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- [00:00]
Maddie
Hi, it's Maddie from After Myths, Misdeeds.
- [00:03]
Ari Weitzman
And the Paranormal on the Most Terrifying Places in America.
- [00:08]
Maddie
Travel with ghost hunters, psychics and historians as they uncover the chilling truth behind America's paranormal hotspots.
- [00:18]
John
From a haunted hotel in New England.
- [00:20]
Maddie
To a Texas warship where the dead still walk the decks. It's a podcast that's part cross country.
- [00:27]
Ari Weitzman
Road trip, part ghost tour.
- [00:30]
Maddie
Listen to Most Terrifying Places in America wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:35]
Isaac Saul
Why Choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed.
- [00:36]
Ari Weitzman
Can I make my site softer? Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:41]
Isaac Saul
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- [01:05]
Darina
Hi, I'm Darina, co founder of OpenPhone. My dad is a business owner and growing up, I'll never forget his old ringtone. He made it as loud as it could go because he could not afford to miss a single customer call. That stuck with me when we started OpenPhone. Our mission was to help businesses not just stay in touch, but make every customer feel valued, no matter when they might call. OpenPhone gives your team business phone numbers to call and text customers all through an app on your phone or computer. Your calls, messages and contacts live in one workspace so your team can stay fully aligned and reply faster. And with our AI agent answering 24. 7, you'll really never miss a customer. Over 60,000 businesses use OpenPhone. Try it now and get 20% off your first six months@openphone.com business and we can port your existing numbers over for free. OpenPhone no missed calls, no missed customers.
- [02:10]
Maddie
From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.
- [02:24]
John
Good morning, good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle Podcast. The place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of our take. I'm Tango Managing Editor Ari Weitzman giving you what the people wanted, which is for us to try to take some occasional breaks to maintain our sustainability towards this project. So Isaac's off today. Instead you're getting me, so I'm gonna do my best to fill in. I'll be giving the take for today and we'll be reading down the podcast. I'm sure in the future there'll be times when I'm not here. And when that happens, it's the times that the newsletter feels off that should probably be an indication that I'm not there. But today, big shoes to fill. We're gonna get right into it, starting, unfortunately with a correction in Thursday's edition on Emil Bove's federal judgeship confirmation. We refer to U.S. deputy Attorney General and Donald Trump's former personal attorney Blanche, as a lifelong Republican in the My Take section of the newsletter. In fact, Blanche was a registered Democrat as recently as 2022 and he only switched the registration to Republican in January of 2024. Isaac was emphasizing Blanche's relationship with Trump in the My take and he crossed his wires with Blanche's politics. Then the rest of our editing team missed the detail and fact checking, so apologies for that. I was on that day, so I am responsible, as is the rest of our team. This is our 142nd correction in Tangles 313 week history and our first correction since July 21st. We track corrections and place them at the top of the podcast in an effort to maximize transparency with our listeners. A couple other quick housekeeping items before moving on. So this is going to be our last full week of coverage before we go off to break. Next week, Senate and House will be on recess, so we're going to take a little bit of a break and give you all a little bit of a break too, so we can all sustainably try to be a part of this project known as Being Informed as much as we can. We will be back next month, the Monday after, but we're going to stay on for the rest of the week. You'll get full coverage as usual. And on this Friday, Tangle will be giving its State of the Tango update where Isaac's going to catch us all up on things that have happened over the last year and let you know how Tangles doing as a business and what you can expect moving forward. That will have some exciting announcements baked into it. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it'll be a big week for us. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to pass it over to John for a quick hit and today's main topic. Then I'll be back for my take.
- [05:10]
Ari Weitzman
Thanks Ari and welcome everybody. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It's a new week, which means new possibilities. As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, you don't have to see the whole staircase, you just have to take the first step. So if there's anything you've been wanting to do, but you've had a little hesitation. Take that first step today. Try and take a step forward into the goals that you've been wanting to achieve. That could be as simple as putting your words to paper or taking a first actionable step. So take advantage of the possibilities. And as always, let's bring the best of ourselves to this world and see what kind of a positive difference we can make. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, a group of Democrats in Texas State House left the state in an attempt to block a vote on a new congressional map expected to give Republicans five additional seats in the U.S. house in the 2026 midterm elections. The departures deprived the chamber of a quorum, which is necessary to conduct legislative business. Number two Hamas said it would not agree to disarm as part of a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza unless the agreement guarantees the creation of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Separately, Hamas released footage that shows Israeli hostage Eviatar David emaciated and digging what could be his own grave. David's family approved the public release of the video and called for renewed efforts to save the hostages. Number three the search for a man suspected of shooting and killing four people at a bar in Anaconda, Montana. Killing continued into a fourth day. Authorities say the suspect is believed to still be armed and dangerous. The Federal Reserve announced Governor Adriana Kugler will retire on August 8, creating a vacancy on the Board of governors. And number five roughly 3200 Boeing machinists in the St. Louis area went on strike after rejecting the company's latest contract offer.
