America Will Suffer From Trump's Assault on Facts
Last week Mr. Trump was confronted by the inconvenient truth that job growth has been in a three-month slump. A more grounded president might have considered whether the data raised questions about his agenda. Mr. Trump characteristically insisted that the questions were about the data. He charged that the beige functionaries of the Bureau of Labor Statistics were engaged in a conspiracy to discredit his administration, and he fired the head of the bureau. The firing is so clearly damaging to the credibility of the federal government that it drew objections from some Senate Republicans.
Mr. Trump's allegations against Erika McEntarfer, the longtime public servant whom he summarily fired, have no foundation in reality. The government's monthly report on the labor market is produced by the bureau's nonpartisan staff. Estimates for different parts of the economy are compiled separately and then pulled together into a national report, which is completed before it reaches the desk of whichever political appointee happens to be running the bureau. Experts, including past leaders of the agency nominated by presidents from both parties, said that it was effectively impossible for the bureau's leader to manipulate those numbers.
One kernel of comfort is that Dr. McEntarfer's departure won't necessarily prevent the agency from continuing to produce reliable data. At the very least, we may hope that if the administration seeks to influence future jobs reports, some of the people responsible for producing the data will have the courage to speak out and tell the public.
But there is no doubt that Mr. Trump's actions will cast a shadow over the rest of the government that he leads. Public servants must now do their work while fearing that they may be fired merely for producing information that displeases the president. Mr. Trump is also making it harder for the government to obtain information, as people and businesses asked to respond to questions now have reason to doubt whether the answers will be accurately reported.
The president says that he fired Dr. McEntarfer because he wanted to preserve the integrity of federal data. The reality is that Mr. Trump's actions will create the very problem he claims to be fixing. Instead of improving the quality of information gathered and reported by the government, he is sowing doubts about the ability of federal agencies to produce reliable data. And in doing so, he is leaving Americans ever more reliant on whatever he declares to be the truth.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
Putin meets Trump envoy as Ukraine peace deadline looms
Vladimir Putin met Thursday with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff amid President Donald Trump's looming Friday deadline for the Russian strongman to start talking peace with Ukraine. Trump hailed the meeting as 'highly productive' and claimed 'great progress' was made, without elaborating. 'Everyone agrees this war must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,' Trump posted on his social media site. The president didn't mention his deadline for Putin to start taking unspecified steps toward ending his war with Ukraine, raising obvious questions about whether the threat is still hanging over the Kremlin. A Kremlin spokesman said the meeting lasted three hours and was 'useful and constructive.' The spokesman suggested Putin presented some kind of proposal for Witkoff to convey to Trump, but did not elaborate. Trump last week set a stricter deadline of '10 or 12 days' for Putin to wind down the war against Ukraine or start peace negotiations and threatened 'severe tariffs' and other economic penalties against Russia and its economic partners if it refuses. Moscow had so far shrugged off Trump's deadline as empty bluster, noting that he has given numerous previous ultimatums on various issues that turned out to be toothless threats. Russia believes it has the upper hand on the battlefield, at least in the short and medium term, giving it little reason to agree to even a brief ceasefire. Its troops have made modest advances along the long front line in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and ousted Ukrainian troops from a sliver of a Russian border territory that they had previously seized. Russia has also mounted increasingly deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets. Earlier, Witkoff took an early morning stroll in Moscow with Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president's envoy for investment and economic cooperation, which was captured in footage aired by a Russian news agency. Dmitriev played a key role in three rounds of direct talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, as well as discussions between Russian and U.S. officials. The negotiations made no progress on ending the three-year war following Russia's invasion of its neighbor. Trump has recently flip-flopped to a much harsher stance on Russia after seeing Putin spurn his demands for concessions for months. But Trump has shown himself to be unwilling to take a firm stance of defending Ukraine and sticking to it, giving Putin an incentive to wait out any threats. The new deadline and threat to impose 'secondary sanctions' on nations that buy Russian energy, like India, China and Turkey, are particularly problematic because those economic powerhouses have no control over Russia's stance on Ukraine. They are unlikely to cut economic ties with Moscow in response to such U.S. demands, especially when Trump himself was cozying up to Putin just a few weeks ago. The White House announced it is tacking on a new 25% tariff on products imported from India, raising the total tax to 50%, which suggests it doesn't consider Putin has met the deadline.
