When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) delivered disappointment employment news in the past, presidents — from Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s to Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010 — often responded by spinning the numbers but didn’t attack the agency itself. However, President Donald Trump, angry because the BLS reported disappointing job growth for July 2025, fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. And Trump’s critics are vigorously defending McEntarfer, arguing that firing her is an example of shooting the messenger.
Moreover, many economists and financial reporters are warning that appointing yes-men to head the BLS or the U.S. Federal Reserve would be a terrible policy — as their job is to report accurate information, not tell presidents what they want to hear.
Trump’s economic policies were the focus of a Monday, August 4 discussion on MSNBC, where a panel that included New York Times’ Peter Baker and CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin warned that Trump is putting the U.S. economy in grave danger.
READ MORE: Don’t ‘have any other choice’: Outrage grows in the midwest as political crisis spirals
Baker told “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski and her colleague Jonathan Lemire, “In the past, of course, he has always dealt in what one of his aides, (Kellyanne Conway), famously called alternative facts. But this time around, this term, he seems more intent than ever on imposing these alternative facts, or an alternative version of reality on the government itself. Right? Whether it be vaccines, whether it be weather patterns, whether it be all kinds of different data or information that the government makes available…. There’s some real discomfort among Republicans because in fact, Republicans and Democrats both have an interest in having data that they can rely on in their decisions in order to make judgments, in order to have a debate.”
The New York Times reporter added, “If we don’t trust the information — if it becomes like, OK, this is a Democratic Labor Department report or a Republican Labor Department report — that it really makes it hard for policymakers to make judgments.”
Baker said of the BLS’ most recent jobs report, “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the numbers were rigged or cooked or somehow intentionally made to be wrong. And I think that that sends a chill throughout the government that you’re hearing a lot in the federal workforce today.”
Sorkin sounded the alarm as well, warning that Trump’s decision to fire McEntarfer has Wall Street insiders worried.
READ MORE: ‘Middle-aged Manson girls’: Far-right ‘bloodthirsty’ MAGA women mocked in scathing take-down
Sorkin told Brzezinski and Lemire, “We get numbers out of China every month, and invariably, when those numbers come out, there are conversations about what are the real numbers. That’s what happens every month. We say here what the Chinese government is saying, and then, we talk to a different analyst, different investors and other people who are trying to keep their own numbers. And we try to compare those numbers to the numbers by the government, because nobody believes the numbers that the Chinese government provides.”
The CNBC host continued, “That is the fear about what’s about to happen here in the United States, because every month, we’re going to get new jobs numbers. In the future, someone will take this new role, and the question is whether we’re going to believe those numbers or whether we’re going to have a debate over whether those numbers are true or not. And if they are not to be believed, effectively, what does the Fed do? What do they rely on? What do businesses rely on?”
Watch the full video below or at this link.