- [07:11]
Maddie
White House economic advisers are defending President Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erica McIntyre, on Friday. Trump's move came hours after a stunning government report showed hiring had slowed significantly over the past three months, with the US adding just 73,000 jobs in July. Deep revisions to the previous two months now indicate that the job market is considerably worse than previously thought, with the US only adding 19,000 jobs in May compared to the initial report of 144,000 and only 14,000 in June. After an initial report of 147,000 on.
- [07:45]
Ari Weitzman
Friday, President Donald Trump fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erica McIntarfer, after the agency released a lower than expected July jobs report and revised May and June's numbers downwards. The BLS reported that non farm payrolls increased by 73,000 in July, below Dow Jones estimated gain of 100,000 jobs jobs. Furthermore, the BLS revised the initial non farm payroll employment for May down by 125,000 from 144,000 to 19,000, and also revised June's total downward by 133,000 from 147,000 to plus 14,000. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2% from 4.1% in June. For context, the BLS is the agency within the Labor Department responsible for measuring market activity, working conditions, price changes and productivity in the US Economy. Every month, the bureau compiles an employment report from a monthly survey of about 631,000 work sites selected to represent all U.S. employers. President Joe Biden nominated former Commissioner McIntofer to lead the BLS as Commissioner of labor statistics in July 2023 and the Senate voted 86. 8 to confirm her in January 2024. A BLS spokesperson said that Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski will serve as acting commissioner until a new commissioner is Jobs reports are routinely revised from month to month as BLS receives additional information from businesses and government agencies, but May's and June's revisions were larger than normal. The lower than expected job totals for July, combined with the significant downward revisions from previous month's reports, prompted concern among economists that the US Job market is weaker than previously thought. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump claimed that MacIntoffer had faked the jobs numbers before the election to try and boost Kamala's chances of victory and adding important numbers like this must be fair and accurate. They can't be manipulated for political purposes. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez Durmer voiced support for MacIntarfer's removal. In a post on Bluesky, McIntorfer called serving as BLS commissioner the honor of my life, but did not comment directly on her firing. However, former BLS Commissioner William beach, who was nominated for the role by President Trump in 2017, criticized the decision, saying that McIntarfer's firing undermines credibility in the statistical reporting system. Today, we'll explore reactions from the left and the right to the latest jobs numbers and MacIntarfer's firing. Then managing Editor Ari Weitzman and Senior Editor Will Kabak will give their take.
