Trump news at a glance: ‘credibility' of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor official
The US president claimed without evidence that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'rigged' job numbers 'in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad', after data showed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that the president was 'firing the messenger'.
Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who was picked by Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced what he called the 'totally groundless firing'.
'Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,' said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward, who added that 'credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world'.
Senate Democrat Ron Wyden said 'this is the act of somebody who is soft, weak and afraid to own up to the reality of the damage his chaos is inflicting on our economy'.
The move came as markets around the world were roiled by Trump's latest tariff announcement, which left more than 60 countries scrambling to secure trade deals.
Here are the key US politics stories of the day:
Donald Trump ordered the firing of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he was 'firing the messenger'.
The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'faked' employment figures in the run-up to last year's election in an effort to boost Kamala Harris's chances of victory.
Trump later claimed: 'Today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.'
He produced no evidence for these allegations and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, 'BOOMING' on his watch.
Read the full story
Donald Trump has said that he deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the 'appropriate regions' in response to a threatening tweet by Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of 'highly provocative statements' by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chair of Russia's security council.
Medvedev had earlier said that Trump's threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were 'a threat and a step towards war'.
Read the full story
Donald Trump unleashed global chaos with sweeping new tariff rates, triggering a wave of market jitters and fears for jobs in some of the poorest countries, as rates were signed off ranging from 10% to 50%.
There was a minor reprieve that opened the door to further negotiations, after the White House said the updated tariffs would take effect on 7 August, not on Friday, the deadline previously set by Trump.
Read the full story
Donald Trump called on top Federal Reserve officials to seize control from its chair, Jerome Powell, if he fails to cut interest rates, stepping up his extraordinary attacks on the central bank's independence.
The US president called Powell 'a stubborn MORON' in a series of critical social media posts on Friday, days after the Fed held rates steady for the fifth consecutive time.
Read the full story
Americans are struggling financially, grappling with debt and the rising cost of living, and are blaming the Trump administration and corporate interests for worsening economic outlooks for working families, according to a new poll.
Read the full story
A new Trump administration report that attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say.
Read the full story
The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns over Donald Trump's escalating trade war.
Poverty and hunger will rise as a result of the Trump administration's unprecedented cuts to the US federal 'food stamps' program, according to experts. Low-income workers who rely on the aid are braced for dire consequences.
California's governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state's congressional maps in response to Texas's plans to change its own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, has been transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas, the US Bureau of Prisons said on Friday.
Kamala Harris has said she currently has no desire to re-enter 'the system' of American politics because it is 'broken'.
Sixteen states are suing the Trump administration to defend transgender youth healthcare access, which has rapidly eroded across the US due to threats from the federal government.
Catching up? Here's what happened 31 July 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump critic turned ally Nancy Mace announces run for South Carolina governor
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) – a former critic of President Donald Trump who became one of his most outspoken defenders on Capitol Hill while also becoming one of the most virulent voices against transgender people – announced she would is running to be governor of South Carolina. Despite having a thin legislative record, Mace has largely built a name for herself for bombastic stunts such as pushing to ban Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, from using the women's restroom and voting to eject Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. 'I don't answer to the establishment,' she said during her speech. 'I don't know those in the back room a single thing. I answer to the people.' Mace made her announcement at the Citadel, South Carolina's military college, where she became the first woman to graduate. That came after she had initially dropped out of high school following being raped as a teenager, an ordeal she has publicly recounted. During her announcement, Mace mentioned a series of hardline policies, mostly focusing on immigration and cutting the state's income tax to zero in five years. 