Trump Fires US Top Labor Statistician After Negative Jobs Report

President Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), following the release of employment data that showed a slowdown in job growth, which he claimed was manipulated to make him look bad despite no evidence. This move has raised concerns about the credibility of government data, as the Trump administration has also curtailed data collection and transparency in other areas, such as maternal mortality and public school enrollment, and is attempting to dismantle agencies responsible for key social data. Trump and economist Stephen Moore defended the firing by disputing the accuracy of previous job growth reports under the Biden administration, though experts emphasize that adjustments to employment data are routine and that the economy added millions of jobs during that period. Critics argue that Trump's insistence on favorable statistics and dismissal of unfavorable data undermines trust in official information and mirrors authoritarian tactics to suppress inconvenient facts. Meanwhile, Trump's pattern of misrepresenting numbers continues, exemplified by his false claim of lowering drug prices by 1,500%, which experts say is mathematically impossible and serves to confuse public discourse. Overall, the administration’s approach to data raises alarms about the politicization of statistics and the erosion of objective economic reporting in the U.S.