Trump's long history of bashing jobs report numbers dates back to 2016: ANALYSIS
Trump's public frustrations with the economics and statistics agency appear to date back to his 2016 presidential campaign. "Don't believe those phony numbers," then-candidate Trump said in his New Hampshire victory speech during his first campaign for the White House.
Last August, Trump claimed without evidence that former President Joe Biden's administration was "caught fraudulently manipulating" job statistics, when the agency publicly disclosed that the economy created fewer than 818,000 jobs between April of 2023 and March of 2024 than initial estimates suggested.
"There's never been any revision like this," Trump said at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Aug. 21, 2024. "They wanted it to come out after the election, but somehow it got leaked," he claimed at the time.
MORE: Trump fires BLS commissioner after weak jobs report and baseless claim of 'faked' stats
Trump did not provide evidence that the information publicly disclosed by the agency was leaked.
Then-Labor Secretary Julie Su in November 2024 defended the figures, and also suggested the numbers were impacted by Hurricane Helene's impact on the southeastern United States, and labor strikes.
"The labor market remains very strong, and this shows what happens when you have a president and a vice president who are fighting for workers every single day," Su said at the time.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses several surveys for estimating employment levels in the U.S. and revisions are common. Every monthly Jobs Report has a blurb at the end that updates the figures from the previous two months based on new data.
The revision that Trump was referencing was made public on Aug. 21, and updated with final figures in February 2025, according to the BLS website.
The same downward revisions also took place during Trump's first term, under then-BLS commissioner William W. Beach. The agency determined 518,000 fewer jobs were created in March 2019 than it had initially reported.
Alternatively, Trump had no complaints about the jobs report produced under McEntarfer -- a Biden appointee -- right before the 2024 election, which showed the U.S. gained 12,000 jobs in October.
The then-candidate referenced the low numbers while criticizing the Biden-Harris administration at a rally in Milwaukee.
"They did 12,000 jobs," Trump said to boos at the rally on Nov. 1. "It's hundreds of thousands of jobs less than it should be," he added.
Trump was also quick to embrace the jobs reports as president -- when they were favorable.
In March 2017 -- when the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 235,000 jobs the prior month -- then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had full faith in the positive report, despite calling it "phony" in the past.
"I talked to the president prior to this and he said to quote him very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now,'" Spicer said to reporters at the time.
Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer on Friday came after the report found the U.S. had added 73,000 jobs in July, according to data from the BLS. The figure marked a slowdown from 147,000 jobs added in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, keeping it at near-historic lows, according to the report.
The report provided new estimates for two previous months, significantly dropping the government's estimate of jobs added in May and June. The fresh data indicated a notable slowdown in hiring as Trump's tariffs took hold over recent months.
Trump criticized McEntarfer over the revisions, saying without evidence that the revisions suggested jobs statistics had been "manipulated."
ABC News has reached out to McEntarfer for a comment.
MORE: Fed holds interest rates steady, defying Trump's pressure
The Trump administration described the downward revisions as an unwelcome sign for the U.S. economy but did not dispute the data. "Obviously, they're not what we want to see," Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on Friday morning.
Asked by reporters as he departed the White House on Friday about the reason for McEntarfer's firing, Trump said he believes the economy is doing well and claimed the latest jobs numbers were "phony."
"I believe the numbers were phony just like they were before the election, and there were other times," Trump said, pointing to a previous revision in the jobs numbers last year that he claimed, without evidence, was an attempt to benefit Democrats heading into the election. He said this despite using the numbers as a talking point in his campaign.
