Good morning and happy Monday to all who celebrate. The United Nations puts out a lot of reports. Their most recent work of art? A report that found, shockingly, nobody reads their other reports. In other “you don’t say…” news, the CEO of Jaguar is stepping down after the worst rebrand since, well, any of these. If anyone else is looking for a fun way to set a pile of cash on fire, you can donate money to the federal government here.

WHITE HOUSE

🏛️ Trump to build massive new ballroom at the White House

Depending on how you look at it, the White House is only 73 years old. Sure, it was built in the 1790s. But it was gutted down to the exterior walls and rebuilt in 1952 after a piano leg fell through the floor upstairs. Still, President Trump’s announcement that he’s building a humongous new ballroom is bound to be controversial.

The project: The White House announced on Thursday that construction will begin next month on what they're calling the "White House State Ballroom." This is a huge addition that will replace the existing East Wing, which the announcement called “small, heavily changed, and reconstructed.”

• The cost: $200 million, paid for by private donors, including Trump himself.

• The scope: 90,000 square feet of “ornately designed and carefully crafted space.” That’s substantially larger than the 55,000-square-foot central Residence

• The style: The addition will match the architecture of the current White House and, since it’ll sit off to the east, won’t affect the current building.

Why? Large events at the White House are typically held in the East Room, which can seat about 200 people for dinner. When they need something larger, they often build a temporary event tent on the South Lawn, which Trump considers unsightly (and bad for women in heels).

• The new space will contain a ballroom large enough for 650 people and, seemingly, office space below.

The soon-to-be-demolished East Wing is a small, two-story space built in 1942 that sits just east of the main White House Residence at the end of a long hallway (or colonnade). It’s home to the Office of the First Lady and the White House’s event planners and calligraphers. It’s also where tourists enter the building.

Can he just … do this? Pretty much, yeah. But Trump’s critics, as you might expect, aren’t fans of the project, its cost, its timing, or its effects on the White House complex. That said, the nonprofit White House Historical Association defended the addition, comparing it to previous changes that are now considered iconic parts of the White House.

• This is a good time to check out some of the wild expansion plans pushed by 19th-century presidents.

This won't be Trump’s first modification of the White House. He built a tennis pavilion in 2020 and just finished paving over the grassy center of the Rose Garden. But the man who spent his career as a real estate developer considers this ballroom project to be his “gift to the country” — and to future presidents.

GOVERNMENT

🌍️ The 22 countries that make up the Arab League signed a joint declaration last week condemning Hamas and calling for the group to disarm itself and end its rule over Gaza. All 27 members of the European Union also signed on. The declaration came during a United Nations conference (boycotted by the U.S.) that pushed for legal recognition of Palestine as a country. This is a big change for the world's Arab states, as many of them have working relationships with Hamas. The Arab League is a loose organization created in 1945 to increase economic cooperation among its members.

💪 Now that everyone's worried about iPad kids and rising childhood obesity rates, what's old is new again. President Trump signed an executive order reviving the Presidential Fitness Test. This was the mandatory test in PE that included push-ups, sit-ups, and the dreaded one-mile run. President Obama dumped it back in 2013 in favor of a voluntary version that focused more on individual progress over destroying your archenemy classmate in a footrace. The President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition will create an updated version for America's public schools.

🎙️ It's closing time for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The private, nonprofit company announced on Friday that it will close up shop after Congress cut its funding last month over longstanding accusations of liberal bias by conservative lawmakers. The company had been receiving about $1.1 billion in government funds each year. Most of that money was then forwarded to PBS and NPR. Thanks to private donations, both of those organizations will keep running, but many local affiliates are expected to shut down.

TRIVIA

As we mentioned above, the White House was completed in 1800, but many of its iconic elements are much newer. That includes the North and South Porticos, the East Wing, the Truman balcony, the entire top floor, the Rose Garden, and even the West Wing and Oval Office. In what year was the current Oval Office completed? 

Hint: FDR was president

ECONOMY

📊 Trump fires economist after bad jobs report

Well, that’s one way to get fired. Shortly after releasing bad July job growth numbers and revising some other recent months downward, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a new (temporary) commissioner.

Trump fired Commissioner of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer and blasted her as a Biden appointee who sucked at her job and "manipulated" the data "for political purposes." He promised to replace her with someone "someone much more competent and qualified."

• McEntarfer had served in the role since January 2024. She was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by a bipartisan 86-8 Senate vote.

• During Trump’s first term, McEntafer was a high-level economist at the Census Bureau.

• Unlike most high-level appointees, BLS chiefs don’t typically quit when a new president is sworn in.

The White House says McEntarfer had it coming after her agency kept screwing up the job data (more on that below). But opponents of the move say Trump killed the messenger for delivering bad news.

The numbers: According to a new BLS report, the U.S. economy added 73,000 jobs in July. That’s far below the 100,000 jobs economists expected. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly from 4.1% to 4.2%. To make matters even worse, the BLS revised the May and June numbers downward. Wayyyy downward.

• June's net gain of 147,000 jobs was cut all the way to 14,000.

• May's net gain of 144,000 jobs was slashed to just 19,000.

It wasn’t all bad news for the administration, though. The same BLS report noted that native-born Americans have ~2 million more jobs than they did a year ago, while foreign-born workers are down by ~500,000

Why so wrong? This phenomenon isn’t new. The BLS made constant negative revisions to good job numbers during Biden’s term, too. The agency calculates its data based on a huge survey of 560,000 businesses and says more accurate numbers take time as new info rolls in.

Elsewhere in the government, the independent federal watchdog agency is investigating Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who brought two criminal cases against Trump last year. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is responsible for ensuring federal employees don’t engage in partisan political activity.

BRIEFS

● El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele is wildly popular after cracking down on gangs, dramatically improving safety in what was once the world’s most violent country. Now his allies have removed term limits, paving the way for him to remain in power forever.

● Despite a 2024 campaign promise, the Trump White House has no plans to force health insurers to cover IVF. An administration official called expanding IVF access a "huge priority," but said mandating coverage would require an act of Congress.

● A federal appeals court is on the case as countries around the world face hefty new tariffs on exports to the U.S. starting Thursday. Pretty much everyone who didn’t negotiate a new deal (e.g., Japan, the U.K., and the EU) is getting rocked.

● A federal judge slammed Homeland Security for racism and blocked it from ending Temporary Protected Status for 60,000 illegal migrants. DHS had reclassified Honduras and Nicaragua as finally safe after a 1998 hurricane, making the migrants deportable.

● Critics are slamming a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo that tells anyone getting federal funding that they need to dump diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the DOJ says it’s enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws, which DEI programs allegedly violate.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Before Theodore Roosevelt built the first West Wing in 1902, most presidents worked out of what is now the Lincoln Bedroom (no, that wasn’t Abe’s bedroom). Teddy had too many kids for that and threw up a small office building off to the side.

President Taft expanded the West Wing and built the Oval Office in 1909 ... buuuut it caught fire in 1929. So President Franklin D. Roosevelt rebuilt it and added a shiny, new (relocated) version of the Oval Office in 1934.