Walmart, Apple and Amazon, the most successful companies in the country, base their corporate strategies on data. From financial, produce and competitive analysis data to consumer behavior and market research, the leaders and boards of these companies know the importance and necessity of having accurate numbers.
Any CEO who deliberately relied on falsified data, or who demanded cooked books, would be fired immediately — and likely sued by the company’s board of directors. Likewise, any CEO of any company who tried to manipulate the appearance of short-term success for his own personal gain at the expense of long-term viability for the company would also be fired and likely sued for malfeasance. But legal action isn’t even the worst-case scenario. A successful CEO knows that falsifying economic or financial data can lead to charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and other financial crimes, because false data can ruin investors, corporations and entire markets overnight.
Enter Donald Trump, whose self-proclaimed governing philosophy is running the country like one of his businesses, a claim based on the myth of his being a “successful businessman” in corporate America — and on playing the role of a forceful executive in the NBC reality shows “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Last Friday, Trump unintentionally debunked the lie of this manufactured image when he angrily fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer because he didn’t like her bleak data about the country’s bleak economic state, even as he wears 34 felony convictions for falsifying records.
Last Friday, Trump unintentionally debunked the lie of this manufactured image when he angrily fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer because he didn’t like her bleak data about the country’s bleak economic state, even as he wears 34 felony convictions for falsifying records.
McEntarfer, a widely respected statistician, was nominated by former President Joe Biden in July 2023 and confirmed by the Senate with broad bipartisan support in an 86-8 vote in January 2024. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who were then serving as GOP senators from Ohio and Florida, supported McEntarfer’s confirmation. With a PhD in economics from Virginia Technical University, she has spent years crunching numbers. She worked as an economist in the Census Bureau for two decades under presidents of both parties, and later took positions in the Treasury Department and on Biden’s White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Trump initially faced criticism from some Republicans for McEntarfer’s firing. Sens. Cynthis Lummis, R-Wy., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., all cast doubt on his decision. “If the president is firing the statistician because he doesn’t like the numbers but they are accurate, then that’s a problem,” Lummis told NBC News. “It’s not the statistician’s fault if the numbers are accurate and that they’re not what the president had hoped for.”
Five days later, though, it appears the GOP has once again fallen in line behind their leader.
McEntarfer’s four-year term was slated to end in 2028. Trump fired her anyway, which he is permitted to do under federal law, because he was embarrassed by jobs data that don’t match his own hype. In May, the White House said that April’s jobs report “proved” that Trump was “revitalizing” the economy. In June, Trump posted, “GREAT JOBS NUMBERS.” But after the Labor Department released revised jobs figures for those months — a common practice because jobs reports are sample projections that get adjusted when actual employer data comes in — Trump fired the messenger.
Trump’s penchant for hiding and falsifying data has put America’s corporations, economy and public in more danger due to the chance of retaliatory tariffs, higher prices, an increase in supply chain costs and a decrease in merchandise exports. Just as he scrubbed government websites of climate data to bolster his fossil fuel donors, and just as he pressured the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to remove a placard referencing to two impeachments in an exhibition on the presidency, Trump thinks reality is whatever he says it is. (After the Washington Post broke the news about the removal, the Smithsonian clarified it would be restoring the information.)
As the president fantasizes about returning America to the Gilded Age, where robber barons extracted the earth’s resources for unimaginable profit while laborers worked for starvation wages, he’s forgetting that his oligarch donors need accurate economic data too. At least oligarchs creating real products and delivering real services — as opposed to merely speculating in bitcoin with Trump’s image — need real, reliable, and uncooked data.
When he fired McEntarfer in a social media post, Trump declared her numbers were “phony.” In a Truth Social post on Friday, he wrote, “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” He added, “But, the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!”
In other words, the president accused the commissioner of cooking the books — manipulating numbers about the American economy for political purposes — and announced he was firing McEntarfer as a result.
Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
But he didn’t stop there. Trump also baselessly accused McEntarfer of manipulating jobs numbers before the November election to advantage Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. He said to reporters, “I believe the numbers were phony, just like they were before the election, and there were other times. So you know what I did? I fired her, and you know what? I did the right thing.”
His source for McEntarfer’s alleged wrongdoing, he wrote on Truth Social, was “my opinion,” confirming there was no real evidence to back up his reckless claims that permanently tanked the reputation of a celebrated career professional.
The president no doubt slurred McEntarfer based on his own “opinion” to avoid defamation liability. But an opinion that implies a false fact is still defamatory, it is still actionable and presidents are not immune from civil lawsuits for defamation. The four legal elements of defamation are easily found in Trump’s accusations: False statement, publication, negligence in repeating the falsehood and reputational harm.
Moreover, a president has immunity from civil lawsuits only for actions taken in furtherance of his “core constitutional powers.” One of the main “core constitutional powers” of a president is ensuring the faithful execution of laws, such that acting to impede the execution of federal law would fall outside core official responsibilities. (Even under the Supreme Court’s disastrous Trump v. United States ruling on criminal immunity, his conduct on Jan. 6 would likely have fallen outside his core function as precedent, had it proceeded to trial.)
We need your help to stay independent
Trump knowingly and intentionally lied about the Labor Market Statistics commissioner in a manner that directly conflicts with the Department of Labor’s statutory mission; as such, it was not a “core Constitutional function.” Announcing that previous labor reports were “falsified” causes immediate reputational harm to the commissioner, the Department of Labor and the U.S. economy overall. It directly impedes the accurate compilation of labor data, a charge mandated by the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933, as well as by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
By implicitly directing that all future economic data should be falsified to suit his own political narrative, Trump’s statements not only harm America’s economy, but they also hinder rather than aid the faithful execution of laws. As William Beach, McEntarfer’s predecessor in the first Trump administration, put it, the commissioner’s “totally groundless firing” sets a dangerous precedent and “undermines the statistical mission of the bureau.”
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump told reporters, suggesting McEntarfer’s jobs numbers weren’t. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” he added, suggesting the commissioner was neither.
Missing the risible irony as he seeks manipulated jobs data for his own political purposes, Trump added, “Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”
