President Trump acted legally, but not necessarily wisely, in firing the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics within the Department of Labor. He’s running the risk of reducing the candor with which measures of inflation, unemployment, job creation, GDP growth, etc. are reported to him, and without this vital data his chances of making sound economic policy may diminish, Given growing public dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy as well as the growing probability of more Democratic victories in next year’s congressional elections, he should concentrate more on fixing today’s economic problems, and less on punishing the bearer of bad news.
President Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika L. McEntarfer after she issued a discouraging July jobs report. He charged she had “rigged” and manipulated the data to make the economy appear worse than he thought it was. For good measure, he added that McEntarfer, who had been appointed by President Biden last year and had been confirmed by a widely bipartisan 86 to 6 vote in the Senate, had also rigged last year’s pre-election reports to make the economy seem stronger under President Biden to help Vice President Harris win the White House.
To be sure, there are some questionable features in the report that got McEntarfer fired. She reported that only 73000 new jobs had been created in July, and that the BLS had to reduce the number of jobs created in May and June by 258,000. (Last August the BLS also cut the number of jobs it had said had been created in 2024 by 818,000.) One may wonder what those revised numbers say about the quality of reporting by the BLS. But to date nobody other than President Trump has claimed McEntarfar acted with incompetence or in bad faith. Trump seems to have followed the time-(dis)honored practice of killing the messenger who brings the bad news.
But Trump and the entire Republican Party may discover that sacking McEntarfar may prove to be counterproductive, perhaps disastrously so.
To make sound economic policy decisions, President Trump and other decision makers need sound and accurate data. But by firing McEntarfar without any finding that her data were unsound, Trump may be discouraging others from accurately reporting the data he and his economic team need, reporting only what Trump wants to hear, and not what he needs to hear. In the absence of good data, they may make less than good decisions, and thereby hurt those who will suffer from more inflation and unemployment, and who may well take out their anger on President Trump and the GOP congressional candidates at the polls in 2026 and maybe beyond.
Indeed, normally no policy has a greater impact on American voter behavior than economic policy, and the pattern is clear. When the public approves of economic trends, it votes for the president if he’s up for re-election, and in the midterms it votes for his party’s candidates for senator and representative. But if the public dislikes the state of the economy, it votes the president out of office and votes against his party’s congressional candidates. No president since James Monroe in 1820 has ever won re-election during an economic downturn (in 1820 no party bothered to nominate anyone to run against Monroe).
And the numbers today look bad for Trump and the GOP. According to the most recent Fox News poll:
- 44% of the voters approve his overall economic management, while 55% disapprove.
- 36% approve of his handling of inflation, while 62% disapprove.
- 36% approve of his tariff policies while 62% disapprove.
And according to a CNN poll, 72% of Democrats are strongly determined to vote in next year’s midterms, while only 50% of Republicans are so determined.
Trump’s ratings on tariffs are especially serious. His tariffs have not yet had the time to create the devastating economic impact which free traders, myself included, have predicted. But the uncertainty his on-again, off-again approach to their imposition has discouraged American manufacturers from investing in plant expansion and new job creation; hence only much slower growth in jobs than the public finds satisfactory.
So what should President Trump do?
The U. S. Supreme Court may rule that presidentially-imposed tariffs violate the Constitution’s establishment that the imposition of tariffs is a power of Congress, not the President. If so, President Trump should simply abandon his tariff policies entirely and thereby avoid blame for their effects while taking credit for supporting the rule of law.
But should Trump wind up retaining his powers over tariffs he should exercise that power to finalize as many trade deals as possible, reduce investors’ and manufacturers’ sense oof uncertainty and concomitant reluctance to create more jobs, and thereby minimize voters’ dissatisfaction over the direction of the economy and their determination to punish Trump and the GOP at the polls next year.
But whatever the decision of the Supreme Court, and whatever other aspects of economic policy President Trump chooses to address, the FIRST thing he must do is insist on HONEST NUMBERS. He can’t get them by firing or ignoring those who give him bad news and listen only to those who tell him what he wants to hear. He gets honest numbers by listening to those whose top priorities are honesty and accuracy, no matter what he wants. Getting honest numbers won’t guarantee the best decisions, but listening only to dishonest numbers will guarantee policy failures and all the predictable results therefrom, including a worsening economy, Democratic majorities in Congress, and his almost certain impeachment should the Democrats win next year’s elections.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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