National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Sunday defended Donald Trump’s decision to fire Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming the president “wants his own people there.”
Last week, a weaker-than-expected jobs report proved to be a sore spot for the economy — and the president. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report on Friday showed the US economy added just 73,000 jobs in July. The monthly totals for May and June were also revised down by a combined 258,000 jobs.
After the report was released, Trump posted to Truth Social that “today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” Trump later announced he was firing McEntarfer.
Hassett did not provide evidence that the report was incorrect, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the “revisions are hard evidence” that the jobs data was rigged.
“What we need is a fresh set of eyes over the BLS,” Hassett said.
During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Hassett said that if he ran the BLS and had “the biggest downward revision in 50 years, I would have a really, really detailed report explaining why it happened.” He claimed without evidence that there are “partisan patterns” in the jobless data and that “data can’t be propaganda.”
Former BLS Commissioner William Beach, who was nominated by Trump during his first term in 2017 and also served under former President Joe Biden, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he will still believe the data coming from future jobs reports despite the firing of McEntarfer, but that he wants Trump to “back off on his rhetoric” against McEntarfer and the bureau.
Beach also called the firing “groundless,” saying it undermines credibility in the bureau and raises questions about the perception of future reports.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Trump’s claims that the jobs numbers were rigged were “a preposterous charge.”
“There is no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number,” Summers said. “This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism.”
He added that the jobs report suggests the economy could “tip over to a recession,” and “the risk is greater” than before.
Hassett said on “Meet the Press” that deals with US trading partners are “more or less locked in” as new tariffs are set to go into effect Thursday.
“There’ll have to be some dancing around the edges when it comes to what we mean when we do this or that,” Hassett said, adding that it ultimately comes down to whether Trump “likes those deals.”
The Trump administration in April promised “90 deals in 90 days” but fell well short of that, with Hassett claiming frameworks with about eight major trading partners. Those include 15% tariffs on the European Union, Japan and South Korea.
Such trade agreements, which maintained tariff rates of varying degrees, were listed alongside an array of new tariff rates on many of the United States’ trading partners in Trump’s announcement last week, with some of the highest duties imposed on Brazil (50%), Myanmar (40%) and Switzerland (39%). Many of the duties, most of which will go into effect Thursday, are still lower than their April 2 “Liberation Day” rates.
While the rate cut in tariffs drew some sighs of relief from economists and investors who feared duties as high as 72% or 90% on some countries, there are still concerns about the impact of the new August tariffs and how financial markets will react.
“These tariffs are not job creators,” Summers said on “The Week.” He used the steel and automobile industries as examples of where jobs could become less competitive “when they try to compete all over the world.”
Hassett on “Meet the Press” ruled out Trump changing course on tariffs if markets were to react negatively “because these are the final (trade) deals.”
The United States still does not have a deal with China after the two sides agreed in May to a 90-day truce in Geneva, Switzerland, and with the August 12 deadline looming. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Sunday that a trade deal with Beijing could be delayed further.
“That’s what’s under discussion right now. I would say that our conversations with the Chinese have been very positive,” Greer said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump “have had conversations.”
The United States and China could both be severely weakened by a full-blown trade war.
The United States relies on China for consumer electronics; rare-earth minerals used in the manufacture of electric vehicles and for military applications and robotics; pharmaceuticals used in lifesaving medicines; and more basic staples of daily life, including clothing and shoes. US exports of produce like soybeans and sorghum to China are vital to the livelihoods of American farmers.
The Trump administration has touted that companies and other countries pay the tariffs, not consumers. But the prices of some American goods have increased in recent months, as toys, furniture, apparel and footwear are becoming increasingly expensive, according to a DataWeave analysis of 200,000 products.
