Trump removes official overseeing jobs data after dismal employment report
He provided no evidence for the charge.
'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,' Mr Trump said on Truth Social. 'She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.'
Mr Trump later posted: 'In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.'
The charge that the data was faked threatens to undercut the political legitimacy of the US government's economic data, which has long been seen as the 'gold standard' of economic measurement globally.
Economists and Wall Street investors have long accepted the data as free from political bias.
After Mr Trump's initial post, labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said on X that Ms McEntarfer was no longer leading the bureau and that William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as the acting director.
'I support the President's decision to replace Biden's Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS,' Ms Chavez-DeRemer said.
Friday's jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated.
The report suggested that the economy has sharply weakened during Mr Trump's tenure, a pattern consistent with a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year and an increase in inflation during June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by the president's tariffs.
'What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger,' Democratic senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Friday speech.
Ms McEntarfer was nominated by Mr Biden in 2023 and became the commissioner of the Bureau of Labour Statistics in January 2024.
Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired.
The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants.
The Senate confirmed Ms McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now vice president JD Vance among the yea votes.
Mr Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data.
Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from a previously revised 125,000, and for June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000.
In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%.
'No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,' Mr Trump wrote. '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.'
Mr Trump has not always been so suspicious of the monthly jobs report and responded enthusiastically after the initial May figures came out on June 6 when it was initially reported that the economy added 139,000 jobs.
'GREAT JOB NUMBERS, STOCK MARKET UP BIG!' Mr Trump posted at the time.
That estimate was later revised down to 125,000 jobs, prior to the most-recent revision down to just 19,000.
The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets.
The disappointing figure sent US market indexes about 1.5% lower Friday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
35 minutes ago
- Spectator
Deluded Americans are descending on Ireland
The American girl was listing her reasons for moving to Ireland in protest at Donald Trump. 'I cannot stay in a country where Roe vs Wade has been overturned. Did you know abortion is restricted in a lot of states? Oh no, I cannot wait to live in Ireland.' We are becoming used to Americans staying at our B&B while they are house-hunting in Ireland during a fit of pique. We let it all go over our heads. But the question remains. Why are these migrating anti-Trumpers so daft? They are flouncing out of America to come to Ireland in a reverse ferret of how the journey across the Atlantic has been done for centuries. When they explain their reasoning, they couldn't bark up a wronger tree if they tried. Although I would say, in their defence, the way Ireland markets itself is very misleading, with all the rainbow Pride flags and Palestinian embassies. But liberal Americans don't seem to understand that this is the image, tailored for tourism and EU grants, I suspect. The practical reality is very different. As wonderful as the Emerald Isle is, they're going the wrong way across the Atlantic. 'From Galway to Graceland' is the song title. There is no song entitled 'From California to Carlow'. Or Cork. Or Kerry. No young person living in New York or Los Angeles has ever dreamed of leaving the lights, the shops, the theatres and the endless opportunities to get on a boat to Rosslare to begin working on a cattle farm and going down the chipper for their dinner. But a whole load of overprivileged Yanks are descending on Ireland in a huff, invoking their Irish ancestry and sitting in the rain declaring 'This will show Trump!' – while Trump is enjoying White House room service and sunning himself in Palm Beach. I call it the Rosie O'Donnell syndrome. The actress and comedian makes no sense when explaining why she has moved from New York and Hollywood to Dublin, allegedly because she doesn't 'feel safe' surrounded by people who voted for Trump. I often amuse myself during the long, dark West Cork summer evenings by imagining Ms O'Donnell trying to call out a plumber. 'I wonder if she's had a blocked loo yet, or an overflowing gutter,' I remark to the builder boyfriend. 