This summer’s jobs reports have mostly been clunkers, but this morning we got a more encouraging one. The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, while unemployment held steady at 4.1 percent and the labor force participation rate—which had sunk throughout the year—ticked back up a hair. Happy Friday.

Join Catherine Rampell and JVL for Receipts Live today at 12:30 p.m. EDT on Substack and YouTube.

(Photo illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)

by Andrew Egger

I don’t know if you know this, but we’re actually not at war with Iran.

I know! I was surprised too! The six-months-and-counting conflict has been one of the central stories of Donald Trump’s second term, and is very much an ongoing crisis: We’re still shooting back and forth, the Strait of Hormuz remains more or less closed, Iran has not agreed to the restraints on its nuclear program Trump demands, and so on and so on.

But when Vice President JD Vance took to the White House briefing room for a press conference yesterday, he was surprisingly insistent: Rumors of war with Iran, he argued, have been greatly exaggerated.

“The phrase ‘an end to the war’—I want to push back on that,” Vance said. “Because major combat operations are currently not ongoing, and they haven’t been ongoing in a very long time.” Later, he repeated the point: “Again, I wouldn’t call it a war. Right now there is no active shooting.” What America had now, Vance suggested, was simply a little problem of “the Iranians shooting at ships.”

This sort of silly talk serves a couple purposes. One is the longstanding semantic game of describing the conflict as an “operation” or “excursion” to put a fig leaf on the fact that Congress never approved it.

But the other is in keeping with the moment’s broader White House messaging. Trump, it seems, has grown tired of making repeated demands that Iran never deigns to meet. That’s not a very alpha way to conduct business!

It seems Trump is mulling a change in strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that the president is privately “having discussions with senior aides about whether to declare the Iran war over.” Outside MAGA voices have been pushing a similar idea: The Iran exit strategy “is happening right now,” CNN commentator Scott Jennings said Wednesday. The time has come for an “affirmative, formal declaration of victory,” Jennings added: “We’re at the point now where Iran is totally scrambled and defeated, and we need to take credit for it.”

This is a remarkable development. The White House has been talking a big game for months: Iran is outmatched, outgunned, decimated, days from surrender. Massive Iranian concessions, Trump and Co. have suggested all along, are just days away. Now, they are apparently on the brink of declaring that no more agreements are forthcoming. The status quo, it seems, is as good as they hope to get.

And this may even be true! In one sense, the Trump administration is out of options. At one point, they hoped to win the war: Back in March, the president seemed genuinely to believe that a few weeks of devastating bombing would bring Iran’s government to its knees.

Later on, they even tried to lose the war. Two months ago, Trump was plainly seeking any way out of a conflict that he suddenly feared would trigger a genuine energy crisis and a global economic collapse. “The one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover,” he said in a July speech by way of justifying his memorandum of understanding with Iran.

When a catastrophe rises to a certain level, it has a way of focusing Trump’s mind. Last year, Trump’s sudden realization that his “Liberation Day” tariffs were about to tank global markets led to the biggest about-face of his political career. This summer, he plainly had begun to place the Iran war in this same extinction-level tier: If I don’t get this under control, I’m signing my own political death certificate.

But Trump has since gotten himself back under control. The memorandum of understanding may have collapsed, but energy markets haven’t yet melted down completely. Perhaps, he now believes, it may be possible for him to bullshit his way through this crisis after all.

As a result, this summer’s sudden spurt of presidential real talk has completely dried up. Instead of actually working to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is back to his usual nonsense: pretending that the trickle of ships the U.S. military is managing to escort out of the Persian Gulf is itself a major geopolitical win. “Hormuz oil volumes are BACK!” the president proclaimed in a Truth Social post yesterday, suggesting that 18 million barrels of oil were now daily transiting the strait.

This figure is out of keeping with independent commercial shipping trackers, which continue to report that Hormuz transits are a fraction of their pre-war volumes. Nor is it reflected in oil and gas prices. Brent crude remains substantially more expensive than it was two months ago, and far more expensive than before the war. Yesterday, diesel fuel hit its all-time high price.

But to Trump, this doesn’t matter. He may have tried to flinch away from global financial meltdown, but he remains confident in his own ability to explain away any economic damage short of that.

Americans may be hopping mad that Trump’s pointless war has driven gas prices through the roof. But Trump seems to think he needs only one thing to win them back over: to declare that the war in Iran has been a total success.

by William Kristol

Here’s a recommendation I don’t usually make: Go to the Trump White House website. But then go to the little “search” function magnifying glass on the upper right, and type in “Labor Day.”

You’ll find plenty of material. But it’s all from 2025. There’s a presidential proclamation, articles under headings like “Lowest Labor Day Gas Prices in Five Years as Travel Costs Dip in Trump Economy” and “Wages Are Rising Under President Trump,” a video in which cabinet members reminisce about their first jobs, a clip of the White House press secretary boasting about “President Trump’s Pro-Worker Accomplishments”—and so on.

All from a year ago.

