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President Donald Trump is nominating top Heritage Foundation economist and Project 2025 contributor E.J. Antoni for the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), marking the extreme and dangerous politicization of an agency that acts as a linchpin for economic decision making by the president.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday evening that he is tapping Antoni as head of the crucial agency, saying that Antoni will “ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE.”
This comes after Trump fired the previous bureau chief, President Joe Biden nominee Erika McEntarfer, after the agency revised job market data for May and June to reflect lower-than-expected job growth — likely reflecting chaos and economic strife induced by Trump’s tariffs and immigration policies.
Without any evidence, Trump complained that the numbers were “RIGGED” in order to “make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” The firing was described by experts as an autocratic move, as Trump seemingly seeks an agency head who will rig numbers to make him look more effective, regardless of the consequences for the economy.
Trump appears to believe he’s found that in Antoni. Antoni has written numerous blog posts on Heritage Foundation’s website touting Trump’s economic policies with glowing headlines, and has also repeatedly criticized BLS, often for releasing data reflecting jobs growth under the Biden administration.
Following the announcement, Antoni has already said that he’s considering suspending monthly jobs reports from BLS altogether until the agency’s reporting system is “fixed.” In an interview on Fox on Tuesday, he suggested that the agency should do “less timely quarterly data,” which he claimed, without evidence, would be more accurate.
In reality, research has continually found that conservative policies depress the economy. This includes numerous Trump administration policies like the GOP’s marquee budget bill, passed last month, which the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has estimated will destroy 6 million jobs just through its mass deportation agenda alone — without even mentioning other job losses like the devastating impacts to the health care sector.
“Trump’s announcement makes it clear that he expects the BLS commissioner to only release data that shows the economy is booming — even if it means the data must be manipulated or changed by political appointees,” said EPI’s chief economist Josh Bivens in a statement on Tuesday.
Bivens said that the fallout for the economy could be disastrous. Accurate jobs numbers are a key element of decisionmaking for state and local governments, businesses, agencies like the Federal Reserve, and more. Economic downturns could be totally masked by a compromised BLS, while regular Americans will pay the price, he said.
“This manufactured chaos will reduce business investment and consumer spending, making a recession — and soaring unemployment — far more likely in coming months,” Bivens went on.However, it’s not just left-leaning experts criticizing Antoni. Stan Veuger, a senior fellow for conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, told The Washington Post that Antoni is “utterly unqualified and as partisan as it gets.”
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