https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/02/republicans-trump-bureau-of-labor-statistics-commissioner
Senior Republican lawmakers are condemning the decision of their party leader, Donald Trump, to fire the leading US labor market statistician after a report that showed the national economy added just 73,000 jobs – far fewer than expected – in July.
The disappointing figures – coupled with a downward revision of the two previous months amounting to 258,000 fewer jobs and data showing that economic output and consumer spending slowed in the first half of the year – point to an overall economic deterioration in the US.
Trump defended his decision to fire US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer. Without evidence to back his claims, the president wrote on social media that were numbers were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad” and the US economy was, in fact, “BOOMING” on his watch.
But the firing of McEntarfer, who had been confirmed to her role in January 2024 during Joe Biden’s presidency, has alarmed members of Trump’s own party.
“If the president is firing the statistician because he doesn’t like the numbers but they are accurate, then that’s a problem,” said Wyoming Republican senator Cynthia Lummis. “It’s not the statistician’s fault if the numbers are accurate and that they’re not what the president had hoped for.”
Lummis added that if the numbers are unreliable, the public should be told – but firing McEntarfer was “kind of impetuous”.
North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, said: “If she was just fired because the president or whoever decided to fire the director just … because they didn’t like the numbers, they ought to grow up.”
Kentucky senator Rand Paul, another Republican, questioned whether McEntarfer’s firing was an effective way of improving the numbers.
“We have to look somewhere for objective statistics,” he said. “When the people providing the statistics are fired, it makes it much harder to make judgments that you know, the statistics won’t be politicized.”
According to NBC News, Paul said his “first impression” was that “you can’t really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting”.
Tillis and Paul were both opponents of Trump’s recent economic legislative package, which the president dubbed the “big, beautiful bill”.
But Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who supported the legislation after winning substantial economic support for her state, remarked that the jobs numbers could not be trusted – and “that’s the problem”.
“And when you fire people, then it makes people trust them even less,” she said.
William Beach, a former BLS commissioner appointed by Trump in his first presidency, posted on X that McEntarfer’s firing was “totally groundless”. He added that the dismissal set a dangerous precedent and undermined the BLS’s statistical mission.
Previously
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/01/trump-fires-erika-mcentarfer-labor-statistics
Donald Trump fired the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he is “firing the messenger”.
The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of labor statistics, had “faked” employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election, in an effort to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory.
Trump later claimed: “Today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”.
He produced no evidence for these allegations, and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, “BOOMING” on his watch.
But Friday’s employment figures told a very different story, and raised questions about the state of the labor market since Trump’s return to office.
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
McEntarfer was contacted for comment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) confirmed in a brief statement that she had been dismissed. William Wiatrowski, the agency’s deputy commissioner, will serve as acting commissioner.
Trump’s abrupt announcement came as administration officials scrambled to explain a lackluster employment report. Not only did jobs growth fail to meet expectations in July, but previous estimates for May and June were revised significantly lower.
good. he needs to replace him with someone who will produce favorable stats. That worked for Best Korea.
World's greatest leader
World's greatest golfer
>>1424008 (OP)THE ECONOMY IS CRASHING WITH NO SURVIVAL YOU VOTED FOR THIS hahahahHawhahaahaHAHA
>>1424011Every banana Republic in the world has great Labor statistics. And the US is a republic not a democracy.
>>1424008 (OP)Hitler didn't like those who gave him bad news too
>Fudge the ever living fuck out of the numbers for Biden for four years
>Time to start doing it for real now that Trump is back
I get why he'd be pissed at this, but it's just retarded
>>1424076>BDSBiden didn't run for president in 2024. Move on. Get over it, snowflake.
>>1424078You're either an ESL or an AI reply. I don't think you can be this retarded and still use the internet like this
the shill is projecting again
>>1424081He could be an ESL, an AI, or just retarded, it doesn’t matter. He’s still right.
I love shills so much that I literally can't stop thinking about them
>>1424078>Biden didn't run for president in 2024Yes he did, he just gave up before the election.
>>1424096>Yes he didweird that you can simultaneously slam Harris for stealing the primary and state that Biden ran without realizing how fucking dumb it makes you sound.
but that makes sense, given how fucking dumb you just sounded
>>1424103>weird that you can simultaneously slam Harris for stealing the primary and state that Biden ran without realizing how fucking dumb it makes you sound.Biden won a majority of the pledged delegates at the 2024 Democrat primary.
Look it up, Rakesh. He needed something like 1900 delegates to win the presidential primary and he received nearly 4000.
Look into it, Poosmell Pankake. Joe Biden ran for president in 2024, secured all the necessary delegates to become the official nominee in March, and then later in the year (I think around august) withdrew from the campaign after Trump buried his frail corpse live on national television.
True story.
>>1424112it's amazing they let you keep your job when you project this hard
>>1424113Educate yourself, Poosmell Pankake
uncle (insert indian name) is at it again
I don’t give a fuck who is and isn’t Indian, I care that Trump just ensured we can never trust the BLS again.
>>1424115Is Poosmell Pankake an actual Indian name? I used it because it sounds funny, I didn't know you people actually have that as a real name
MacnFarter Fired McEntarfer.
Say that three times fast.
The crazy part about the numbers is that even the revisions of previous months were not even counting certain job groups impacted by tariffs and deportations. Truth be told, the jobs numbers are in the red and unemployment is more like 4.5
>>1424116Hell, is it even just the BLS? The other heads are going to get the message.
Congratulations, MAGA. For years you've insisted that you can't trust anything the government says, and now you really can't.
>>1424116>we can never trust the BLS again.>
>"again"Lol, lmao even. They've been cooking the books for years by releasing bullshit numbers by grossly stacking the deck or just straight-up lying. If anything Orange man has done a major service by removing that ultra-corrupt fef.
There go the cultists shooting the messengers again
