President Donald Trump’s acolytes are scrambling to rationalize his decision to fire the nation’s top labor statistician after she delivered a bruising reality check. 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.
Kevin Hassett, a Trump official floated as the next Fed Chair, claimed the jobs report’s revisions shows the numbers are “unreliable.”
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