Trump orders firing of US official as cracks emerge in jobs market
WASHINGTON (AFP)US President Donald Trump said Friday he has ordered the firing of a key economic official, accusing her of manipulating employment data for political reasons after a new report showed cracks in the US jobs market.US job growth missed expectations in July, Labour Department data showed, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.Without providing evidence, Trump lashed out at the department's commissioner of labour statistics, writing on social media that the jobs numbers "were RIGGED to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."In a separate post on his Truth Social platform, he charged that Commissioner Erika McEntarfer had "faked" jobs data to boost Democrats' chances of victory in the recent presidential election."McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months," Trump said, referring to the latest data for July."Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative," Trump said, insisting that the world's biggest economy was "booming" under his leadership.
He later told reporters, "We need people that we can trust," accusing the economic official of inflating hiring figures under former President Joe Biden's administration.
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Gulf Today
25 minutes ago
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Donald Trump voters wanted relief from medical bills
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The National
2 hours ago
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The word many powerful Americans seem to have forgotten when dealing with Donald Trump
No. It's one of the shortest, simplest and most important words in the English language. But, when it comes to President Donald Trump, many key players in the US power structure appear stricken with lockjaw. In the 20th and 21st centuries, it's axiomatic that strongman powers are more typically given than taken. When dealing with an uncompromising and ruthless chief executive, it's easier to give in and not put up a fight. Financial calculations are most obvious. The government can use regulatory powers or lucrative government contracts to shape the condition and prospects of a given business, no matter how large. When the President makes it implicitly clear that a merger, for example, won't be approved by the relevant regulatory body unless some form of acquiescence is forthcoming, in purely pecuniary terms it's a no-brainer to just give in. Historically, Americans hardly lack courage. They have died to defend their Constitution and democratic traditions. They have gone to prison rather than betray their values and principles We've seen several alarming examples of this since Mr Trump returned to office, and even simply following the election. Mr Trump sued CBS over an interview conducted by its well-known 60 Minutes programme with his then campaign rival, former vice president Kamala Harris. The programme had edited her remarks for broadcast, as is standard practice. Mr Trump's $20 billion lawsuit alleged that this editing amounted to consumer fraud and election interference. CBS released the full transcript, which readily demonstrated that the edits were routine and insubstantial. In July, however, Mr Trump received a $16 million settlement from CBS's parent company, Paramount, which has been in the process of attempting a merger with Skydance Media. That has just been approved by the Federal Communications Commission, a part of Mr Trump's executive apparatus. An earlier collapse came from ABC when Mr Trump sued the network for liable and defamation over remarks made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. In December, even before Mr Trump was back in the White House, ABC settled for $15 million. Again, Mr Trump's case was weak. Mr Stephanopoulos said that Mr Trump had been found civilly liable for rape in the E Jean Carroll case. Technically, under New York law, Mr Trump was only found liable for sexual abuse. However, a federal judge repeatedly ruled that Mr Trump had indeed committed rape under the common understanding of the term. Given the high bar under US law for defamation cases, it is unlikely that Mr Trump would have prevailed. But ABC's parent company, Disney, with its myriad business empire, preferred to simply cave. It was just easier, and, they may well have calculated, in the long run cheaper that way. 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