'They are all here, and we will work with ICE better than ever to ensure that anyone who is here illegally gets deported immediately, we will work with ICE in every respect,' she said of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'If we need housing price we have it, if we need to have boots on the ground to help ICE, we will do it everything in our power, and we will not let another sanctuary share it dictate who gets to stay here when they're here illegally.' Unsurprisingly, Mace also said that she would oppose what she called the 'gender cult,' citing how she called out Clemson University for having 15 gender options. 'I hold the line on women and kids, Insanity and education by vetoing any funding to any college that pushes gender ideology and refuses to define what a woman is,' Mace said. 'If a school erases women, it erases its right to your tax dollars.' But Mace faces a crowded primary. Fellow Rep. Ralph Norman, who endorsed Nikki Haley during the 2024 preisdential primary, is also running. Another opponent is state attorney general Al Wilson, whom Mace accused on the House floor of ignoring her report of sexual assault, though Wilson said that Mace's report never made it to his office. Mace first came to Washington after serving in South Carolina's state legislature. In 2014, she staged a primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at the peak of the Tea Party movement. She later worked on the 2016 Trump campaign in the Palmetto State. In 2020, she beat former Democratic congressman Joe Cunningham in South Carolina's 1st district. Initially, after the January 6 riot, Mace criticized Trump and said she held him responsible for the riot, though she voted against impeaching him. That led to Trump endorsing her Republican primary opponent Katie Arrington in 2022. In response, Mace posted a video of herself infront of Trump Tower in New York. Mace initially billed herself as a moderate Republican who was part of a 'Caucus of One,' telling The Independent in 2023 that she was ' pro-baby, pro-gun, pro-pot, pro-gay.' She initially worked on legislation to decriminalize cannabis and voted with Democrats to legalize protections for same-sex and interracial married couples. But after her primary win, she moved significantly to the right. After initially voting for McCarthy as speaker, when former congressman Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, Mace joined Gaetz and six other Republicans to eject McCarthy alongside every Democrat present at the time. Given many of her opponents within the GOP, Mace would likely need to win the support of the president. While Trump has not made an endorsement in the race yet, her announcement ad features Trump praising her.
The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
The Trump administration is using ‘fascist propaganda' to promote its mass deportation campaign, experts say
The Department of Homeland Security is accused of sharing thinly-veiled nativist propaganda on social media through art as it pursues a sweeping campaign of mass deportations. Throughout July, the X account of the department run by Kristi Noem posted a steady stream of paintings exemplifying a very particular version of the 'homeland.' That has included posting the 1872 work American Progress by John Gast, in which an ethereal Lady Liberty floats above the Western landscape, as white settlers advance across the frame with stage coaches and rail lines, while Native Americans and buffalo run to the margins. Another X post features the contemporary painting A Prayer for a New Life, by Morgan Weistling, a close-up of a white pioneer couple clutching a baby in the back of a covered wagon, along with the caption, ' Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' A third such post includes Morning Pledge, a nostalgic mid-20th century scene of kids in a small town walking towards an American flag, as painted by Thomas Kinkade. The creators and guardians of these works have expressed outrage over being drafted into DHS publicity — and history and politics experts have also raised concerns over this art being used as 'propaganda'. Weistling said he wasn't consulted prior to the Trump administration using his work. The Kinkade Family Foundation, meanwhile, said Morning Pledge was also being used without permission, perverted to 'promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS.' The foundation told The Independent that Kinkade, who died in 2012, struggled in life with poverty as a child and substance abuse as an adult. He viewed his paintings, known for their soft, glowing light, as a way to 'imagine a different kind of world, where warmth, safety, and belonging are human rights for all.' Beyond the canvas, Kinkade helped raise millions for the poor, while his foundation has handed out thousands of therapeutic art kits, including in farmworker communities. 'That vision wasn't meant for a select few, but for everyone,' the foundation said in an email. 'Throughout his life, Thomas sought to respond to moments of hardship with compassion and solidarity, standing with communities made vulnerable.T o see his work used in ways that promote exclusion and division betrays the very heart of what he stood for.' The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the agency 'honors artwork that celebrates America's heritage and history, and we are pleased that the media is highlighting our efforts to showcase these patriotic pieces.' 'If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails and forged this Republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook,' Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. 'This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage.' According to Richard White, a distinguished historian of the West and professor emeritus at Stanford University, DHS's use of works like American Progress is as ironic as it is revealing. The painting depicted a highly nostalgic, mythologized version of the country even at the moment it was created. In reality, instead of the peaceful scene, violence was everywhere, with the U.S. Army (not pictured in the painting) involved in violent, dispossessing wars with indigenous tribes across the West, and groups like the KKK carrying out racist terror campaigns against newly emancipated Black people after the U.S. Civil War. 