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
Trump plans to meet with Putin as soon as next week, New York Times reports
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet in person with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the plan. Trump then plans to meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the newspaper reported, adding that the plans were disclosed in a call with European leaders on Wednesday. The White House did not immediately respond to the report but earlier on Wednesday Trump acknowledged that he spoke with European leaders after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff's "highly productive" meeting with Putin in Russia. While noting that "great progress" was made during the meeting, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come." Trump, who promised to end Russia's war in Ukraine on "day one" during his presidential campaign, has held several phone calls with Putin and has met with Zelenskiy since returning to the White House in January. However, in recent weeks, he has become increasingly frustrated with Moscow over a lack of progress towards ending the three-year conflict.
Miami Herald
2 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Visitors to the U.S. on business and tourist visas may have to pay $15,000 bonds
Some international visitors to the United States might be required to pay up to $15,000 deposits as part of a new visa bond pilot program announced by the State Department this week in a document published in the Federal Register. The pilot program is another strategy the Trump administration is utilizing to crack down on illegal immigration and is meant to discourage the number of visitors who overstay their visas. The State Department said in the filing that those who overstay their visas pose a national security threat to the U.S. The program is being formed as part of the enforcement of a January executive order in which President Donald Trump declared there was an invasion by illegal immigration through U.S. borders. The consular officers in the respective U.S embassies will determine the amount of the bond during the issuance of the visa. Travelers will have to post the assigned bond amount before they are issued a single-entry visa, which will be valid for three months. Travelers with visa bonds would also be limited to traveling in and out of pre-selected airports. The list of airports has yet to be announced. The administration said 500,000 people overstayed their visas in 2023, based on data from the Department of Homeland Security. The pilot bond program will focus on those countries that the administration has identified as having high visa overstays. The program is limited to only B-1 business and B-2 tourist visas. It does not affect students applying for F-1 student visas. The full list of countries has yet to be announced. A State Department spokesperson said business and tourist visitors from Malawi and Zambia who are eligible for the B-1/B-2 visas will have to post bonds starting Aug. 20. According to Homeland Security's 2023 fiscal year visa overstay data, Malawi had a total visa overstay rate of 14% from 1,655 visitors, and Zambia had 11% from 3,493 visitors. The complete list of countries will be published when the program takes effect. This new program comes as South Florida airports saw a decline in the number of domestic and international travellers compared to the previous year. Dan Linblade, the president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 1,250 companies, said in a statement that international business and tourism were vital to the economy and the new bond pilot program is a 'disincentive to travel from abroad.' 'We are concerned of the potential negative impact on international tourism at a time when we see declining numbers related to foreign travel,' said Lindblade. 'If the State Department's focus is only targeted to bad players then the impact will be smaller.' The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which covers the Sixth District of the Federal Reserve, including Florida, reported in July that group bookings from international travel to the U.S from Canada, Asia, and Europe continued to slow, but there was some growth in overall travel and tourism. In the filing this week, the Department of State said that after reviewing reports going back as far as 2000, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service Data Management Improvement Act was introduced, the reports of entry and exits of nonimmigrant visa holders to the U.S. who overstayed their visas show that thousands of visitors failed to depart by their visa terms. The first Trump administration had tried to initiate a six-month visa-bond pilot program in November 2020. The program was to 'serve as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to take all appropriate actions to ensure their nationals timely depart the United States after making temporary visits.' It was to run from December 2020 through June 2021. The State Department scrapped the pilot program due to the reduction of global travel because of COVID-19. 'Data collected during the Pilot may also be used to determine the effectiveness of visa bonds at reducing overstays, evaluate concerns about insufficient identity verification, and the extent to which visa bonds may deter otherwise legitimate B-1 and B-2 visa applicants from traveling to the United States,' the State Department said. The bond program will run until August 2026, and the countries on the list will continually be updated over the year. Visitors with bonds will have to file for a refund within 30 days of their departure from the United States. Failure to do so results risks forfeiting the deposits.
