President Donald Trump lit a political firestorm Friday after attacking the latest U.S. jobs report as “rigged” and abruptly firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Lawmakers from both parties are now raising serious concerns—not just about the numbers, but about Trump “moving this country toward authoritarianism.”
“In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, just hours after the Labor Department released a disappointing report showing only 73,000 jobs added in July—well short of economists’ expectations of at least 100,000.
Making matters worse, the report also included sharp downward revisions to May and June, cutting 258,000 jobs that had previously been counted.
One of the most glaring corrections came from the education sector. June’s initial report showed 63,500 new jobs, but revised figures slashed that to just 7,500. Officials said the original number may have been inflated by seasonal factors related to the school calendar.
According to a Labor Department spokeswoman, revisions typically even out across industries. “But in June, most of the industry revisions were negative,” she noted.
Trump blamed it all on politics—and acted swiftly. He fired BLS Commissioner Erica McEntarfer, claiming the agency had manipulated job data to hurt him and help Democrats heading into the 2024 election.
The move set off alarms in Washington.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of Trump’s more frequent Republican critics, didn’t hesitate when asked if she still trusted the federal government’s job statistics after the firing. “No! That’s the problem,” she said. “And when you fire people, it makes people trust them even less.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) warned the firing was more than just a personnel decision—it was a threat to democracy. “I think what Trump is doing is destroying the credibility of the United States government in terms of informing the American people about the realities of what is going on in our society,” he said.
Sanders called McEntarfer’s firing “very dangerous” and “another step in Trump’s moving this country toward authoritarianism.”
“If you fire the people, the objective people who try to come up with the best information possible, and replace them with political hacks who will tell the president what he wants to hear, then nobody will trust that information, and, in the long run, it makes it harder for us to go forward because we don’t really know what’s going on,” Sanders added, according to The Washington Post.
Inside the BLS, shock and fear spread fast. One longtime employee, speaking anonymously due to concerns of retaliation, said McEntarfer was widely respected and committed to staying out of politics. “I have not met anyone that dislikes her,” the staffer said. “She’s straight up with the fact that this is an apolitical agency. That we produce data, we don’t produce politics.”
After McEntarfer’s firing, BLS employees received a vague email from agency leadership. “There is very blatant shock across the bureau,” the employee said. “There is a fear that they’re going to appoint someone that will tell us that we can’t do our jobs.”
The jobs report’s release came just hours after Trump announced a sweeping increase in tariffs against dozens of countries that haven’t signed new trade deals with the U.S. The new “reciprocal” tariff rates are set to take effect August 7.
With the economy slowing, trust in federal data under fire, and political attacks escalating, lawmakers are bracing for more fallout. Democrats are already using the weak jobs report and Trump’s response as ammunition heading into next year’s midterm elections. And now, even some Republicans are wondering how far Trump is willing to go when the numbers don’t match his narrative.
