White House defend firing of labor official as critics warn of trust erosion

WASHINGTON: Top White House economic advisers on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pushing back against criticism that Trump’s action could undermine confidence in official US economic data.

U.S Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBS that Trump had “real concerns” about the data, while Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said the president “is right to call for new leadership.”

Hassett said on Fox News the main concern was Friday’s BLS report of net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported.

Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of faking the jobs numbers without providing any evidence of data manipulation. The BLS compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data.

The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that “monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.” McEntarfer’s firing added to growing concerns about the quality of US economic data published by the federal government and came on the heels of a raft of new US tariffs on dozens of trading partners, sending global stock markets tumbling as Trump presses ahead with plans to reorder the global economy.

“I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,” Hassett said on “Fox News Sunday.”

In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Greer acknowledged there were always revisions of job numbers, “but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.”

‘PREPOSTEROUS CHARGE’ Critics, including former leaders of the BLS, slammed Trump’s move and called on Congress to investigate McEntarfer’s removal, saying it would undermine trust in a respected statistical agency.

There was no way a commissioner could rig the jobs numbers, said William Beach, a former BLS commissioner and co-chair of the group Friends of the BLS.

“Every year we’ve revised the numbers. When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000 job revision during President Trump’s first term,” Beach said on CNN’s “State of the Union.

“And why do we do that? Because firms are created or firms go out of business, and we don’t really know that during the course of our of the year, until we reconcile against a real full count of all the businesses.”

Democrats and at least two Republican senators also criticized the firing.

“This is a preposterous charge. These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals,” former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor on Friday.

The firing came amid a flurry of economic upheaval last week.

Just hours before the tariff deadline on Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing duties on US imports from countries including Canada, Brazil, India and Taiwan, in his latest round of levies as countries attempted to seek ways to reach better deals.

Greer and Hassett said on Sunday the bulk of those tariffs are likely to stay in place rather than be cut as part of continuing negotiations. India pushed back on Trump’s threats of an additional penalty if it kept purchasing oil from Russia, two Indian government sources told Reuters on Saturday. Trump imposed a new 25% tariff on Indian goods.