Trump officials scramble to justify firing of economic statistician – as critics say ‘scary' move is a sign of ‘authoritiarianism'

Independent

2 hours ago

Members of Donald Trump's team scrambled to provide coherent explanations for the sudden firing of a top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Sunday as Friday's firing resonated throughout Washington and left the White House open to criticism of Trump's 'authoritarian' leanings.
The US president directed the firing of Erika McEntarfer on Friday after a jobs report showed private companies adding just 73,000 positions in July, a drop from projections and a further sign that the Trump economy is stalling in the face of growing uncertainty around the president's tariff agenda.
McEntarfer's firing was immediately denounced by her Trump-appointed predecessor and numerous others in Washington. Republicans on the Hill struggled to defend it, while members of Donald Trump's team insisted in interviews that the president and the nation needed what he called 'reliable' numbers. Trump accused McEntarfer of cooking the numbers on Kamala Harris's behalf during the 2024 election, and now working to make him look bad, a notion even the president's own advisers wouldn't echo directly.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House economic council, led the efforts to defend the president's decision-making on Sunday. He was joined by Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative. Hassett directly contradicted the president during his interview on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream; he argued that it was the formula by which the BLS determined job market gains — not malicious activity by McEntarfer — which needed to be addressed.
Pointing to a letter from McEntarfer's predecessors, Bream asked Hassett: 'They're saying it's not good to cast aspersions on what's being done because it's a formula. It's used the same way every single time. So are you saying maybe the formulas, the calculations need to change?'
'That's right. They really need to get back to ground zero and find out why these numbers are so unreliable,' said Hassett.'
"The data can't be propaganda. The data has to be something you can trust, because decision-makers throughout the economy trust that these are the data that they can build a factory because they believe, or cut interest rates because they believe. And if the data aren't that good, then it's a real problem for the US,' Hassett continued.
He and others pointed to the agency revising totals for May and June as evidence that the BLS required changes: 'We expect more big revisions for the jobs data in September, for example ... we want to know why, we want people to explain it to us.'
Greer, during a pre-taped interview with CBS's Face the Nation, backed up Hassett's claims that sharp revisions dating back to 2024 were evidence of the numbers produced by the agency being unreliable.
"You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers,' he said. 'There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.'
But there's still nothing linking McEntarfer to the kind of nefarious activity which Trump alleged she was up to in a Truth Social post.
'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes,' Trump wrote on Friday.
He added: 'In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad — Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were 'taken away' on November 15, 2024, right after the Election.'
No one on the president's team has attempted to present any evidence backing up Trump's claims.
A number of McEntarfer's predecessors and other top officialst at the BLS fired back in a statement from a group called the 'Friends of the BLS': 'The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.'
The president's critics said that the firing and unsupported explanation meant that future figures released by the agency would be thrown into question and was an example of Trump desiring ability to dictate the creation of phony statistics.
'This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism,' warned Larry Summers, former director of the White House economic council under Biden (and Hassett's predecessor), on ABC's This Week. 'This is really scary stuff, and it can hardly be surprising that when the rule of law is in a bit question that there's a big uncertainty premium in the markets.'
He went on to argue that Trump's battering of Fed Chair Jerome Powell followed in a similar vein, and was behind much of the uncertainty curbing U.S. investments on Wall Street.
Friday marked the resumption of Trump's reciprocal tariffs; enforcement of rates as high as 50% on some U.S. trading partners will resume this week.
Economists largely agree that those tariffs are driving up consumer prices and stifling U.S. investment rather than encouraging the return of manufacturing plants to America as companies continue to evaluate new costs stemming from Trump's import duties.
The job numbers put out by the BLS on a monthly basis are some of the most important statistics gathered by the U.S. government in terms of their ability to move financial markets around the world. Experts say the sharp revisions are a result of more accurate data collection efforts.