Friday on the RealClearPolitics radio show, Andrew Walworth, Tom Bevan, and Carl Cannon consider the latest jobs data from the Department of Labor, new Russiagate documents published by Sen. Chuck Grassley, and President Trump’s plan to pave over the White House Rose Garden to build a new ballroom. Plus, the weekly “You Can Not Be Serious?!” roundup of surprising headlines from this week. And then, RCP White House reporter Phil Wegmann interviews Neera Tanden, a Biden senior advisor and president of the Center for American Progress, about how the administration failed to address the “crisis” at the border and her testimony before the House Oversight Committee about the controversial use of the presidential “autopen.” You can listen to the show weeknights at 6:00 p.m. on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124 and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** First, the gang looks at the Labor Department’s July jobs report, which showed not only slowing growth last month but major downward revisions to figures from the past several months. Who can we blame for this slowdown? ICE enforcement, AI, tariffs, interest rates? “These downward revisions are mystifying,” Bevan said. “I would like to see a good explanation for how and why the government does this, and how you can have these kinds of significant revisions that completely change the picture of what was reported as reality over the last couple of months.” “The good news is the Labor Department was not partisan. These bureaucrats and deep-state economists were not cooking the books to help Biden,” Cannon said. “The bad news is they’re just incompetent.” *** Next, around minute 10, Sen. Chuck Grassley published newly declassified documents that the Trump administration says implicate the 2016 Clinton campaign of coordinating with the FBI, President Obama, and the Open Society Foundation to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset by leaking to friendly media outlets. Do the documents say what Trump allies are saying they do? “There’s a reference in there that Barack Obama had instructed that he was not going to let his legacy be tarnished by having Clinton’s campaign fail, and had basically told the FBI to use whatever levers are necessary to get this information out,” Tom Bevan commented. “It implicates everybody, and people who are suggesting otherwise, I think, are either being disingenuous or in denial.” “I understand why Barack Obama did not want to be succeeded by Donald Trump. I get that,” Cannon said. “But to use the FBI in that way, it’s a scandal and a crime. And if Obama had anything to do with this, that’s what’s tarnished his legacy.” *** And then at minute 13:30, President Trump wants to build a “Big, Beautiful Ballroom” on the White House grounds, on the former site of the Rose Garden. The plan is to break ground next month on a new $ 200 million building that can hold more than twice as many guests as the East Room. “He had apparently offered to build this for Obama,” Andrew Walworth said. “He’s been talking about building this for 15 years now.” “He’s already turned the Oval Office into this thing that would make Louis XIV blush. All this gold everything, it’s the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Cannon lamented. “And then to counter that, he’s erected these enormous American flags. They’re American, but they don’t look like anything in the White House. They look like a rural car dealership.” “I think this is the revenge of Roy Cohn. I think somehow this is aimed at the Kennedys,” added Cannon. *** In the next segment, starting at minute 18:20, our regular Friday “You Can Not Be Serious?!” roundup of the most outrageous or surprising stories of the week. Tom Bevan highlighted ABC’s Jon Karl entirely dismissing everything published by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about “Russiagate.” Carl Cannon reminded us of the Cincinnati city council member who reacted to the viral video of a mob attack on a couple by essentially saying they had it coming. Andrew Walworth closed with a happy example of government competence from the DMV in Annapolis. *** Finally, at minute 18, former Biden White House senior advisor Neera Tanden talks to RCP’s Phil Wegmann about how the administration failed to stop a “crisis” on the border and her testimony before the House Oversight Committee about the “autopen.” You can read more about the interview here or skip straight to the part where Wegmann asks about the “autopen” here. *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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