President Donald Trump has fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labour statistics, hours after data showed a downward revision in jobs growth. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump defended the dismissal by falsely claiming McEntarfer had released inflated jobs figures just before the 2024 election to benefit the Biden-Harris campaign.
Trump alleged that McEntarfer had issued “beautiful numbers” days before the election, but then corrected them with an “8- or 900,000 dollar massive reduction” after the vote. In reality, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on 1 November 2024 that the US added just 12,000 jobs—a figure the Trump campaign at the time called “a catastrophe”. The downward revision Trump referred to was an annual update published on 21 August 2024, which showed 818,000 fewer jobs than initially estimated, and which Trump had previously cited as evidence of fraud.
On Friday, Trump repeated the false timeline, saying: “Before the election, she gave out numbers that were so good for the Democrats… And then right after the election, she corrected those numbers.” He also referenced the latest revision—258,000 fewer jobs in May and June—as justification for McEntarfer’s firing.
Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who served as labour statistics commissioner under Trump in 2018, condemned the firing as “totally groundless”. The president made the remarks en route to his New Jersey golf club, where he cut off a reporter who mentioned the name “Jeffrey Epstein”.
US stocks slumped on Friday as Trump unveiled new import tariffs and the weak jobs report spooked investors. The live coverage of the second Trump administration concluded for the week, with the president heading for another long weekend of golf.
