Today, August 1, 2025, Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after a weak jobs report (also released today) showed that only 73,000 new jobs were added in July.
The BLS report also revised May, 2025 numbers down from 125,000 to 19,000 jobs, and June, 2025 numbers down from 133,000 to 14,000 jobs.
Trump posted the following on Truth Social (bold added for emphasis):
I was just informed that our Country's "Jobs Numbers" are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory. This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records — No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. 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. 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. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under "TRUMP" despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting "Kamala" elected – How did that work out? Jerome "Too Late" Powell should also be put "out to pasture." Thank you for your attention to this matter!
In a follow-up Truth Social post Trump said:
In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.
Trump praised the BLS reports in April, May and June of this year when they were favorable to his administration.
U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer posted the following on social media:
I agree wholeheartedly with @POTUS that our jobs numbers must be fair, accurate, and never manipulated for political purposes.
McEntarfer was nominated by Joe Biden in July 2023 and was confirmed by the Senate in an 86-to-8 vote, receiving overwhelming bipartisan support.
Because of the size of the U.S. economy and response rates to BLS surveys (from which the data is generated), sometimes there are lags in data collection, which the BLS revises later. The lag does not imply any wrongdoing or manipulation.
In August of last year, the BLS said 818,000 fewer jobs had been created over a 12-month period than initially thought.
Source:
Kopack, Steve; Alba, Monica; Strickler, Laura. (August 1, 2025). "Trump fires labor statistics boss hours after the release of weak jobs report". NBC News. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
Wile, Rob; Kopack, Steve. (August 1, 2025). "The U.S. job market was weak in July, and previous months were worse than thought". NBC News. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
Trump, Donald. (August 1, 2025). "Donald J. Trump | Truth Social Post". Truth Social. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
(August 1, 2025). "Live updates: Trump claims jobs report 'rigged' to make him look bad". The Hill. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
Revell, Eric. (August 1, 2025). "Trump orders termination of labor statistics official after jobs report and downward revisions". Fox Business. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
An article on the Barron's website entitled "A Weak Jobs Report Signals Stagflation. Blame Tariffs." said the weak jobs numbers are not the result of the Federal Reserve's interest rates, but instead a result of the onset of stagflation caused by Trump's tariffs.
The article also said that the May and June revisions might be partially due to declining response rates to BLS surveys, and that the BLS confidence interval for it's July job numbers is plus or minus 136,000.
Here's some of what progressive commentator Brian Tyler Cohen had to say (bold added for emphasis):
Look, I cover Trump on a daily basis, but what he just did was truly Orwellian.
So Trump presides over a disastrous trade war with policies that every economist admitted would shrink the economy. And when it does exactly that, Trump blames not himself but the person responsible for counting the numbers. He is blaming math. The reality is that this is the last time we can ever trust the jobs numbers coming out of the US government. From this point moving forward, the books will be cooked to positively reflect on Donald Trump.
Trump doesn't want to actually help the economy. He wants to be told that he's helping the economy. This isn't about actually adding jobs for Americans. It's about giving himself credit for it, regardless of whether or not it actually happens.
Put simply, no one wants to invest in a country where you can't trust any of the data being surfaced by the government. We won't know what the actual state of the economy is because the autocrat in charge put his flunky in charge of cooking the books.
He does not give a shit about you. He never did. He just says things that people want to hear, but he never delivers. His entire presidency is a graveyard of broken promises.
Source:
Tyler Cohen, Brian. (August 1, 2025). "BOMBSHELL: Trump pulls INSANE move amid disaster jobs report". YouTube. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
Here are a few selected comments from an article on the Fox Business website entitled "Trump orders termination of labor statistics official after jobs report and downward revisions" (bold added for emphasis):
[disgruntledrepublican266]
So now there is no truth. Can we trust anything that comes out of this administration? Will financial markets trust any government economic information now? Will foreign investors or even domestic investors be willing to buy our debt without being able to trust economic information about our economy? The president should not have the authority to fire someone for simply doing their job and telling the truth.
[stick2thefacts951]
This makes no sense. If she wanted to make Trump look bad, she would have reported the real (very low) numbers in May and June instead of inflating them.
[boodlish]
Trump just fired Dr Erika McEntarfer, a widely respected labour economist with over 20 years of experience at the Census Bureau, Treasury, and BLS, confirmed by the Senate 86 to 8, because the jobs report didn't suit his narrative. Her "crime"? Reporting accurate data showing job growth slowed and May–June figures were revised down by 258,000, due to routine delays in employer survey responses, especially from schools. There's no evidence of any wrongdoing. Trump just didn't like the result.
[sladester]
Great so now Trump is going to put in place someone who will always report good jobs numbers no matter what. Then if the economy tanks, he'll just lie and say it's doing great. When the same people gave bad numbers when Biden was President, I don't remember Trump or anyone questioning the numbers. But Trump is in, all the bad numbers are fake. This is a good recipe for economic disaster.
[Captain Trips]
This, my friends, is called gaslighting. When your entire existence is based on "winning," never making mistakes, and being "right about everything," when the data doesn't support your ruse, the problem must be the data. Don't worry, friends, Trump will find someone to fix the data.
[it'sjustmeagain]
"I was just informed that our Country's 'Jobs Numbers' are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfar, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory." [Quote from Trump's Truth Social post] Ummm...she revised the job numbers DOWN over 800,000 Jobs in Aug 2024 before the election. If she was faking Job numbers to help Kamala, she was doing it wrong.
Aug 11, 2025 Update
Donald Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, as the next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Source:
Zhan, Max. (August 12, 2025). "Who is E.J. Antoni, Trump's pick to lead the BLS?". ABC News. Retrieved 2025-08-16.
Cameron, Hugh. (August 13, 2025). "E.J. Antoni Appointment by Trump Sparks Alarm Among Economists". Newsweek. Retrieved 2025-08-16.
Because Antoni is viewed by some as partisan, assuming he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, in the future, investors may need to rely more heavily on economic data produced by ADP, Homebase, and MIT's Billion Prices Project.
Source:
Saacks, Bradley. (August 14, 2025). "Government data is now in question. Here's where macro investors are turning to fill the gaps.". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-08-16.
Commentary:
Wow, once again I am almost speechless.
The comments by Brian Tyler Cohen and the selected comments on the Fox Business article pretty much sum it up.
Yes, once again, as always, Trump is gaslighting the American public.
And yes, with his McEntarfer replacement no one in America, or the entire world will be able to trust the economic numbers published by this administration. And it's not going to be just the Bureau of Labor statistics that Trump is going to "cook," it's going to be all of the data, regardless of what it pertains to. I said this would happen right after Trump was reelected, and this is just the start.
One statement in Trump's Truth Social post stands out as the epitome of hypocrisy:
Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes.
By firing McEntarfer and replacing her with someone more to his liking (someone who shares his political ideology) Trump has made this a political issue. Now, McEntarfer's replacement will be viewed as doing exactly what Trump said shouldn't be done.
We are becoming more like a third world country run by a dictator with each passing day.