President Donald Trump on Friday fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following the release of a weak jobs report for the month of July.
The point: The president took his anger out on the poor job report on the individual crunching the numbers amid his ire at Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
- In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Erika McEntarfer will be replaced with “much more competent and qualified”.
Overall view: McEntarfer’s termination comes after a jobs report for the month of July found just 73,000 jobs were added in July.
- Without evidence, Trump accused McEntarfer, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, of “rigging” the numbers to make him look bad.
- Jed Kolko, a former Commerce Department official, said on Bluesky that firing McEntarfer “is five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of US economic data”.
Having impact: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
- “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” he added.
- “The Economy is BOOMING under “TRUMP” despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates,” the president continued.
- In another post, Trump said Fed Chair Powell should resign from his post.
The Truth: The Bureau of Labor Statistics is among the highest ranking with international data collectors. Economists consider its revisions a key part of its transparency.
- The agency often revises the numbers after evaluating information that was not available when it was writing the original report.
