President Donald Trump slammed July’s disappointing jobs report as “rigged” on Monday, doubling down on accusations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) manipulated economic data for political purposes and pledging to appoint a new commissioner to restore credibility to the agency.
“Last weeks Job’s Report was RIGGED, just like the numbers prior to the Presidential Election were Rigged,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “That’s why, in both cases, there was massive, record setting revisions, in favor of the Radical Left Democrats… FAKE political numbers that were CONCOCTED in order to make a great Republican Success look less stellar!!! I will pick an exceptional replacement.”
The president’s remarks come just days after he fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a Biden-era appointee, following a July report that showed only 73,000 new jobs were added—far below expectations—and significant downward revisions to the May and June reports totaling 258,000 jobs. BLS described the changes as “larger than normal.”
Trump told reporters on Sunday he would name McEntarfer’s replacement within “three to four days,” emphasizing the urgency of restoring trust in federal labor data. “We had no confidence. The numbers were ridiculous,” he said.
The firing has stirred strong reactions in political and economic circles, with critics accusing the president of politicizing the statistics office, while supporters argue that it was long overdue.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended the move in Sunday interviews, pointing to a pattern of “massive revisions” under McEntarfer’s watch—most notably, an 818,000-job downward correction last year that dramatically worsened the Biden-era job record.
“Well, I mean, the revisions are hard evidence,” Hassett told Meet the Press. “There was an 818,000 revision making the Joe Biden job record a lot worse that came out after he withdrew from the presidential campaign. There have been a bunch of patterns that could make people wonder.”
He added that the president’s priority is restoring integrity to the data. “It’s the president’s highest priority that the data be trusted and that people get to the bottom of why these revisions are so unreliable.”
Critics of the previous leadership at BLS have long questioned the agency’s methods, particularly its reliance on models and self-reporting surveys that have grown increasingly error-prone in the post-pandemic economy. Trump has signaled that his incoming commissioner will bring reforms aimed at increasing transparency and accuracy.
The July jobs report is the latest in a string of economic data that, according to the Trump administration, was inflated during the 2024 election season to benefit Democrats. Now that Biden has exited the stage and Trump has returned to office, the numbers are finally correcting themselves—albeit quietly, and after the political damage was done.
With a new statistician expected to be named this week, Trump is making it clear that federal economic data will no longer be immune to scrutiny. “We’re not going to let cooked books define our economic success,” one White House official said. “The days of statistical gaslighting are over.”
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