Trump Officials Struggle to Spin Firing of Jobs Report Messenger
Trump was confronted with a weak jobs report Friday showing just 73,000 new jobs for July—far fewer than expected—along with a staggering downward revision of 258,000 fewer jobs for May and June.
Trump dismissed the numbers as 'rigged' and 'phony' before firing Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer, who was confirmed in a bipartisan vote in 2024.
Trump administration officials spent Sunday casting the firing as a strategic decision to restore 'trust' rather than a rash reaction.
'I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,' National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Fox News Sunday.
Hassett, seen as a leading contender for Trump's next Federal Reserve Chair, argued that the massive revision means the BLS's numbers are 'unreliable.' He also suggested the revisions were timed to sabotage Trump.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer struck a similar note in an interview on CBS' Face The Nation: 'You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.'
Trump was still raging about McEntarfer Sunday afternoon, baselessly accusing her of lifting numbers to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and readjusting them downward when he won instead.
'A SCAM!' Trump fumed on Truth Social. 'She did it again, with another massive 'correction,' and got FIRED! She had the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years.'
Three minutes later, he fired off another post lauding GOP Rep. Erin Houchin for 'discussing the Labor Statistics Scam' on Fox News. Houchin had blasted McEntarfer as a 'deep state bureaucrat' and claimed BLS data 'can be manipulated because it's based on surveys.'
Trump later reiterated to reporters, 'I mean the numbers were ridiculous, what she announced' and said he would announce McEntarfer's replacement in the next three to four days.
Both Houchin and Hassett stressed Trump's right to remove McEntarfer.
'I think Erika is a terrific person, but I think that it's time for someone to get in there and fix this, because these numbers are so crucial,' he said, adding that 'the data can't be propaganda. The data has to be something that you can trust.'
Hassett's point mimics what critics are saying as they accuse Trump of trying to undermine trust in the BLS because its data made him look bad.
Former BLS commissioner William Beach, whom Trump appointed in his first term, denounced McEntarfer's dismissal as 'damaging' and sought to debunk claims that the jobs report was politically motivated.
'I don't know that there's any grounds at all for this firing,' Beach said on CNN's State of the Union Sunday. 'Every year we've revised the numbers. When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000 job revision during President Trump's first term.'
Beach called on Trump to 'back off his rhetoric,' warning that undermining the credibility of the jobs report could backfire by causing widespread doubt about accurate data.
When reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Daily Beast, 'BLS data has been historically inaccurate and led by a totally incompetent individual. President Trump believes businesses, households, and policymakers deserve accurate data when making major policy decisions and he will restore America's trust in this key data.'
The weak jobs report, which also showed unemployment rising to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent in June, along with rising inflation signal that Trump's global trade wars may be starting to weigh on the economy, despite his promise of an economic 'golden age.'
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