BLS BLOWBACK: Trump and White House officials spent the weekend defending his decision to oust the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after a disappointing jobs report last week.
Trump's firing of Erika McEntarfer has sparked backlash and raised questions about whether the president is trying to swat away negative news that could sour his economic celebrations — regardless of what the stats show.
"She had the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday afternoon, repeating his assertions, without evidence, that recent BLS reports were a "SCAM!"
Trump previously claimed that McEntarfer "faked the Jobs Numbers" to be more favorable to Democrats. The president on Sunday said he would announce his new pick to lead the bureau in three to four days.
"The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable," National Economic Council Chair Kevin Hassett said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"The big downward revision is something of a puzzle. I don't think it was explained very well. And I think that markets might be as much unsettled by the fact that the data are so noisy," he added on "Fox News Sunday."
"Even last year during the campaign, there were enormous swings in the jobs numbers, and so sounds to me like the president has real concerns. You know, not just based on today's, but everything we saw last year," U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an interview on CBS.
The latest BLS report suggested the economy and labor market are much weaker than previously thought — casting a dark cloud over the massive tariff overhaul that Trump has spent months promoting.
"Reliable economic data is a key strength of the US economy," Harvard economist Jason Furman, who chaired Obama's White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote online. "I don't think Trump will be able to fake the data given the procedures. But there is now a risk, plus an awful appearance."
McEntarfer, a Biden nominee who the GOP-led Senate confirmed in a 86-8 vote last year, said Sunday that she still regards the opportunity to hold the position for the past several months as an "honor."
"It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy," she said on the social media platform Bluesky. "It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation."
RAISING ALARM: Economist Justin Wolfers called the BLS chief's ouster "an authoritarian four alarm fire," noting the commissioner is "the wonk in charge of the statisticians who track economic reality."
"It will also backfire: You can't bend economic reality, but you can break the trust of markets. And biased data yields worse policy," wrote Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan.
Larry Summers, who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, compared Trump's actions to former President Nixon's administration before Nixon resigned in 1974.
"This is way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did," Summers said in an interview on ABC's "This Week." "I'm surprised that other officials have not responded by resigning themselves as took place when Richard Nixon fired people lawlessly."
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said Sunday he thinks an investigation into Trump's BLS move "is certainly in order."
"That tells you a lot about their insecurity about the economy and the state of economic affairs in America because everything that they're claiming to be true is not true," he said on "Meet the Press."
▪ The Washington Post: Trump's decision to fire the official responsible for compiling the nation's jobs statistics drew condemnation from economic experts who served in Republican and Democratic administrations.
▪ The New York Times: Trump's tariffs have started to generate a significant amount of money for the federal government — a new source of revenue that American policymakers may start to rely on.
▪ The Hill: Trump's plans for a $200 million White House ballroom is angering critics.
GOP SET TO GO 'NUCLEAR': Senators left Washington for their August recess after a push for a deal on nominations collapsed Saturday.
When they return next month, Republicans facing a Democratic blockade are intent on moving forward with a rules change to limit the length of time spent on individual nominees to more quickly confirm Trump's picks.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were unable to seal the deal on a package that would have allowed roughly two dozen nominees to be approved before the monthlong break.
In exchange for allowing the group of nominees to be approved, Schumer had been pushing for billions of dollars of restored funding in foreign aid and for the National Institutes of Health. Trump, however, made clear that he would not throw his weight behind that agreement, referring to Democrats as "extortionists" and praising congressional GOP leadership.
Senate Republicans are expected to go "nuclear" on nominees once they reconvene in September by moving to change the rules with 51 votes needed.
"Donald Trump didn't get his way," Schumer said at a press conference Saturday night. "Again, this shows us. He bullied us, he cajoled us, he called us names and he went home with nothing."
EPSTEIN LATEST: Republican lawmakers are cautioning Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) to be skeptical about a potential pardon or commutation for Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years behind bars for sex trafficking minors.
Maxwell was recently relocated from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security site in Texas, after two days of meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ's No. 2 official. Her attorneys are seeking clemency from Trump in exchange for details she may offer about Epstein's crimes and other people involved.
But GOP lawmakers argue that pardoning Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021, would be unseemly.
"It's ridiculous that he would consider shortening a sentence for somebody who aided and abetted sexual trafficking as she did," said a Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on the sensitive topic. "She's trafficking underage children. I can't imagine anything she could say could nullify her heinous crimes."
▪ The Hill: Trump railed against Charlamagne tha God on Sunday after the radio host predicted the Epstein saga would pave the way for traditional Republicans to take back the GOP from the MAGA base.
▪ The Hill: Trump weighed in on actor Sydney Sweeney's controversial American Eagle ad, saying if she's a Republican "I think her ad is fantastic."
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