Senate Democrats reacted with outrage and disbelief to the news that President Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics hours after the agency released a weaker-than-expected jobs report that showed the economy gained only 73,000 jobs in July and did far worse than previously reported in May and June.
“Just absolutely insane, absolutely nuts. The economy is tanking and he’s terrified and he’s acting like a dictator,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said.
“That’s some weird Soviet s‑‑‑,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. “Blaming the messenger? Nothing’s ever his fault.”
“Speaks for itself,” he said.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said “it sounds very Soviet, very authoritarian, very 1984.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on the social platform X that, “Instead of helping people get good jobs, Donald Trump just fired the statistician who reported bad jobs data that the wanna-be king doesn’t like.”
Trump accused Erika McEntarfer, whom former President Biden appointed to head the Labor Department agency that produces jobs reports, of manipulating the data for political purposes.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump said.
His decision came after the Labor Department revised down its estimate of jobs gains for May and June to less than 20,000 for each month, 258,000 fewer jobs than it initially reported.
The weaker jobs report rattled the stock markets, which dropped sharply Friday.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) accused Trump of shooting the messenger.
“What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger. That’s just what happened with the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” he said. “Today we got some of the worst labor numbers that we’ve gotten in a long time.”
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