The White House has defended President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after her dismissal sparked concerns about the future credibility of crucial economic data. Trump claimed without evidence that the latest jobs report had been “rigged” to make him look bad.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, denied that Trump was “shooting the messenger” and questioned the accuracy of the figures showing much weaker hiring than previously reported. “The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable,” Hassett told NBC News’s Meet the Press. He described the downward revision of jobs growth for May and June as “unprecedented” and a “historically important outlier”.
Hassett further expressed concerns about potential partisan patterns in employment statistics, stating, “I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up.” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also defended Trump’s dismissal, citing the president’s “real concerns” about the jobs data. “You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers,” Greer told CBS News’ Face the Nation.
The latest employment figures showed that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated, and only 73,000 jobs were added in July, undermining Trump’s claims that the economy hasn’t been negatively affected by his sweeping tariffs. Trump announced plans to name a new BLS director and a candidate to fill the position left open by the resignation of Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler within the next few days.
The dismissal of McEntarfer, a career bureaucrat appointed with bipartisan support in 2024, has drawn criticism from economists and lawmakers. The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics accused Trump of politicizing the statistics agency and undermining confidence in official government data. “US official statistics are the gold standard globally,” the group said. “When leaders of other nations have politicised economic data, it has destroyed public trust in all official statistics and in government science”.
This move is part of a larger pattern of Trump dismissing inspectors general across various federal agencies, which has raised concerns about government oversight and potential legal violations. Critics argue that such actions threaten the integrity of government programs and undermine public trust in government institutions.