'No bother!' says the BB, impersonating a plumber who is not going to turn up. Ms O'Donnell keeps insisting it's all fantastic. Maybe the locals are saying 'Top of the morning to you, Rosie!' to amuse themselves. But at some point she's going to have someone say the following to her, very impatiently: 'So do you want to go on the waiting list for a call-out for a quote for a new bathroom in six months' time or not?' When the two girls from California came to stay at our B&B, they burst through the kitchen doors as we were eating our dinner and launched into a gushing speech about how much they loved Ireland and felt at home in Ireland, having been here a day. Yeah, all right, I thought. We don't tend to get five-star reviews from people who've just landed that morning. We get five-star reviews from people who've been on the road a week or two, and who fall into our red-hot, full pressure showers with a gratitude that's bordering hysteria. These two were at the idealistic stage. It only took them two minutes to get on to Trump and a pro-choice rant which we could have done without, for we were eating a plate of linguine. One girl stood outside smoking and asked if we had any weed, while the other girl made herself comfortable on the kitchen sofa and started explaining what happens to women in southern US states where abortion is restricted. She could not live in that kind of country. She wanted to live in a society where there was completely unfettered freedom for women in the pro-choice arena. That's why they were in Ireland on a mission to investigate relocating here… The BB looked at me, pausing the forking of linguine into his mouth. 'Er,' I said. And I put my fork down. 'Are you sure we can't offer you some pasta?' No, they said, they had just had pizza. 'Ice cream?' I said. 'Go on. Have some ice cream.' They said that would be nice. So I got five flavours of ice cream out of the freezer and set them on the table with bowls and spoons and the girls sat down at the table. I said: 'You do know Ireland is Catholic, don't you?' They looked blank, then started gushing again. 'We just love it here! We feel right at home, don't we?' 'We do! The people are wonderful! So welcoming! We're going to be so happy here!' While one puffed on a vape and the other ate ice cream, they told us how much they despaired for their country. They said there was some hope for women's rights and liberal ideology, though, because of the nice Muslim Democratic candidate being lined up for mayor of New York. By now, the BB and I were sitting there with our mouths slightly ajar, saying nothing. What was spilling out of their brains made no more sense than if they'd told us they were going to put the raspberry ripple in the oven to keep it frozen. They finished slagging off America, then went to bed saying they had to be up at 7.30 a.m. to go to Blarney Castle. The next day they came down at noon and said they might give the Blarney Stone a miss. They were going just to get in the car and drive and see where the road took them. 'That sounds like an excellent plan,' I said, wondering if the road would be so good as to take them back to the airport.
Spectator
36 minutes ago
- Spectator
The powder keg of 1980s New York
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe's romp through the status and racial anxieties of 1980s New York, begins with an unnamed mayor being Mau-Maued by Harlem activists. As he soaks up the abuse, he fantasises about the confrontation spreading: Come down from your swell co-ops, you general partners and merger lawyers! It's the Third World down there!… Staten Island! Do you Saturday do-it-yourselfers really think you're snug in your little rug? You don't think the future knows how to cross a bridge? This fictional world, a collision of riches and poverty and criminal justice and electoral politics, maps neatly on to the period described in Jonathan Mahler's new book. His previous New York social history, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, focused on 1977, which saw a heatwave, a crime wave, a city-wide power blackout, a baseball title race and a mayoral election. Ed Koch comes from nowhere to win that election, while junior prosecutor Rudy Giuliani and real estate tyro Donald Trump hang out at Jimmy McMullen's bar on the Upper East Side, hoping they may gain admittance to Studio 54. Fast forward nine years and we are at the start of The Gods of New York. The city has rebuilt its finances, buoyed by a resurgent financial sector fuelling a property boom in Manhattan; the outer boroughs have yet to feel much of the benefit. Koch has just been elected for his third term; Giuliani, now US attorney for the southern district of New York, has been prosecuting the Mafia and is limbering up to go after Wall Street; Trump is throwing together deals and leveraging all the political capital he can muster. Over the course of the book, which ends in 1989, Koch is beset by overlapping crises, to the extent that it is hard not to feel sympathy for him. The first is crime. Part of this is corruption: ten days after the inauguration, his ally, the Queens borough president Donald Manes, is involved in a mysterious car crash that turns out to be linked to a parking fines scandal; two months later he has shot himself. This is only a curtain-raiser for other rumbling scandals in the Democratic party machine. But worse is the run of high-profile violence that inflames the city's racial politics. Bernhard Goetz, who has shot four black youths on a subway train, comes to trial and is largely acquitted. Michael Griffiths, a black man from Brooklyn, is chased on to a highway in Queens by a mob and killed by a car. Yuseef Hawkins is shot and killed in Bensonhurst. Activists, notably the Reverend Al Sharpton, confront the authorities on behalf of bereaved black families. But they also overreach. Tawana Brawley accuses four white men, including police officers and an assistant DA, of having kidnapped and raped her, and Sharpton leads protest marches through the streets. When it becomes clear that the story is a hoax, the assistant DA demands a huge damages claim from Sharpton, which is paid by his supporters. Trisha Meili, jogging in Central Park, is raped and severely assaulted; the police extract confessions from five teenagers and Trump places an advert in the Daily News calling for their execution. Convicted and imprisoned, they are later exonerated. Koch is also presiding over a deepening Aids crisis in the city, his tardy response complicated by the fact that he is a closet gay. He receives especial criticism from the playwright Larry Kramer and his group ACT-UP, who carry out a series of protests culminating in a die-in at St Patrick's Cathedral. All of this