CNN analyst David Goldman writes that President Donald Trump and his administration spent the last month trying to sell his July bad jobs numbers as a big lie planted by Biden sympathizers to undermine his administration.
The president called the July jobs report “rigged,” and fired Erika McEntarfer from her role as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner for serving them up. Afterward, officials bent themselves into pretzels trying to explain why Trump was justified in removing McEntarfer for allegedly sabotaging his administration — despite offering no proof of McEntarfer’s claimed villainy.
“That effort hit a brick wall Friday after the government produced updated jobs numbers that painted an even more concerning portrait of the U.S. economy,” wrote Goldman.
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McEntarfer is gone, but Friday’s jobs report showed hiring continued to stall in Trump’s economy.
“The number of jobs actually fell in June for the first time since 2020 — all while the revisions the Trump administration so vociferously complained about were significantly less dramatic than in prior months,” Goldman said. “… In other words: The jobs data the Trump administration used to signal a scandal was neither historic nor evidence of corruption.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects jobs data from two surveys, one from old-fashioned door knocking and the other from telephone, internet surveys, and automated data transfer from large corporations. The bureau follows up some information with callbacks to assure accuracy. It revises some numbers for seasonal changes and for low survey responses.
Faced with the undeniable trend, CNN reports the Trump administration has not claimed the August jobs numbers were rigged just yet. Instead Trump is trying to blame Fed Chair Jerome Powell for keeping interest rates high.
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“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer echoed that stance,” reports Goldman. “National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett conceded that the jobs report was a ‘disappointment,’ blaming the BLS’ inability to track summer hiring. He also, without evidence, attributed some of the hiring slump to Trump’s immigration policy, a conclusion that the jobs report does not capture.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insists, without evidence, that “McEntarfer was rooting against Trump and America’s success, which led to skewed jobs numbers,” Goldman said.
Read the CNN report at this link.