Raise your hand if you thought Trump was going to cook the books (Bureau of Labor Statistics edition)

 

Graph and headline:  New York Times, 8/1/2025 

Matthew Cullen reports:

Cracks in the U.S. economy appeared to emerge this morning when the Labor Department’s monthly report showed a significant slowdown in hiring. Economists suggested that a variety of factors could have contributed to the cooling, including federal job cuts, immigration crackdowns and seesawing tariff announcements. 

However, President Trump implied that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was manipulating the data for political reasons and fired her. 

McEntarfer was appointed to her post by Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed in 2024 by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the Senate, after a long government career in which she served under presidents of both parties, including Trump.  [emphasis added]