against the backdrop of widespread homelessness – Koch repeatedly tries to move the homeless off the streets and finds himself thwarted by civil liberties groups – and the crack epidemic. Individual gadflies come for him too. Giuliani, with ambitions to replace him as mayor for the Republicans (and facing machinations within that party that make the Democrats look fraternal), is directing a series of prosecutions to bolster his own image and damage Koch's. Trump is embarrassing him where possible, tussling over the lease for Trump Tower and renovating the Central Park ice rink when the city lacks funds. Announcing at a Republican dinner that he is not going to run for president in 1988, he speaks up for tariffs on 'these countries that are ripping us off', proposes an attack on 'horrible, horrible' Iran and warns that 'if the right man doesn't get into office, you're going to see a catastrophe in this country in the next four years like you're never going to believe'. (Within a few years he has suffered multiple bankruptcies and is hosting The Apprentice.) Koch eventually loses the Democratic primary to a relatively left-wing challenger, David Dinkins – who will himself serve one term before losing to Giuliani. The book's emphasis on crime and money leaves it surprisingly thin on finance and also on culture – an important part of what still brings people to the city. Ladies and Gentlemen… was incisive about CBGBs's punk and new wave and disco. Here there is an extended account of the filming of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing – influential, to be sure, though not offering much relief from the rest of the narrative. But overall, Mahler's exploration of the rowdy origins of the ruling style of contemporary US politics is engaging, enlightening and discouraging.
Leader Live
an hour ago
- Leader Live
Trump says he plans to put a 100% tariff on computer chips
The Republican president said that companies who make computer chips in the US would be spared the import tax. 'We'll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,' Mr Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting Apple chief executive Tim Cook. 'But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge.' During the Covid-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of cars and contributed to an uptick in overall inflation. Mr Trump's announcement came as Mr Cook joined him at the White House to announce a commitment by the tech company to increase its investment in US manufacturing by an additional 100 billion dollars (£74.9 billion) over the next four years. 'This is a significant step toward the ultimate goal of ensuring that iPhones sold in the United States of America also are made in America,' Mr Trump said at the press conference. 'Today's announcement is one of the largest commitments in what has become among the greatest investment booms in our nation's history.' As part of the Apple announcement, the investments will be about bringing more of its supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the US as part of an initiative called the American Manufacturing Programme, but it is not a full commitment to build its popular iPhone device domestically. 'This includes new and expanded work with 10 companies across America. They produce components — semiconductor chips included — that are used in Apple products sold all over the world, and we're grateful to the president for his support,' Mr Cook said in a statement announcing the investment. The new manufacturing partners include Corning, Coherent, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments and Broadcom among others. Apple had previously said it intended to invest 500 billion dollars (£374 billion) domestically, a figure it will now increase to 600 billion dollars (£449 billion). Mr Trump in recent months has criticised the tech company and Mr Cook for efforts to shift iPhone production to India to avoid the tariffs his Republican administration had planned for China. While in Qatar earlier this year, Mr Trump said there was 'a little problem' with the Cupertino, California, company and recalled a conversation with Mr Cook in which he said he told the businessman 'I don't want you building in India'. India has incurred Mr Trump's wrath, as the president signed an order on Wednesday to put an additional 25% tariff on the world's most populous country for its use of Russian oil. The new import taxes to be imposed in 21 days could put the combined tariffs on Indian goods at 50%. Apple's new pledge comes just a few weeks after it forged a 500 million-dollar deal with MP Materials, which runs the only rare earths producer in the country. That agreement will enable MP Materials to expand a factory in Texas to use recycled materials to produce magnets that make iPhones vibrate. Speaking on a recent investors call, Mr Cook emphasised that 'there's a load of different things done in the United States'. As examples, he cited some of the iPhone components made in the US such as the device's glass display and module for identifying people's faces and then indicated the company was gearing to expand its productions of other components in its home country. 'We're doing more in this country, and that's on top of having roughly 19 billion chips coming out of the US now, and we will do more,' Mr Cook told analysts last week, without elaborating. News of Apple's latest investment in the US caused the company's stock price to surge by nearly 6% in Wednesday's midday trading. That gains reflect investors' relief that Mr Cook 'is extending an olive branch' to the Trump administration, said Nancy Tengler, chief executive of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, which owns Apple stock. Despite Wednesday's upturn, Apple's shares are still down by 14% this year, a reversal of fortune that has also been driven by the company's botched start in the pivotal field of artificial intelligence.
