AFGE President Everett Kelley Responds to Trump Job Loss Numbers

0:00Ben Meiselas:Fox News was in a complete and utter panic mode based on the job numbers that came out on Friday, well below expectations. Also, a downward revision from the May and June months of about 258 ,000 less jobs than the government initially reported. This is like the worst jobs report during some of the worst days of COVID. And if you want to look for a jobs report that was, you know, the next worst right around then, you're talking about right around the recession, like 2009, 2010, kind of that period, getting out of that recession. But, you know, Fox is trying to figure out how do they grapple with this because they've been lying to their viewers and saying, oh, everything's great.

0:44Ben Meiselas:The tariffs aren't impacting any things. The doge cuts aren't impacting any things that we've been saying. follow the data like it's not good out there in the job market as the Trump regime continued to report, oh, 147 ,000 jobs created. I'm like, they're just making that number up. Wait till you see the revisions. And sure enough, that's what we saw. So Fox brings on Lori Chavez-Dorema, the anti-labor secretary, although she calls herself the labor secretary. And she's there and says, look, I know the numbers are bad, but at least we're putting America first, right? This is America first. Here, Watch this.

1:20Ben Meiselas:The president has done a wonderful job in these trade deals. We're seeing more and more countries come to the table. And this is another leg of the stool that can be assisting the American worker in the American business. And he's choosing not to do so. We need those interest rates down so that our businesses can borrow more money at a cheaper rate and invest in their companies, invest in the American economy and grow this economy even better. We've seen positive job growth. We have seen consumer confidence go up. We've seen unemployment hold steady. While we could have seen better jobs numbers right now, we're seeing American workers are being put first.

1:54Ben Meiselas:Native born workers account for all of the job growth. And that's key. And the president is going to lean in. You can almost see her like, like she knows she's like almost like laughing at us. Like we're putting America first, though. Right, Donald. And everything she's saying is just an absolute absolute lie. Here was the segment right before that, when Maria Bartiromo and the group of people on her panel reacted to what the job numbers were. And they were kind of stunned into silence. But there's nothing stunning about this. It's obvious what Trump's doing here. Play this clip. The Nasdaq down about 200 going.

2:31Ben Meiselas:73 ,000 jobs. 73 ,000 jobs created in the month of July. Number just coming out. And that's total. 4.2 % of the unemployment rate right in line with expectations. Here are the numbers. For the month of July, jobs came in at 73 ,000. That was lower than the expectation, which called for 110 ,000 jobs. The unemployment rate right in step with expectations at 4.2%. Steve Moore, your reaction? Look, I think this is all a result, this disappointing number is a result of all the turmoil over tariffs and trade wars. By the way, the 4.2 percent unemployment number, in my opinion, also seems like one of those Trump regime fake numbers.

3:15Ben Meiselas:If you just add up the numbers, it doesn't make sense that it would just be 4.2 percent. But, you know, the Trump regime keeps sending more and more people to go on and lie like you have. Remember, they said they were going to do 90 deals in 90 days. And now their new line is when Donald Trump just sets the tariff, that's better than a deal. And so we actually have a better situation. So here's Jameson Greer, the trade representative, saying, no, we did all the deals because Trump set the tariffs. And those are better than deals. Right. Here play this clip. So can you encapsulate where you are on the trade deals and what we should expect to come as of today?

3:54Ben Meiselas:Sure. So first of all, like you pointed out, for dozens and dozens and dozens of countries, we have tariffs at 15 percent and above, some as high as 50 percent. You know, China, with all the tariffs on top, is well over 50 percent. So these are the highest level of tariffs that we've seen. And this is a great deal for the country. And the president has also agreed that if a country has another plan where we could have some level of tariff, but also some investment and purchases and market opening, that we can have some deals. And so you already know about a bunch of deals we have, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, EU, etc.

4:29Ben Meiselas:There are others available if the president wants them. At some point, his view is maybe a tariff is better than a deal. So we certainly have some in the offing if he wants them. But we're very focused on making sure we can protect American manufacturing and be able to reduce our trade deficits. You're not protecting American manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs are down. There are no deals because there's no piece of paper behind them. There's not a single binding deal that exists. And how do I know that? Because I haven't seen a single deal on paper in all the countries where you claim you made deals say that there's no binding agreement like in Japan, the European Union, South.

