concordia. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook PM misspelled Kaitlan Collins’ name.
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