‘Grow Up': Conservative Senators, Economists Slam Trump for Firing Labor Stats Chief
Trump accused commissioner Erika McEntarfer, who was appointed by Joe Biden, of fabricating statistics now as well as before the 2024 election. Friday's jobs report found that the U.S. economy added only 73,000 jobs in July.
'In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,' he wrote on Friday, adding: 'But, the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!' He implied the numbers had been 'manipulated for political purposes,' and announced he had ordered McEntarfer's firing.
Several Republican senators and right-leaning experts have criticized Trump for the decision.
'If the president is firing the statistician because he doesn't like the numbers but they are accurate, then that's a problem,' Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy.) told The Guardian. 'It's not the statistician's fault if the numbers are accurate and that they're not what the president had hoped for.'
'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,' said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
'We have to look somewhere for objective statistics,' Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.) told NBC News. '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.'
'I'm going to look into it, but first impression is that you can't really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting,' he added.
Economist William Beach, whom Trump appointed as BLS commissioner during his first term, posted on X, 'The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau.'
Douglas Holtz-Eakin — the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank — weighed in as well. 'There have been countless BLS revisions, and many BLS Commissioners, but only ONE sitting President has fired a BLS head,' he wrote. 'You do the math.'
McEntarfer said on social media that serving as commissioner was 'the honor of [her] life' and the BLS carried out 'vital and important work.'
In a statement, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics called Trump's accusations against McEntarfer 'baseless' and 'damaging,' adding that the president is attacking 'the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system.'
Trump additionally wrote Friday that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom he's long wanted to fire, 'should also be put 'out to pasture.''
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