- More about Trump’s firing of the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics, with responses at Slate, from David Brin, The Atlantic, PolitiFact, Heather Cox Richardson, and Robert Reich;
- How Trump is now extorting UCLA;
- How Trump had references to his impeachment removed from the Smithsonian.
Where we are.
Slate, Nitish Pahwa, 1 Aug 2025: Yes, Trump Firing the BLS Commissioner Is Bad. Really Bad., subtitled “Her agency told the truth about Trump’s floundering economy. That was more than the aspiring autocrat could tolerate.”
Donald Trump had two choices Friday after federal reports made clear that job growth had stagnated all summer—undercutting his consistent, fantastic claims of a booming economy. He could reverse course on some of his policies, including his aggressive, counterproductive tariffs. Or he could deny his own government’s data, throw an online tantrum, and fire the government official who oversees the jobs report.
Even if you haven’t already heard, you can probably guess what he did.
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David Brin comments about a piece in The Guardian.
Facebook, David Brin, 1 Aug 2025: The fundamental here…
The fundamental here: facts and fact users are the enemies. As when Emperor Caligula killed almost all Roman officials with governing skill and appointed his horse – (named “Hegseth”?) – to be Senate Consul. Or when Hitler drove out of Europe every first-rank scientist – (except Heisenberg) – and the very best into the Manhattan Project. As Trump is doing now, to accolades from Fox-viewers, who chortle at the discomfiture of anyone who might use the word ‘discomfiture’… or indeed, the word ‘evidence.’
…as Putin and all our enemies giggle over our deliberate suicide, suppressing the very same scientists, inventors, doctors, military officers, judges and others who actually made America great.
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To reiterate. It takes time to validate statistics.
The Atlantic, Rogé Karma, 1 Aug 2025: The Mystery of the Strong Economy Has Finally Been Solved, subtitled “Turns out it wasn’t actually that strong.”
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This has happened before, of course. With Trump.
PolitiFact, 1 Aug 2025: Trump’s baseless ‘manipulated’ data claim in firing BLS chief Erika McEntarfer follows long history
PolitiFact has fact-checked Trump’s complaints about employment reports and accusations that officials have cooked the books against him, such as his August 2024 statement, rated Pants on Fire, that the Harris-Biden administration had been fraudulently manipulating job statistics. Trump’s distrust of economic data goes back to his June 2015 campaign debut.
Economists from across the ideological spectrum have consistently told us that the jobs calculations are free from political meddling; civil servants compiled them using the same methods and schedule for decades.
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And economists have been worried.
Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson: August 1, 2025
Economists have been expressing concern about the accuracy of economic statistics coming out of the Trump administration for months. Cuts to the staff at agencies that collect data have meant that the consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, contains far more estimates of values than it did before the cuts.
Then she summarizes recent days’ events. Then:
Predictably, Trump lashed out.
Although U.S. statistics have been widely seen as the nonpartisan gold standard, Trump claimed that the commissioner of labor statistics, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, had manipulated the jobs report. “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” he wrote. He fired her.
Trump also insisted the head of the Federal Reserve, his own appointee Jerome Powell, should be “put ‘out to pasture.’” Powell has steadfastly refused to lower interest rates to pump money into the economy as Trump wants. Trump has no legal power to fire the Federal Reserve chair without cause, and lately has appeared to be trying to manufacture a cause by suggesting a remodeling of the agency’s headquarters has been wasteful.
“But,” he wrote, “the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!”
That assurance sounded a little desperate. …
His complaints are without evidence, of course.
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And the bottom line, from Robert Reich.
Robert Reich, 1 Aug 2025: Trump destroys our source of information about jobs. This is beyond irresponsible., subtitled “He hates facts. He rejects truth. He doesn’t want the public to know what’s really happening.”
I spent much of the 1990s as secretary of labor. One unit of the Labor Department is the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I was instructed by my predecessors as well as by the White House, and by every labor economist and statistician I came in contact with, that one of my cardinal responsibilities was to guard the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Otherwise, this crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy would be compromised. If politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information.
So what does Trump do? In one fell swoop on Friday he essentially destroyed the credibility of the BLS.
Trump didn’t like the fact that the BLS revised downward its jobs reports for April and May.
Well, that’s too bad. Revisions in monthly jobs reports are nothing new. They’re made when the bureau gets more or better information over time, which it often does.
Yet with no basis in fact, Trump charged that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, “rigged” the data “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” Then he ordered her fired and replaced with someone else — presumably someone whose data Trump will approve of.
And
When Trump doesn’t like the message, he shoots the messenger and replaces them with someone who will come up with messages he approves of. So we’re left without credible sources of information about what is really occurring.
Which he’s now trying to do with Jerome Powell, the EPA, American universities, and the CDC and NIH.
This is a man and a regime that doesn’t want the public to know the truth. He is turning America into George Orwell’s dystopian 1984.
The Trumping of America is happening so fast and in so many places that it’s hard to see the whole. Which partly explains why he doesn’t want the facts out. He doesn’t want us to know how bad it really is.
Help spread the truth. Help organize and mobilize against this calamity.
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Two more adjacent pieces.
JMG, 2 Aug 2025: UCLA Becomes Latest Target Of Trump’s Extortion (from Newsweek)
Trump and MAGA are obsessed with perceived antisemitism. But demonization of everyone else — especially brown-skinned people — is just fine.
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CNN, Analysis by Aaron Blake, 2 Aug 2025: The Trump administration takes a very Orwellian turn
He has had references to his two impeachments removed from an exhibit about presidential impeachments at the Smithsonian Institution.
