President Donald Trump made his name as a celebrity businessman by firing people in dramatic fashion. But taking the same approach as president doesn’t always work out so well.
Trump just fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the Labor Department that compiles and publishes data about the economy, including jobs figures. In an unprecedented move, he axed BLS boss Erika McEntarfer, who was appointed by then-President Joe Biden in 2024, even though her term wasn’t set to expire until 2028. Trump and his allies are justifying this unusual step by claiming that McEntarfer was a Democratic loyalist who cooked the books to sabotage Trump with the latest weak jobs report.
There’s just one problem with this: It simply isn’t true.
The president and his allies have presented no evidence that McEntarfer, or anyone else at the BLS, “rigged” the July jobs numbers or in any way deviated from their standard protocol. And, ironically, Trump himself just one month ago praised the June job numbers, compiled in the same way by the same department overseen by the same woman, as a “June boom” because those numbers were more favorable to him. What’s more, McEntarfer has been praised by her Republican colleagues and predecessor, and none of the people who’ve actually worked with her have ever complained of partisan bias in her work.
The other justification Trump and his allies have offered up is that McEntarfer supposedly covered up weak job numbers under Biden until after the 2024 election. This is also false.
Under McEntarfer’s leadership in August 2024, the BLS released the second-largest ever downward revision of jobs numbers, undercutting the Biden-Harris record three months before the election. In fact, just four days before the election, McEntarfer released a damaging jobs report that showed weak jobs growth in October 2024 under Biden, which Trump himself touted on the campaign trail.
It should go without saying that the president of the United States shouldn’t accuse public servants of partisan fraud without serious evidence. Under Trump, it unfortunately does not.
Now, it is true that there has been an increased problem with the accuracy of job numbers in recent years. But, as National Review’s Dominic Pino explains, this is not a political or partisan issue — it is due to a stark decline in survey responses by businesses since the pandemic. Adding to the irony of this grim situation, Pino further notes, is that the Trump administration disbanded a volunteer commission of outside experts that was working on addressing this exact problem.
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And even for Trump himself, shooting the messenger like this isn’t going to end well. Now, no matter who he puts in the role, any future positive numbers will be viewed with tremendous skepticism. If the numbers are negative, even with his partisan loyalists installed, then the president will look ridiculous for having done this all in the first place.
So, Trump’s latest move is predicated on falsehoods, causing tremendous disruption, and destroying faith in crucial federal economic statistics. Other than that, though, it’s working out swimmingly.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.