Just in case we’ve been unclear previously on The BradCast: We are now officially in Banana Republic territory in the U.S., with El Presidente pulling one of the most classic strongman moves late last week. When El Presidente’s economic numbers go south, fire, jail or kill the person who reports those economic numbers to El Presidente. Thankfully, he only fired her. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]
Trump’s approval numbers are heading south as well, along with the nation’s economic indicators as his trade war against the entire world continues to expand.
But, when Reality interferes with Trump Propaganda — whether it’s at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum or in the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ monthly job numbers report — he will take action to try and nullify Reality.
On Friday, the BLS released its latest employment report. The Bureau preliminarily estimated that a lower-than-predicted 73,000 jobs were created last month, as the affects of Trump’s trade wars and immigration crackdown begin to undermine a previously strong economy.
Worse, job numbers from the prior two months were revised downward in the latest report by about 258,000. Such revisions are completely normal and expected. With more complete data now in, BLS reports just 19,000 new jobs were created in May and a paltry 14,000 in June. That, as the unemployment ranks climbed by 221,000 last month.
Any way you look at it, the BLS report was not good for either the economy or Trump — unless you can claim the report, created with meticulous contributions by hundreds of non-political, career BLS officials, was “rigged” to make Trump look bad. Of course, that is what Trump did, as he fired the highly-regarded BLS Commissioner, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, shortly after Friday’s monthly report was released.
She is hardly the first longtime career official to be fired by Trump in the first six months of his disastrous second term. He has done the same to top prosecutors at the DOJ determined to not be loyal enough to Trump, at the National Institutes of Health, at EPA, at NOAA, etc. etc. etc.
But this firing really seems to be freaking out lot of folks, for some reason.
We’re joined today by VALERIE WILSON — labor economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, where she heads up the organization’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy — to discuss just some of those reasons.
“I think this particular firing has raised alarm bells with so many people because of how important, how essential, those monthly jobs numbers are in this country,” Wilson explains today. “There’s a lot of visibility around these numbers and statistics. And we know that a lot of decision-makers rely on those numbers: the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, policymakers, businesses.” Moreover, she tells me, “the fact that this seems to be a politicized firing because the President simply didn’t like what the report was saying, is especially troubling to people who rely on the accuracy of those numbers to make important decisions.”
We’ve got a lot to talk about with Wilson on this topic today…
- Is there any evidence that the July report was “rigged”?
- Is there evidence that any BLS report has ever been rigged?
- Could a BLS report like this actually be rigged without anyone noticing?
- Is it true, as the White House “fact” sheet supporting Trump’s firing of McEntarfer claims, that “BLS Has Lengthy History of Inaccuracies [and] Incompetence”?
- Who would ever take the job of replacing her and, whoever it is, should we trust their numbers?
- How important are BLS’ numbers to non-governmental analyses created by organizations like EPI?
- Given Wilson’s role as Director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, and the Trump Administration’s attack on anti-discrimination (DEI) programs in the federal government, has she already seen a change in the type or quality of economic and labor data available from the government?
All of that and a lot more to discuss with Wilson today, who is exceptionally good at explaining what all of this now means.
Finally, speaking of disturbing news from our Banana Republicans, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest ‘Green News Report’, as the blaze that wiped out the historic Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge earlier this Summer has turned into a raging mega-fire, and as the Trump Administration cites both notorious climate science deniers and nonexistent AI slop “reports” to justify gutting regulations meant to protect us from, and mitigate the worst affects of our quickly worsening climate crisis…
According to historian A.J. Toynbee (once the most quoted) it takes a despotic minority of more than one authoritarian to bring down the house (How To Identify The Despotic Minority – 14).
The USA fits the bill when all three branches of government have become despotic, and as Brad alludes to, now crossing over into tyranny territory.