Economist Robert Reich: Trump destroying America’s 'credibility'

On Friday, August 1, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) delivered a disappointing jobs report. And President Donald Trump angrily responded by firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and accusing her, with zero evidence, of rigging the data.

Many economic voices consider this an egregious move on Trump's part, including former Treasury Department official Steve Rattner — who, in a scathing New York Times op-ed, slammed Trump as "economically illiterate." And economist Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under the Clinton Administration during the 1990s, is calling Trump out as well.

During a Monday night, August 4 appearance on "The Last Show With Stephen Colbert," Reich warned that Trump's move seriously endangers the United States' "credibility" when it comes to economic data.

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Reich told Colbert, "That means there will be no credibility when the government reports its jobs numbers… It's not just the Bureau of Labor Statistic anymore, Stephen. All the data coming out of the government is now questionable. Because you've got a president who does not want facts. He doesn't want data. This is extraordinarily dangerous. This is the authoritarian playbook."

The economist added, however, that he is "optimistic" about the future and predicts a major backlash against Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.

"People now can see actually how important it is not only to have a democracy, but to have honesty," Reich told Colbert. "Honesty and integrity…. We are now in the second Gilded Age…. We are now going to have a new progressive era coming after this second Gilded Age."

Reich makes similar points about the BLS in a Guardian opinion column published on Tuesday morning, August 5.

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In his column, Reich emphasizes that when he was serving in the Clinton Administration, the last thing he wanted to do was give the impression that the BLS was a tool of the Democratic Party.

"I was the U.S. labor secretary," Reich explains. "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."

Reich continues, "If politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information. So what does Donald 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…. This is a man and a regime that doesn’t want the public to know the truth. He is turning the U.S. into George Orwell’s dystopian '1984.'"

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Watch the full "Late Show" video below or at this link.