5:08Ben Meiselas:Where's the piece of paper? Tariffs are better than deals. I don't even know what they're talking about. The American workers are suffering. That's what's taking place. Government workers are suffering. People are suffering across the board. I want to bring in the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFGE president, Everett Kelly. Everett, I showed you all of those clips right there, you know, at the outset. And it's this constant gaslighting by these Trump regime administration officials saying everything is wonderful. Well, you are the president of the main union that represents government employees.

5:44Ben Meiselas:What are you seeing? Is everything wonderful like the Trump regime is saying? You know, if it wasn't so hurtful, it would be laughable. OK, it is definitely not OK, especially with the employees that I represent. I mean, we are experiencing these employees experiencing so much onerous, so much pain because of the job losses, because of the reduction in forces that this administration is putting upon these employees. Surely not because of efficiency, like they are saying, but because of retaliations and all of these types of things that this administration is throwing after federal employees. So I totally disagree with those assessments.

6:25Ben Meiselas:You know, you have people who devoted their life working for the United States government, often in thankless jobs, but jobs that are needed. People, whether they're inspecting the food or looking at the railways to make sure that the trains don't get derailed or, you know, people looking out for health and safety. People who are ensuring that the data gets aggregated in the right way. People look at it. I mean, across the board in government parts, there are people doing these jobs with, you know, all they want to be done and done is been treated with dignity. And now Trump comes in, Doge comes in, wipes out their dignity.

7:06Ben Meiselas:And I wonder what your thoughts about this. And government spending is actually more than it is than it was last year, this time last year, now this year. So it didn't even accomplish the goal of reducing government spending. It's more spending. And these jobs have been lost. Yes. You know, and that's so true. You know, the people that I represent, the job that we do, you know, are so important to the American people. And that's what's missing here. I mean, when you talk about flying in the air safe, you know, that's the TSA worker. You talk about making sure that our communities are safe at night.

7:46That's our bureau of prisons that got prison all day long. You know, these are people that make sure that our food is safe, people to make sure that the air that we breathe is safe air. People that make sure that our children get quality education, such as at the Department of Education. These are people that are under attack, you know, and it's not it doesn't even make sense. There is no plan for these reduction in force or rifts or layoffs. There is no plan. They just go in and they say, we're going to get rid of this many jobs and get rid of those jobs. Then there is nobody left to perform the services for the American people that is needed.

8:24These are vital services to the American people, services that the American people need and they deserve. You know, I mean, think about veterans that go and spend their lives, you know, taking care and defending America and come home and may need to process claims. And yet we're talking about reducing the services for those veterans. That's not right. And Social Security benefits, you know, reducing those services and the opportunity for people. people to, you know, apply for benefits. You know, those are the things that's going to be affected that the American people need to understand.

9:04Ben Meiselas:So let's talk about what we can do to fight back. You know, you have the Supreme Court on a procedural maneuver that stayed, paused the lower court's rulings, which would have blocked the reduction in force plans by the Trump administration. In other words, the Trump administration can implement its RIFs, its reduction in force plans during the pendency of the litigation, which, as we all know, litigation takes a long time. So basically, the Trump administration gets carte blanche authority to implement these plans, fire all of these people. And then four years from now, if it's ever determined that Trump violated the law, these people have lost their jobs.

9:50Ben Meiselas:And they're not being welcome to a very friendly American job market where we've seen jobless, where we've seen job cuts 75 % higher now than it was at this time last year. So things are difficult. So with a difficult, some would say incredibly corrupt Supreme Court, with a corrupt administration, How do you, as the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, how do you fight back and what do you message and communicate to your union members? Well, first of all, let me just say that we are very disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling. Now, no president should have unchecked authority to restructure government agencies and lay off tens of thousands of public servants who make our country work.