- [10:30]
Isaac Saul
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- [12:44]
Ari Weitzman
All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left strongly criticizes McIntyre's firing, suggesting it emphasizes Trump's authoritarian instincts. Some say the jobs report revisions show the economy in a precarious position. Others say future jobs reports can no longer be trusted under Trump's appointee. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Chaitz said Trump shoots the messenger. MacIntarfer's unpardonable sin was to oversee the routine release of BLS jobs data. This morning's report showed that job growth last month fell somewhat short of expectations. The more interesting and to Trump, unwelcome information came in its revisions, which found that previous months had much low job growth than previous estimates, Chait wrote. Economists had been puzzling over the economy's resilience despite Trump's imposition of staggering tariffs. Now that we have the revised data, that resilience appears to have largely been a mirage. Trump's deeper confusion is his apparent belief that reported job numbers are what matter to him politically. He is obsessed with propaganda and has had phenomenal success manipulating the media and bullying his party into repeating even his most fantastical lies, chait said. But as Biden and Kamala Harris learned the hard way, voters don't judge the economy on the basis of jobs reports. They judge it on the basis of how they and their community are doing. You can't fool the public with fake numbers into thinking the economy is better than it is. All fake numbers can do is make it harder for policymakers to steer the economy. In the Washington Post, Julian Berman wrote about the bleak economic picture emerging from the jobs numbers. Three quarters of the added jobs were in just one sector, healthcare. Along with the lower numbers, this suggests that America is starting to see the effects of Trump's tariffs ripple through the economy, Berman said. Sectors such as manufacturing rely on global supply chains to provide raw materials and partssteel, aluminum, machinery and so on that they turn into finished products. When tariffs raise the costs of these input materials, businesses have an incentive to scale back. Then investment declines and hiring slows. Add to this the growth estimates from the first half of the year, which show a slowdown in both overall consumption and investment, and a bleak picture comes into focus. The American economy is losing steam, berman wrote. Whether a fall in rates would soften the blow is another question. Next month, the Labor Department will release its annual benchmark revision, a once a year adjustment that matches the monthly job survey data to more complete payroll records. If past trends hold, the jobs numbers could be revised downward even further, suggesting that the labor market has been weaker than realized for some time. In his substack, Robert Reich called Trump's firing of MacIntarfer irresponsible. I spent much of the 1990s as Secretary of Labor. One unit of the Labor Department is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was instructed by my predecessors as well as by the White House and by every labor economist and statistician I came in contact with that one of my cardinal responsibilities was to guard the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Otherwise this crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy would be compromised if politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information, reichs said. So what does Trump do? In one fell swoop on Friday, he essentially destroyed the credibility of the bls. How can anyone in the future trust the information that emerges from the Bureau of Labor Statistics when the person in charge of the agency has to come up with data to Trump's liking in order to stay in the job? They cannot, reich wrote. Trump is in the process of trying to do the same with the Federal Reserve, demanding that Jerome Powell, the Fed's chair, cut interest rates. Trump is even threatening Powell with a trumped up expose of Trump's supposed extravagance in refurbishing the Fed as a means of forcing Powell to do his bidding or resigning. What happens to the Fed's credibility if Powell gives in to Trump? It evaporates. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying. Which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right see the jobs numbers as a minor deviation from an overall robust economic picture. Some suggest the economy is flashing warning signs and saying firing macintar for it won't help. Others argue the jobs report shows Trump is succeeding in revitalizing the native U.S. workforce, the Washington examiner editorial board wrote The Trump economy is delivering for American workers. Employers may have added just 73,000 jobs in the month of July, according to the latest Labor Department jobs report published Friday. But that same survey found that the number of native born workers with jobs rose by 383,000, bringing the total number of native born jobs gained to over 2 million since President Donald Trump took office. All this while real wages and household income are rising too, the board said. Many economists predicted that Trump's tariffs would cause inflation and even a recession. Those predictions have been proven wrong. Inflation is falling under Trump while the economy is growing, albeit at a measured pace. Consumer sentiment is up. Housing starts and permits are rising even while sales of existing homes fall thanks to high interest rates. While both personal income and personal savings rates are rising, the board wrote. The top line numbers may not be obviously impressive. A mere 70,000 jobs gained in July and the unemployment rate ticking up to 4.2% don't sound like a booming economy. But those numbers don't capture the underlying churn taking place. Instead of an economy dependent on a mass influx of illegal immigrant labor, Trump is building an economy where native born workers get the jobs they deserve at wages that can support a family, the Wall Street Journal editorial board said. The Trump economy stumbles President Trump has now imposed his new tariff regime on the world, and the triumphalism is palpable in Magaland. But maybe hold the euphoria, as this week's reports on jobs and the economy suggest. The new golden age may take a while to appear, the board wrote. The details in the report provide little solace. The jobs rate ticked up only to 4.25% from 4.1%, but that was in part because the labor force continued to shrink. The labor participation rate fell again to 62.2% and is now down half a percentage point in a year. Mr. Trump seems to understand that the jobs report signals trouble because on Friday he ordered the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He claims the numbers are being politically manipulated but offered no proof. BLS has its problems, but the timing suggests he's shooting the messenger. There are bound to be monthly revisions when tariff and deportation policies are so volatile in American greatness. Roger Kimball questioned the left's premature celebration over jobs data. There are essentially two things to be said about this jobs report. First, notwithstanding the toxins of anti Trump fury, the report really wasn't that bad. The left seized on it as one shred of possibly lukewarm economic news in the midst of an ocean of upbeat news. The deals with countries across the globe, the taming of inflation, unemployment hovering just above 4%, and the billions of dollars already realized through Trump's tariffs. It presents a very robust picture overall, kimball wrote. Senator John Kennedy got it right when he noted that this jobs report isn't perfect, but I wouldn't trade America's economy today for that of any other country, thanks to President Trump. Second, it is important to place it in the context of the larger shift in the US Economy that Trump is endeavoring to bring about. The tariffs, the America first rhetoric and policies, and the twin initiatives to seal the border and deport the people who are here illegally. All this is part of an effort to reorient the US Economy away from the sugar high of globalist debt and spending and back to the ethic of made in America. Kimball said the policies designed to encourage the return of manufacturing to the US Will help whittle at the gargantuan federal debt now approaching $37 trillion and also put upward pressure on the wages of US workers. Alright, let's send it over to Ari for his take.
