National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett recently stepped into the national spotlight, offering a staunch defense of President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to dismiss Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. This high-profile move has sparked a heated debate about the integrity of government economic reporting and the independence of key statistical agencies.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Hassett was pressed by moderator Kristen Welker to provide concrete “hard evidence” supporting Trump’s claim that McEntarfer, a nominee from the previous administration, had manipulated job figures for political motives. Hassett pointed directly to significant revisions in job numbers as his primary justification for the president’s actions.
Specifically, Hassett cited a substantial 818,000 downward revision to job growth figures that emerged after former President Joe Biden concluded his presidential campaign. He argued that such considerable adjustments, which effectively worsened the perception of Biden’s job record, constituted compelling evidence for concerns about data reliability, suggesting a pattern that could lead to public skepticism.
President Trump’s directive to fire McEntarfer followed a recent jobs report that significantly underperformed expectations, adding only 73,000 jobs last month, alongside substantial negative revisions to prior reports. This abrupt ouster immediately drew criticism and ignited warnings from some observers about the potential for future economic data released by the Trump administration to be viewed with suspicion.
Conversely, former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner William Beach, now executive director of Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill, vehemently criticized the firing. Speaking on CNN, Beach argued that such an action severely damages the statistical system’s credibility, asserting there were “no grounds at all” for the dismissal and that the BLS has improved its accuracy over decades.
Beach further emphasized that this move could foster public distrust, regardless of who serves as the next commissioner. He warned that even if a highly competent individual takes the helm, any future “bad number” might be perceived as politically influenced, thereby eroding public faith in crucial economic indicators and the impartiality of the BLS itself.
In a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Hassett pushed back against characterizations of Trump’s action as authoritarian, dismissing the notion that the president simply removed someone for legitimate information he disliked. Instead, Hassett reiterated that the core issue revolved around the perceived unreliability of the data.
Hassett concluded his defense by stating that when “the data are unreliable, when they keep being revised all over the place, then there are going to be people that wonder if there’s a partisan pattern in the data.” He referenced another near-million-job downward revision from the BLS just a year prior, further reinforcing his argument that consistent large-scale revisions naturally breed suspicion regarding partisan influence on economic statistics.