10:41You know, Congress and not the White House, you know, control federal funding and agency structures. We urge lawmakers to act now to reassert their constitutional authority before irreversible damage is done to our government and to the people that it served. Now, the Supreme Court declined to rule on the legality of these specific reorganizations or rifts, if you will. You know, we continue to believe that these efforts violate federal law and we intend to keep fighting them. Now, based on course action, the administration will try to move full steam ahead. There's no doubt about that. We'll plan to dismantle central government functions and eliminate thousands of jobs.

11:25But we're not backing down. We'll keep fighting to defend the public service that federal employees provide to veterans, to seniors, to families, and to communities across the nation and around the world. You know, now what's at stake here is the survival of programs that protect our health and safety, right? That serve our seniors and veterans and people with disabilities that provide housing and educational opportunities for low - and middle-income families. that help everyday Americans launch their own businesses and so much more. But just imagine sitting at the dinner table as we Americans do, right?

12:08We're sitting there at dinner and we have a layoff notice and a stack of bills, right? These workers aren't lazy bureaucrats in DC. They're our neighbors, they're our doctors, our friends. You know, and only 15 percent of these employees work in D.C., you know, so they're not in D.C., you know, as lazy bureaucrats. Right. And so my thing is, you know, and I challenge, you know, every secretary, every director, you know, to really look at, you know, the agencies and determine what's really needed, what needs to be implemented. We don't need to be operating off of Elon Musk's plan because it really was no plan.

12:53We need to, and I'm asking, you know, that these directors, the secretaries, take a look at what's needed in order to make America work for the American people. You know, and that should be the plan of these secretaries and these directors that's been appointed to these positions.

13:09Ben Meiselas:You know, I just think as Congress goes into recess all of the time, as you have people like Maggie Mike Johnson say, we're leaving, we're going on vacation because we don't want to talk about the Epstein file. So we're just going to leave and stop working. At the same time, they're defaming the hardworking government workers who show up every single day to their job, often, as I said, thankless jobs. And they're being defamed as what are these people doing? I think Donald Trump would say they're out there golfing all week. They're not even showing up into these buildings. And it's like, not only are they taking away the jobs, but then they're also stripping away people's dignity, which takes place when you get rid of people's jobs.

13:52Ben Meiselas:But to me, they're defaming the government workers as well. And they're defaming workers as well. Finally, I just want to mention, you know, the Midas Touch Network is embedded in the AFL-CIO Better in a Union bus tour that's been going around the country. Their most recent stop is in Indianapolis. I know that the AFGE, of course, has been affiliated with the AFL-CIO since about the 1930s or so. And so part of the federation, part of these organizations will see you at some point on the tour as well. But I think stuff like this is important, meeting the people, shaking hands and being out there and just letting people know what's going on.

14:31Ben Meiselas:So before we go, any final words you want to say to the people out there and people wanting to know the importance of unions? Well, you know, I think that the idea of having this bus tour to travel this country and educate, because this is the key, is to educate the Americans of what unions are all about and what it is that unions do every single day, you know, and the services that we provide, you know, for the American people. I think this bus tour is a brilliant idea. I plan on being a part of that. I know that we're scheduled to be in California at some point next month. I will be there. And, you know, my job is to also offer hope, you know, for those federal employees that have been affected by these rifts and these realignments and all these things that's going on that's very chaotic in the lives of these Americans that are very patriotic, that take oaths.

15:27Every time they get a job, take an oath, you know, and they live up to that. And so my job is to offer some array of hope because I truly believe that ultimately, you know, this will come to pass and that we will win in the end because we're on the side of right. You know, there's no doubt about that. You know, it's very paramount in the fact that the Supreme Court has not even ruled on the legalities of this issue, these issues, because I truly believe they know that it's incorrect. It also tells us a telling story, the fact that, you know, Mr. Johnson is on recess, right, and tell everybody to go home because they know this is not about efficiency.

16:11They know this is all about retaliation, you know, and those type of things for federal employees standing up against these acts that is non-American and inhumane. So, you know, I think that this bus tour is going to be a telling story that's going to get the American people to understand what's really happening in America.

16:32Ben Meiselas:Everett Kelly, president of the AFGE, the American Federation of Government Employees. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me, Ben. Look forward to seeing you on the bus tour. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.midastouch.com. All 100 % USA union made.