- [21:17]
John
Tango Managing Editor Ari Weitzman again here for the My take today, which I wrote with significant contribution from Senior Editor Will Kbach. So shout out to Will here too. Start by saying that President Trump is understandably frustrated by July's job report, but both Will and I found his decision to fire the Commissioner of Labor Statistics to be an impulsive and counterproductive move. The headline could really write itself, but today the Atlantic wrote it Trump shoots the Messenger, End Quote. Personally, I had a knee jerk reaction after I read Trump's post on Truth Social and as I dug into the story, the first couple things I learned only confirmed my priors. First, Trump said he would replace McIntar with someone more competent and qualified, end quote. But if either of those qualities were in question at all, then they would have come up before The Senate confirmed her 868 last January. She hasn't become unqualified since then. And Trump hasn't convinced me that McIntarfer suddenly became incompetent after assuming the role either. Second, Trump railed against the BLS for releasing optimistic job numbers under the Biden Harris administration that would later be revised down as proof of bias in favor of the former president. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who voted to confirm MacIntyre for last year, said the same thing in August when when the initial numbers were Revised down by 81,000. Similar down road revisions can't logically be proof of bias in favor of the former president as well as bias against the current president. And if BLS were cooking the numbers, why release friendly preliminary reports at all? Further undermining Trump's claim is the fact that the jobs report before the 2024 election showed very moderate jobs gains about 12,000 added and revised the job totals from September and August down a combined 12,000. If the BLS was in the bag for the Democrats, how would releasing that report which showed a downturn on the eve of the election, help them? The logic just doesn't make sense. So I simply don't buy the argument coming from this administration that the jobs numbers are being faked. The evidence presented in support of the argument isn't proof of a statistical hit job. It's more proof of the BLS following normal procedure and updating its numbers and improving the accuracy of its projections over time. However, it is still possible that broader data could justify macintar's dismissal, even if Trump's stated reasoning is unconvincing. So let's get into some of that broader data. In the newsletter, we post a chart that shows the relative difference between BLS's initial survey of total US jobs gains or losses and its final revised total for every month of 2025. So far, the date is corroborated by the BLS's own reports, and it looks pretty convincing. The trend is pretty obvious. Since the start of Trump's term, the numbers are only being revised in one direction, which is down, and the initial estimates are, with one exception, increasingly getting worse. However, it's still possible that the broader Data could justify MacIntarfer's dismissal, even if Trump's stated reasoning is unconvincing. So let's into some of that data. According to the BLS's own reports, we see an obvious trend so far this year. Since the beginning of Trump's terms, the monthly numbers have only been revised downward, and other than in April, when they were fairly accurate, the estimates have only been getting worse every month. Now, taking a step back, we can look at the difference between the initial numbers and the final numbers for every month since 2008, and we see in context a bit of a different trend. When I look at the data here, there are two things that stand out to me right away. First is how evident the 2008 Great Recession, the pandemic drop and the post pandemic recovery are in the data you can see revisions from 2008 are monthly lower and lower. The revisions immediately following the pandemic are a giant spike down, and then the post pandemic recovery several spikes in the positive direction. And given what we know about how this data is collected, that actually makes sense. BLS surveys about 631,000 work sites for their employment data as of the 12th of each month. Then every month they revise those numbers as more data comes in. The corrections to the jobs report in 2008 were likely caused by numbers that continue to decrease throughout consecutive months, while reports late in 2021 shown economy actively adding jobs as it rebounded from the pandemic. The second thing that stands out when you look at the data is that these numbers are pretty hard to get right the first time, aside from a period of relatively small revisions that coincided with a period of relative stability at the end of Obama's term and the