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Donald Trump didn’t like the slight gain in jobs that the government reported for July. So he fired the commissioner for labor statistics, who nobody had heard of until 10 minutes ago.
Problem solved?
Well, not exactly.
Erika McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, didn’t unilaterally make the decision that the economy added just 73,000 jobs in July. That figure was produced by hundreds of Labor Department analysts, following established rules, before it reached her level.
TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER FIRES BACK AT NBC HOST OVER ‘SHOOTING THE MESSENGER’ CLAIM ABOUT BLS FIRING
For the president to claim, without proof, that this was “rigged”—to make him, and Republicans look bad–doesn’t change the underlying reality. The number was disappointing. That hasn’t changed.
The same goes for the downward revision of 258,000 jobs in the previous two months.
That is incredibly common. It happened during the Biden administration, in one case a downward revision of an earlier jobs estimate. It’s a standard adjustment made once more information has become available.
But the economy is what it is. Dumping the Biden appointee doesn’t change that.
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 1, 2025 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Maybe there’s a problem with the constant revisions, but that’s been going on for years. McEntarfer should have put out a more detailed statement.
There has been an avalanche of media criticism for the president undermining confidence in the reliability of the numbers we all depend on.
Kevin O’Leary, the “Shark Tank” investor, told CNN: “I did not agree on whacking the commissioner. I don’t like that. Whacking statisticians makes no sense whatsoever. You don’t shoot the messenger.”
Trump’s BLS chief in the first term, Bill Beach, said “the commissioner doesn’t do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn’t…
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