Okay, that’s what came up first. Internet search works in mysterious ways. So you type in “Labor Day 2026,” expecting to find material from this year.

But you find . . . nothing. Nada. Rien. Rien de rien.

Which makes sense. The Trump White House can’t today boast about the lowest gas prices in five years. In fact, gas is up from about $3.19 a gallon last Labor Day to about $4.14 today. Wages are no longer rising faster than inflation. And whereas Trump’s 2025 proclamation boasted of his tariffs, Trump recently removed tariffs on some imported beef because prices are up roughly 15 percent compared to a year ago—because tariffs raise prices.

And two of the cabinet members prominently featured in the “My First Job” video—Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—have since been fired.

Maybe the Trump White House will rush to get something up on its website. But as of now, at the beginning of Labor Day weekend 2026—nothing. Perhaps the Trump administration has just decided this year to embrace its plutocratic essence.

Earlier this week, I suggested Democrats in 2026 look back to 1948 for guidance and inspiration—to a campaign in which Harry Truman not only won re-election to the presidency but Democrats took control of Congress, gaining 75 House and nine Senate seats.

Speaking to a large crowd in Cadillac Square, Detroit, on Labor Day 1948, Truman attacked the Republican Congress. He reminded his audience that “the Republicans promptly voted themselves a cut in taxes,” and “failed to crack down on prices.” And Truman went on to issue this warning:

Remember that the reactionary of today is a shrewd man. He is in many ways much shrewder than the reactionaries of the twenties. . . . He has learned a great deal about how to get his way by observing demagogues and reactionaries in other countries. And now he has many able allies in the press. . . .

We are in a hard, tough fight against shrewd and rich opponents. They know they can’t count on your vote. Their only hope is that you won’t vote at all. They have misjudged you. I know that we are going to win this crusade for the right!

In 2026, Trump can choose to ignore Labor Day. Democrats can channel their inner Harry Truman.

Europe’s Gold Fled the Nazis. Now It’s Fleeing Trump…. Our allies once trusted America to safeguard their reserves. Now they worry the president might freeze them, writes CATHERINE RAMPELL in Receipts.

JD Vance Called Abdul El-Sayed ‘Evil.’ He’s One to Talk…. Where does the vice president go to give his apology, asks MONA CHAREN.

Even Fox News Won’t Hide the Truth About Trump’s Grotesque Oil Deal… On Bulwark Takes, WILL SALETAN takes on Trump’s Venezuela oil deal, as the president openly brags that Venezuelan oil has already paid for the war “many times over” and Republicans argue that U.S. oil companies deserve benefits for the next 100 years.

A Witness to Film History… On The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, GODFREY CHESHIRE joins SONNY BUNCH to talk about his book, Cheshire on Film: Life & Writings.

THANKS BUT NO THANKS: With midterm catastrophe looming, more and more vulnerable Republicans are quietly telling the unpopular president: Thanks for your interest, but please don’t come to my district. Politico reports:

When asked in an interview if he wants Trump to campaign in his swing district this fall or spend time elsewhere, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) gave an indirect answer.

“Listen, you know, I’m very happy with our campaign and the things that we’re doing,” he said. “Very confident with our conversations with the voters. I think we’ve got a great campaign plan, and we’re laser-focused on communicating with our constituents and talking about issues that are important to them.”

Some battleground Republicans have relayed to Trump’s political team that they don’t want him to visit their districts ahead of November, according to four Republican operatives involved in the conversations, granted anonymity, like others in this article, to candidly discuss private strategy and conversations. . . .

“We’ve told them he cannot come,” said a senior Republican involved in a competitive House GOP race in a district where Trump won by double digits in 2024. “Candidly, he would not be helpful here … I do not believe they would send him without our OK. And if they did, we probably wouldn’t campaign with him.”

Ouch! Read the whole thing.

ABSENTEE SENATOR: There’s plenty of things Sen. John Fetterman likes about being a senator—the Fox News hits decrying his party’s anti-Israel turn, the opportunities to hobnob with Israeli government officials, his across-the-aisle bromance with Pennsylvania’s other senator, Republican Dave McCormick. But a remarkable new piece of reporting from the Wall Street Journal reveals that Fetterman seems to have little time for the actual work of his job. Fetterman, the paper reports, “keeps a light daily schedule, often refusing to meet with constituents and fellow lawmakers, or canceling at the last minute.” At least one aide even leaked text messages with the senator to the paper.

“Why do I keep having to meet with [the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]?” Fetterman grumbles in one text. “Because they are worried about vaccines and Medicaid cuts,” the aide responds. “Well I’m not,” the senator shoots back. “I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC.”

One one occasion, the Journal reports, Fetterman begged off a long-scheduled meeting with three paralyzed military veterans from rural Pennsylvania to discuss “legislation that would improve their care.” He wasn’t feeling well, he told his staff. Shortly after his staff held the meeting without him, a perfectly healthy Fetterman strolled into the office, ready for his next appointment: a Fox News hit about Israel.

There’s so, so much more in this story. Read the whole thing.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh: