Trump Smears and Fires the Disastrous Jobs Numbers Messenger
Hours after the latest figures revealed that Trump's chaotic trade policies had contributed to 258,000 fewer jobs than first thought, the president posted an angry tirade accusing the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, of fudging the figures.
'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,' he wrote on Truth Social.
'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.'
The extraordinary response came six hours after the report showed a slowdown in job growth, with only 73,000 new jobs for July and unemployment rising to 4.2 percent.
But in a brutal reality check for Trump, there were only 14,000 new jobs in June, far less than the previously stated 147,000; while the May count fell to just 19,000, revised down from 144,000.
The figures were described as 'less than ideal' by the president's own chair of economic advisers, Stephen Miran.
Supporters also admitted they were linked to the president's policies, which had likely led companies to slow their hiring amid the uncertainty.
But Trump had been unusually quiet about the numbers until his attack on McEntarfer shortly after 2 p.m. In his post, he also claimed without evidence that she had rigged data before last year's election to 'try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory.'
McEntarfer was appointed under the Biden administration in January 2024, after a bipartisan Senate vote. Before that, she spent most of her career as an economic researcher at the U.S. Census Bureau.
Within minutes of Trump's post, Wikipedia had been altered to reflect her firing, saying she 'was relieved of her role on August 1, 2025, by President Donald Trump, after being accused without evidence of skewing jobs data.'
The news of her sacking angered some in Washington, even in a capital that has become accustomed to the president's retribution firings.
Dan Koh, a former chief of staff at the Department of Labor, which oversees the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said on X: 'I cannot tell you how outrageous this is.
'Commissioners are appointed to a fixed term. We had a Trump appointee we worked closely with. Nobody is faking numbers. Revisions happen all the time.'
Trump ally Laura Loomer praised the decision as a 'great job' by the president.
'Every single Biden holdover must be FIRED,' she said.
But businessman Kevin O'Leary, another Trump supporter, took a different view, telling CNN: 'We had bad print on jobs. I don't agree on whacking the Commissioner.'
In a second post after ordering McEntarfer to be fired, Trump claimed the jobs numbers were 'rigged' to make him and Republicans look bad.
But his rage over the lower revised figures come despite the president regularly touting upward revisions.
In June, for instance, when the numbers suggested a much higher-than-expected gain, the president quickly credited this to his pro-growth policies, such as tariffs, re-shoring and immigration.
Today, however, his own allies acknowledge that the 'chaos' surrounding his trade policies had contributed to the poor results.
'This disappointing number is a result of all the turmoil of tariffs and trade wars,' Heritage Foundation economics fellow Stephen Moore told Fox Business.
'I talk to small businesses all over the country. A lot of their businesses came to a standstill, they didn't know if they could get their parts in, they didn't know what was going on.'
DNC Communications Director Rosemary Boeglin said if the president wanted someone to blame for the latest figures, 'he should take a look in the mirror.'
'This isn't the People's Republic of Trump—just because he's humiliated by the mess he's made, the president doesn't get to fire the economists who give business owners and the public data about the health of our economy,' she said.
The Daily Beast has reached out to McEntarfer for comment. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed that she had been fired, and that Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski will now serve as Acting Commissioner.
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