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.