beginning of Trump's first term. Since 2008, the BLS has routinely revised its monthly jobs estimates by tens of thousands every month, and the job seems to only be getting harder. National Review's Dominic Pinot wrote a thorough breakdown of the complex work that goes into producing these reports, noting how variables like seasonal employment patterns, self employment and new and shuttered businesses make creating an accurate snapshot of the economy on the first try quite difficult. Furthermore, the response rate to BLS surveys has dipped since the pandemic. Ironically, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick fire the team of people who help us know how many people are getting fired, and that's making it even more difficult to get initial accurate estimates. To put it bluntly, we're getting a picture of a struggling job market from a bureau that itself is struggling thanks to July's report. We know the job market is on uncertain footing and that the only two sectors that are showing healthy job gains are healthcare and social assistance, two sectors that are very reliant on government spending. Conversely, employment and industries that Trump is trying to boost with tariffs, Reed manufacturing have been hit hard since May. Manufacturing, wholesale trade and retail trade, three sectors most sensitive to tariff policies, have lost jobs. Meanwhile, both the rates of non farm hiring and workers quitting their jobs are steadily decreasing, which shows a labor market that's getting tighter and tighter and tighter. Apart from the labor market, however, the economic picture is actually quite rosy. GROSS Domestic product increased 3% in Q2, consumer spending continues to tick up, unemployment remains low and stable, and inflation is continuing to moderate. A few disappointing jobs reports don't make for a five alarm fire, but they are still concerning, and dismissing the person who oversaw them does nothing to change the underlying economic reality. This doesn't totally exonerate MacIntarfer either. While moderate revisions are normal, revisions in the hundreds of thousands are historically more unusual. And it's fair to question whether the BLS is doing enough to address the source of these misses. Even if the explanation for the misses is likely apolitical. BLS couldn't have missed the mark for several months on end at a worse time politically, as more accurate numbers could have changed the Fed's decision to not cut rates at its last meeting, or moderated Trump's aggressiveness in sending new tariffs. It's a bit like skipping a stop at a gas station because your fuel gauge says you've got half a tank only to realize the gauge was broken and you're a ways off from the nearest station. Of course, in that analogy, fixing the problem requires addressing the malfunction in the system. It can't be done by putting a smile on your face sticker over the gauge instead. That's what this firing sort of feels like, depending on who Trump replaces McIntarfer with. It looks like a case of Trump injecting us versus them politics into another arena that could really benefit from reasonable discussion. Whoever takes the role next will still be attempting a very difficult task with dwindling resources, but now with the addition of a white hot spotlight of the political culture war beating down on them.
- [29:39]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [29:45]
Paige
This is Paige, the co host of Giggly Squad. I use Uber Eats for everything and I feel like people forget that you can truly order anything, especially living in New York City. It's why I love it. You can get Chinese food at any time of night, but it's not just for food. I order from CVS all the time. I'm always ordering from the grocery store. If a friend stops over, I have to order champagne. I also have this thing that whenever I travel, if I'm ever in a hotel room, I never feel like I'm missing something because I'll just Uber Eats it. The amount of times I've had to Uber Eats hair items like hairspray, deodorant, you name it, I've ordered it on Uber Eats. You can get grocery alcohol everyday essentials in addition to restaurants and food you love. So in other words, get almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now for alcohol. You must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
- [30:46]
Maddie
This is Mike. Mike's stuck in traffic.
- [30:50]
John
The only thing that could make this.
- [30:51]
Maddie
Worse is if he promised to cook.
- [30:53]
Paige
His date dinner at 8, which he did.
- [30:56]
Maddie
But it's now 7:30 and he's still on the 5. Good thing Mike has Grubhub plus with Prime.
- [31:03]
Paige
Zero dollar delivery fees, zero stress, zero rush.
- [31:07]
Maddie
Dinner's covered and so is his reputation.
- [31:11]
Paige
Free Grubhub plus it's on prime additional.
