参议院确认Todd Blanche为司法部长，就业报告意外裁员

Breaking news. The Senate confirms Todd Blanche as attorney general in an early morning vote, 50 to 49. The nomination is confirmed. Applause broke out on the Senate floor. What this means for the future of the Justice Department. Digging into the jobs report. U.S. employers unexpectedly cut jobs and the unemployment rate fell. It is the fall in unemployment rate that's due to the wrong reasons. What it means for the fed and interest rates.

And an apparent financial lifeline for live gold. It says found an investor to keep the tour going because this is always how it goes live. Gosh, you never get the full picture. The latest as live golfers tee off at Bedminster. Happy Saturday. Welcome to Bloomberg. This weekend we're coming to you live from our world headquarters here in New York. I'm Christine Orsini. I'm David Gura alongside Lisa Mateo. It is Saturday, August the 8th.

I want to say welcome to all our listeners and viewers across all of Bloomberg's platforms on radio, television, streaming app, Bloomberg.com and watching us on the Bloomberg Business app. A lot of action in Washington to the wee hours, late night slash early morning for our Capitol Hill colleagues. Yeah. After looking like perhaps there were some holdouts right on party lines with with the two usual Republicans, uh, having concern, uh, Susan Collins and Lisa murkowski, party line vote.

Todd Blanch confirmed as attorney general. That's right. That came on the heels of the sanctions bill being passed, the Russia sanctions bill being passed. Um, lawmakers very eager to get back to their districts. The summer recess begins in earnest. But, um, this an achievement for the president, who was, I think, wondering if this was going to happen, had talked about keeping Todd Blanch as acting attorney general, should it not?

Maybe through the midterms. I'm going to dig into all this in just a little bit. But first, let's get to the headlines with Lisa Mateo. Lisa, you got it. On that overnight vote that followed a tough confirmation fight that exposed concerns about party lines, about installing President Donald Trump's former personal attorney to lead the Justice Department. Now, yes, it comes after Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said he would support Todd Blanch to be the next attorney general, while Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa murkowski of Alaska opposed.

Also this morning, the Senate has passed a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown by the end of September. At that move, it shows how both parties are looking to avoid a fight before midterm elections. The vote was 90 to 6 to keep federal funding at current levels through December 11th, and prevent the Trump administration from transferring the funds to Border Patrol overseas. Russia and Ukraine. They exchange overnight strikes Ukraine's capital while it came under attack by ballistic missiles and drones, with fires reported in several districts and three people killed in the Keith region, and a fire that was sparked at an oil refinery in southern Russia by Ukrainian drone debris, injuring five people.

That's according to the regional task force. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate had passed a new Russia sanctions bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. Now it authorizes punishing tariffs on China, India and other top buyers of the country's oil and gas, as well as extending an extended Iran sanctions. Now, Senator Darlene Graham, she talked about what it meant to her late brother. He believed that this was the most consequential piece of legislation that he had ever led.

And I'm proud to carry the torch to the finish line. Lindsey was committed to achieving a peaceful resolution to this war, and I'm confident that these sanctions will pave the way for bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate, 86 to 11, and still has to pass the House. A federal appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump cannot build the white House ballroom without congressional approval, and must stop construction on the $400 million project.

Now, the president called the decision unjust and said he would appeal it to the Supreme Court. Democratic Senator Peter Welch stressed that Congress would never give approval for that ballroom. These are vanity project, and some reports indicate that the president is spending literally 70% of his time, uh, the presence of busy person. And there's a lot of things he's got to pay attention to, uh, including the war in Iran.

Republican Senator John Hoven, he supported the construction, saying that it will be something that future administrations can use. And after surprising strength earlier this year, the labor market is weaker than previously thought. U.S. employers unexpectedly cut jobs in July, and hiring in the prior two months was revised lower. Nonfarm payrolls day decreased 23,000 last month, following a combined 103,000 downward revision to the May and June figures.

The unemployment rate that fell to 4.1% and wage growth. That's low. Dave and Christine, I know you're going to be talking more about this with Anna Wang. Uh, coming up. Yes. Our chief U.S. economist. And fascinating to see here the effects of the immigration policy on the size of the labor market, something we're going to get into with and a little bit later, safer bump. Did it hold up or did it go over the World Cup predictions from last month?

Stay tuned. Thanks. All right. Thank you Lisa. Back to that breaking news now out of Washington, D.C., the Senate confirming President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general Todd Blanchard. We're going to go now to Laura Davidson. She's Bloomberg News, Washington deputy bureau chief. Laura, late night for our colleagues on the Hill before everybody tries to skip town. This looked like when I went to bed last night, it wasn't going to happen.

Possibly. Um, and then you had but you had Bill Cassidy, who had been, like, the big holdout, coming out and changing his mind kind of yesterday. And then it was a holding pattern. And then all of a sudden this got pushed through this morning. Can you walk us through how this came about? Yes. This is how Congress, uh, frequently works is there's a whole lot of nothing. And then suddenly, uh, you know, in the wee hours of the morning, you're able to, to get the votes and push something across the finish line.

Once Senate leaders have exhausted everyone and they're, uh, you know, agreeing to vote for things. Um, so this is really, um, you know, sort of a remarkable end to a weeks long saga. Have you had, uh, you know, multiple senators coming out and expressing some concerns about Todd Blanche and also just how Trump is influencing the Justice Department, particularly this $1.8 billion anti weaponization fund that would have gone to support, um, January 6th, uh, insurrectionists and other um, allies of the president as well as the, the president being able to cut a deal with the IRS, uh, to, uh, save himself from any tax audits.

Um, so, uh, you know, they were able to get some concessions, uh, you know, some Republicans were able to get some concessions from the Justice Department that really limited the scope of that tax deal, as well as that, uh, essentially table and killing off, uh, that, that anti weaponization fund. Uh, you still had two senators who said, no way, uh, Susan Collins and Lisa murkowski expressing broader concerns. But the last vote, what everyone was waiting for, uh, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, he is a lame duck senator.

Uh, Trump essentially opposed him in his primary, and he is, uh, will be leaving Congress next year. Everyone was watching him. He came out on the Senate floor yesterday and said, look, uh, you know, I, uh, have some, uh, problems with how the Justice Department is being run, but I think that Todd Blanche is going to be better than any other, uh, candidate that Trump is going to put forward. And so therefore, I'm going to go ahead and give him my support and vote yes.

Let me play a bit