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White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett defended President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Director of Labor Statistics and the president’s claim that while the weaker than expected employment reports were “equipped” but failed to produce evidence to support Trump’s claims.
“What we need is a new set of eyes on BLS,” Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told NBC News, “Meet the Press.”
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a monthly employment report that includes numbers that are weaker than expected for July, as well as major downward revisions to the May and June figures.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, the president said the number of jobs was “equipped” and asked the team to fire BLS Commissioner Erica Mantelfer.
“I need an accurate job number. I have told the team to fire this Biden political appointee right away. She will be replaced by a much more capable and qualified person. Such important figures must be fair and accurate.”
In another true social post, the president added: “In my opinion, the number of jobs today was equipped to create Republicans.
On Sunday, Hassett raised similar questions about the accuracy of employment numbers, pointing to past revisions made in his employment report after then-President Joe Biden stopped running for reelection last year.
“There were a lot of patterns that people could wonder about, and I think the most important thing people know is that data is trustworthy, and that people get to the bottom of why these revisions are so unreliable.”
Later in the interview, he added that the Trump administration’s goal is to understand why there have been major revisions to the number of jobs in the past few months.
“The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers, and there’s a really long report explaining exactly what actually happened if you were running BLS and had the numbers that were the biggest huge and politically significant revision since 1968.
It’s not uncommon for job reports to be revised in the months since release, but Hassett on Sunday emphasized that the July revision was one of the biggest they’ve seen in decades.
Trump faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Friday, and when he decided to fire Mantelfer, several Republican senators questioned whether the terminations would actually help the Trump administration improve future employment numbers.
“We need to look somewhere for objective statistics. When people who provide statistics are fired, it becomes much more difficult to judge that statistics are not politicized.”
“I’m going to look into it, but my first impression is that by firing people you’re counting, you can’t actually make the numbers different or even better,” he added.
On Sunday, Hassett said setting up Trump’s “personality” would help him achieve more “transparent and reliable” employment reports in the future.
“The president wants his people, so looking at the numbers, they’re more transparent and reliable. And if there’s a big change and a big revision, I’m hoping for a big revision of the job data in September, for example. I want people to explain why,” he said.
Later Sunday, D-Calif Sen. Alex Padilla joined “Meet the Press” and accused the president of trying to “weaponize” the Bureau of Labor Statistics for his own agenda.
Padilla also said that when the Senate evaluates the “independence” of the new BLS commissioners, it will evaluate the “independence” of the new BLS commissioners.
“That’s a big problem for Congress members who have to see who the Senate members have to check who Trump has replaced,” Padilla told Welker. “The confirmation hearing is supposed to be someone who will maintain the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, like many other sectors and agencies that need to be made sure to do so from political pressures in the White House.”
“when [Trump’s] Padilla later added.
Hassett also spoke about the president’s evolving tariff agenda.
Last week, Trump officially signed trade with countries including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the UK, imposing swept tariffs on some of the largest US trading partners, such as Canada, which faces a 35% tariff rate on goods not covered by the Canada-Mexico trade agreement.
Hassett on Sunday reflected Trump’s statement to NBC News earlier this week, indicating that there is room for trade deals in countries that have yet to conclude negotiations.
“For transactions that are not yet ready. They will soon get mutual fees and we will hope that negotiations with those countries may continue,” he told Welker.
Hassett also questioned the idea that high tariffs on consumer goods could lead to inflation as economic analysts have forecast for months.
Instead, Hassett denounced the Biden administration’s inflation.
“All measures of inflation are lower than five months when you look at the topline numbers on all measures of total,” he said.
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