"So you know what I did? I fired her. And you know what? I did the right thing," Trump said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump confessed ear injury was ‘not too bad' at RNC despite wearing oversized bandage, Congressman says
Donald Trump allegedly confessed to GOP colleagues that his ear injury was 'not too bad' at the Republican National Convention, despite wearing his infamous oversized bandage. The then-presidential nominee told Byron Donalds that doctors had advised him to keep the bandage on, the Florida Congressman said, speaking at a GOP conference over the weekend. Trump arrived at the convention in July 2024 wearing the bandage, two days after surviving an attempted assassination while out campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which a bullet clipped his right ear. Many convention goers decided to mimic the look in solidarity, also sporting bandages of their own. However, Donalds recalled, Trump himself was unenthused about his medical head accessory when the pair met shortly after his convention speech. "I see the bandage, and the second thing [Trump says] is 'what do you think of the bandage?'" Donalds said. "I said, 'I don't like it. Take it off.' That's what I said. 'I don't like it. Take it off.' I said 'let everybody see the ear.'' "He was like, 'you know, it's not too bad. It's not too bad'..."Doc Ronny [Jackson] says, I gotta wear the bandage." 'I'm like 'so what? You're the president just take the thing off,' Donalds added. The president's bandage became the inspiration for many at the RNC, with one Arizona delegate Joe Neglia describing it at the time as 'the newest fashion trend.' 'Everybody in the world is going to be wearing these pretty soon,' Neglia told CBS, while sporting a piece of white tape over his own ear. 'When he came in [to the convention], and there was that eruption of love in the room, I thought, 'what can I do to honor the truth? What can I possibly do?'' 'And then I saw the bandage and I thought, I can do that. So, I put it on simply to honor Trump and to express sympathy with him and unity with him.' At a rally shortly after the convention, Trump appeared to have downgraded his ear bandage, instead sporting a skin-colored band-aid covering the top part of his right ear.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump officials scramble to justify firing of economic statistician – as critics say ‘scary' move is a sign of ‘authoritiarianism'
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.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Texas House Democrats plan to flee state to try to stop proposed congressional maps
Democratic statehouse legislators are planning to leave Texas on Sunday in order to break the quorum of a special legislative session in which Republican state legislators are aiming to pass a new congressional map that could create up to five new GOP seats. The move comes after a marathon public hearing on the plan in the state Capitol on Friday and less than a week after state Republican legislators proposed the new maps. Republicans hold a majority in the Texas state legislature; Democrats had said they would consider all options to stop the maps from being passed, although their options for striking back have been limited. 'We're not walking out on our responsibilities; we're walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over,' state Rep. Gene Wu, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. MORE: GOP success with new Texas House map could hinge on Latino voters: ANALYSIS The walkout itself cannot stop the passage of the bill, but Democrats aim to run out the clock on the 30-day special legislative session, which would mean Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would have to call another one. Texas House Democrats previously broke quorum in 2021 to try to stop an elections bill and in 2003 to try to stop a similar redistricting effort by Republicans. Republicans eventually managed to pass the bills both times. President Donald Trump has previously said he wanted Texas legislators to draw five new Republican districts. More than 51 legislators are leaving the state, denying the state House the two-thirds majority out of 150 legislators it needs to have a quorum. An exact number of how many of the 62 Democratic legislators from the state House were leaving was not immediately available. MORE: Eric Holder backs Democratic response to Texas redistricting plan Democrats who break quorum risk accruing a $500-a-day fine, according to the state House rules, and potential legal action. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, speaking with "War Room" host and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said on Thursday, 'The House rules and the Senate rules both allow for these people to be arrested if they leave ... The challenge is, if they go out of state, we lose jurisdiction, and that -- it's been a challenge in the past, but in the end, as long as the governor is willing to keep calling sessions, ultimately they have to come home.' Paxton also said he was not worried about defending the maps in court: 'We've got, we've got good maps. And the legislature has the right to draw the maps they want. They're politically based, not race based. And if they're politically based, then they're defensible.' MORE: Eric Holder backs Democratic response to Texas redistricting plan Some of the Democratic legislators fleeing the state will appear on Sunday evening with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at a press conference. Pritzker has been a staunch supporter of Texas Democrats and has floated the possibility of getting Illinois' own congressional maps redrawn if Texas redraws its maps. Illinois' maps have been criticized by outside observers as highly partisan in favor of Democrats. In late June, the chair of the Texas Democrats, Kendall Scudder, flew from Dallas to Oklahoma to see Pritzker, who was giving remarks at the state Democratic Party's dinner. The pair had a private meeting during that to talk about the possibility of lawmakers fleeing the state to Illinois -- and if they were to flee the state, that they would have a place they would feel safe and supported. Since then, Pritzker and Texas Democrats have been in touch, and a small group of them traveled to Chicago in July when members of the delegation left for Illinois and California for brief meetings. Pritzker and his team have been helping behind the scenes to help find hotels in the area for the Democrats, help their operation, and grease the wheels so things go smoothly for them as they head to Illinois. The bill containing the maps had been scheduled to be taken up on the state House floor on Monday.