'It's not about history,' White said of American Progress, but rather a 'mythic narrative' of America. 'The original picture erased the reality around it.' White suspects the Trump administration is using the painting now for a similar purpose. The historian lives in Los Angeles, where masked federal immigration agents and military troops spent weeks conducting dragnet immigration operations, an effort he compares to the Nazi regime's Gestapo secret police. 'The real problem is what's actually happening on the streets of Los Angeles and other cities,' he said. Journalist Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, sees similar far-right currents in DHS's images, strains of nativism he argues have existed just below the surface at the department since its founding in 2002 after the 9/11 terror attacks. 'It was definitely a crypto-right wing move from the start after 9/11 to use a word like 'homeland' in particular in the context of security,' he told The Independent. Prior to this point, he said, the term 'homeland' was not in mainstream use in this way in the U.S. It had the ring of European-style nationalism (and worse) back then, a poor fit for a pluralist democracy in which most of the population, at some point in history, came from somewhere else. Trump's DHS, however, has taken this implicit ideology to the explicit extreme, Ackerman argued, using the tools of 'far-right internet culture' to provoke people by using jarring memes plus the 'classic fascist propaganda' of armed agents kicking in doors to arrest mostly non-white people. 'This is a turn. This is different,' he said. 'This is very racialized, very essentialized propaganda that DHS did not previously explicitly traffic in, even if this probably reflects the id of the Department of Homeland Security that whole time.' The administration's immigration PR efforts have extended beyond the DHS X account and its selection of pioneer paintings. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has earned the derisive nickname ' ICE Barbie ' from critics for her frequent photo-ops in cowboy oufits and combat-ready gear matching with the various agencies under her purview. Both Trump and Noem have featured in wartime-style recruiting posters urging viewers to 'Defend the Homeland, Join ICE Today,' as the administration offers $50,000 sign-on bonuses for new ICE officers. Trump has long leaned into a nostalgic aesthetic as a notable part of his politics. One of his final executive orders in 2020 involved a demand that all new federal buildings in Washington be built in the ' beautiful ' neo-classical style, with marble and columns meant to evoke the temples of ancient Greece and Rome, while his signature political slogan, 'Make America Great Again,' includes an unmistakable nod to a heroic past. Government officials have long trafficked in tropes and propaganda about disfavored groups, too, White said, pointing to the virulently racist popular depictions of the Japanese during WWII. What stands out in this present era, however, is the seeming commitment of whole government departments to producing such images. In time, however, White said even these purposely exclusionary images of national propaganda reveal their limitations. 'In myth, nothing ever changes,' he said. 'In history, things do change.'
Reuters
28 minutes ago
- Reuters
Wegovy maker Novo hit with investor class action over revenue forecast cut
Aug 4 (Reuters) - Novo Nordisk ( opens new tab, maker of the weight-loss drug Wegovy, has been sued in U.S. court by investors claiming the Danish pharmaceutical giant misled them with optimistic growth forecasts and minimized competition risks in the obesity market. The proposed class action lawsuit, opens new tab was filed on Friday in the federal court in New Jersey following a sharp decline in the company's stock price. Investors knocked $70 billion off Novo Nordisk's market value on a single trading day last week. Novo last week in a statement said it was lowering its 2025 sales and operating profit outlook due to lower growth expectations in the second half in the United States for Wegovy in the obesity market and the drugmaker's Ozempic in the diabetes market. Novo said its updated sales outlook for Wegovy stemmed from the 'persistent' use of compounded versions of the drug, competition and what it described as slower-than-expected market expansion. A representative from Novo and an attorney for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday about the investor lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of potentially thousands of investors who purchased Novo's stock between May 7, 2025 and July 28. The tight supply of Wegovy in the United States in 2022 prompted U.S. regulators to temporarily allow the sale of cheaper, compounded versions of the drug, known chemically as semaglutide. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February removed Wegovy from the agency's shortage list. Novo in June said it was ending a partnership with telehealth company Hims & Hers that began in late April, citing Hims' alleged improper marketing and sales of Wegovy copies. Novo accused Hims of 'deceptive promotion and selling of illegitimate, knockoff versions of Wegovy that put patient safety at risk.' Hims CEO Andrew Dudum in a response accused Novo management of misleading the public and making anticompetitive demands. The case is Eric Barta v. Novo Nordisk et al, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 2:25-cv-14045. For plaintiff: Adam Apton of Levi & Korsinsky For defendants: No appearances yet Read more: Novo Nordisk shares dip further as Wegovy gains nearly erased Hims & Hers hit with investor lawsuits after Novo ends Wegovy partnership Wegovy maker Novo faces fee demand after losing copycat drug lawsuit Ozempic copies restricted after US judge denies injunction
