A CNN interview is going viral after host Kate Bolduan lost patience with a Republican lawmaker who stumbled through excuses while trying to shield President Donald Trump from mounting economic fallout.
U.S. job numbers took a nosedive in August, in a disastrous turn for Trump and his economic policies, including his head spinning tariff policies and evermoving deadlines and threats to international trading partners.
Job growth almost ground to a halt last month with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reporting the U.S. added just 22,000 new jobs, a far cry from the 75,000 analysts expected.
And so far this year, the country has seen a stunning drop in job creation compared to the same time period last year, just 598,000 in the first eight months of 2025, compared with more than 1.1 million during the same period last year, according to NBC News.
And itās no surprise Trumpās cronies are trying to spin the steep slowdown in the labor market in a positive light.
CNN Host Kate Bolduan could barely contain her frustration during an interview with Florida Republican Rep. Randy Fine, who refused to say whether he would believe the numbers, citing the fallibility of human beings.
āIām going to look at the numbers. Look, the people who put these numbers together are human and theyāre fallible and they make mistakes,ā Fine insisted.
Bolduan immediately cut him off and reminded him of Trumpās firing of the BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month because he didnāt like the July employment numbers and accused her of rigging the data.
āWhen the numbers are always wrong in one direction, you have reason to be suspect,ā Fine argued.
āBut thereās no evidence of that,ā Bolduan interrupted as she proceeded to sternly explain to Fine how the numbers are calculated every month. “That doesn’t mean they’re cooking the books,” she added.
But Fine wasnāt giving it up, āWell I think that when thereās problems with methodology, sometimes itās intentional, sometimes itās not, but when the numbers are always wrong āā he said before Bolduan again interrupted.
āDo you think it was intentional?ā she asked referring to how the BLS routinely revises the jobs report based on the when American companies send in their reports to the agency.
āI think the methodologies were problematic,ā Fine insisted, āand we see this in all kinds of things where numbers always tend to benefit the left and when the facts come out they donāt anymore. I think the President did the right thing there,ā he said about firing McEntarfer.
A parody of Trumpās anticipated reaction to the dismal numbers went viral on Threads. In the post, Trump calls the jobs report āFAKE.ā
āFAKE NUMBERS! āArabicā numbers, by the way a lot of people call them,ā the parody post of the President read.
But social media had a field day with both the ridiculous fake Trump post and Fineās CNN interview.
āALL the numbers we use are Arabic… We have Eastern Arabic and Western Arabic.. This guy is so f#cking dumb,ā one Threads user posted.
Reaction to Fineās bumbling CNN responses filled with obfuscations didnāt go over well.
āTranslation: These numbers make us look like idiots because we’re idiots,ā this X user proclaimed.
Another added with a similar point, “They know they’re bad!”
Some of the criticism was directed at Fine, “This prick is never honest and he should be kicked out of Congress as well.”
“Those pesky facts keep getting in the way donāt they?,” another chimed in.
Threads user David Pakman wondered about Trumpās big promises, āA ton of MAGAs are downplaying the disaster jobs freport. There were almost no new net jobs in August. What happened to the miraculous job growth Trump promised?ā
Making matters worse, the BLS reported the unemployment rate edged up again to 4.3 percent, the worst level since 2017, not counting during the COVID pandemic.
Economists are ringing the alarm bells, noting that more than 25 percent of unemployed workers have now been unemployed for more than six months, the most since the summer of 2016.
Meantime Trumpās actual response to the worse-than-expected report is just what youād think. He blamed Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in a rant on his platform Truth Social.
“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he’s ‘Too Late!'” Trump vented.
Heās been pressuring Powell for months to lower interest rates, insisting the higher rates are hurting the economy.