- [31:13]
John
Terms and fee supply. All right, so that's it for my take. Which brings us to your questions answered. This one comes from Camila from Brazil. She asks, I really appreciate the content that Taggle provides and find it very useful to understand the political issues from both perspectives. Why thank you, Camila. I would love to hear more about Trump's tariff war with Brazil and his attempt to interfere with their legal investigation of former President Bors. How much power does Trump really have on this matter? Can he really deny visas to all Supreme Court justices who are involved in Bolsonaro's trial? What do we know about Bolsonaro's trial? Great question. As a quick catch up, President Trump ordered tariffs from 10 to 41% to be imposed on 69 countries beginning on August 7, including a 10% levy on Brazil. However, separate from that executive order, Trump also ordered an additional 40% tariff on the South American country for a net 50% baseline import duty. The order also revoked the visas of Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morellas, his allies on the court, and their immediate family members for purportedly enabling human rights violations against Brazilians and free speech violations against Americans. Unlike the other countries under his reciprocal tariffs order, Trump is not tariffing Brazilian imports to address a purport trade deficit. The United States actually has a trade surplus with Brazil. Instead, Trump has issued the tariffs in response to the country's prosecution of former Brazilian President Yair Bolsonaro, an alleged silencing of his supporters, which Trump has likened to human rights abuses and claims as a national security threat to the United States. Bolsonaro is a Trump ally, and Trump has maintained that the prosecution is a witch hunt. How much power does Trump have on this matter? Setting foreign policy is within the purview of the president, but courts are still determining if he can claim the power to unilaterally tariff countries by declaring an emergency. The president may not have that legal authority, and in a few months or weeks, Trump may not be able to wield tariffs as a foreign policy tool at all. Can he deny visas to these judges? Maybe the president can suspend entry to any aliens he deems detrimental to the interests of the United States, which does match the language Trump used in his executive order. However, that authority has limits. For instance, it can't be issued under a, quote, arbitrary or capricious standard. The Supreme Court clarified one of these limits and Kleinedine's first Mandal in 1972, in which the court ruled that the government could deny entry to avowed communists as long as the state could reasonably claim a fashion legitimate and bona fide reason in the national interest for their denial. If the administration can pass that legal test, then they can deny those visas. What do we know about the Bolsonaro trial? The ex president of Brazil faces 40 years in prison for allegedly organizing an attempted coup and plotting to murder the current president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and a Supreme Court justice. If you want to read more about that trial, we recommend the coverage from our friends over at Global Post who have been all over the place. So that's it for our listener question today. I'm going to send it back over to John for the rest of the podcast and I will be back here some point in the future. You'll have Isaac again tomorrow. You'll hear from me probably soon. Have a good one.
- [34:54]
Ari Weitzman
Thanks Ari. Here's your under the radar story for today folks. The Trump administration is reportedly planning a five year experiment to cover GLP1 weight loss drugs under Medicare and Medicaid. GLP1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and others have surged in popularity in recent years as a treatment for obesity, but Medicare and Medicaid typically only cover them for patients with type 2 diabetes. Now, the administration's proposed plan would give state Medicaid programs and Medicare Part D insurance plans the ability to choose whether to expand coverage for the drugs to weight management purposes. The program is tentatively expected to start in April 2026 for Medicaid and January 2027 for Medicare plans. The Washington Post has this story and there's a link in today's episode Description alright, next up is our numbers section. The approximate total number of non farm jobs in the US economy as of July is 163.1 million. The approximate total number of non farm jobs in the US economy in July 2024 was 1.61.2 million, according to the CME FedWatch tool. The odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its September meeting as of Wednesday before the July jobs report was released was 37.7%. The odds on Friday after the jobs report was released that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its September meeting was 69.2%. The response rate to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment statistics survey in March 2017 was 63%. The response rate to the CES survey in March 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, was 42.6%. Gallup's economic index score, which measures Americans assessment of the economy from minus 100 to 100, was minus 26 in October 2024. Gallup's economic index score in June 2025 was minus 14. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. After surviving a combat injury in Vietnam and struggling with ptsd, retired Marine Colonel Scott Harrison kept envisioning a carousel in a mountain meadow, an image totally opposite of where people are trying to kill each other. In 1986, he bought a broken down carousel and spent 26 years carving new animals by hand. Today, his creation, the Carousel of Happiness in Nederland, Colorado, has brought joy to over a million visitors. I started out trying to treat myself and then it just changed into something that I could do for others, harrison said. CBS News has this story and there's a link in Today's episode Description all right everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, Please go to retangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Ari, Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'.
- [37:52]
John
All.
- [37:53]
Ari Weitzman
Peace.
- [37:54]
Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive Producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will Kbach and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tango and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.
- [38:34]
Maddie
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