{"id":315696,"date":"2025-08-03T23:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T23:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315696\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T23:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T23:01:12","slug":"white-house-officials-rush-to-defend-trump-after-shaky-economic-week-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/315696\/","title":{"rendered":"White House officials rush to defend Trump after shaky economic week | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> administration officials fanned out on Sunday\u2019s US political shows to defend the president\u2019s policies after a bruising week of poor economic, trade and employment numbers that culminated with the firing<\/a> of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer.<\/p>\n

US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Trump has \u201creal concerns\u201d about the jobs numbers that extend beyond Friday\u2019s report that showed the national economy added 73,000 jobs<\/a> in July, far below expectations. Job growth numbers were revised down by 285,000 for the two previous months as well.<\/p>\n

On CBS News\u2019s Face the Nation, Greer defended<\/a> Trump\u2019s decision to fire McEntarfer, a respected statistician, saying: \u201cYou want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

But William Beach, who served as Trump\u2019s commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in his first presidency, warned that McEntarfer\u2019s dismissal would undermine confidence in the quality of US economic data.<\/p>\n

The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that \u201cmonthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is damaging,\u201d Beach said on Sunday on CNN\u2019s State of the Union. \u201cI don\u2019t know that there\u2019s any grounds at all for this firing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.\u201d<\/p>\n

McEntarfer on Friday published a statement on social media reacting to her dismissal, calling it the \u201chonor my life\u201d to have served as BLS commissioner.<\/p>\n

She said the BLS employs \u201cmany dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is vital and important work, and I thank them for their service to this nation,\u201d McEntarfer\u2019s statement on the Bluesky platform said.<\/p>\n

Uproar<\/a> over McEntarfer\u2019s firing has come as a series of new tariff rates<\/a> are due to come into effect this month. While the president has predicted a golden age for the US economy, many economists warn that higher import tariffs could ultimately weaken American economic activity.<\/p>\n

On CBS, Greer said that Trump\u2019s tariff rates are \u201cpretty much set\u201d and unlikely to be re-negotiated before they come into effect.<\/p>\n

The first six months of Trump\u2019s second terms have been characterized by a seesawing of tariff rate announcements that earned the president the moniker on Wall Street of Taco<\/a> \u2013 \u201cTrump always chickens out\u201d. But last week he issued<\/a> an executive order<\/a> outlining tariff modifications for dozens of countries after he had twice delayed implementation.<\/p>\n

Yet Greer also said many of the tariff rates announced \u201care set rates pursuant to deals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these deals are announced, some are not, others depend on the level of the trade deficit or surplus we may have with the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, the national economic council (NEC) director, Kevin Hassett, said modified US tariff rates were now \u201cmore or less locked in, although there will have to be some dancing around the edges about exactly what we mean when we do this or that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked if tariff rates could change again, he said, \u201cI would rule it out because these are the final deals.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Fox News Sunday, Hassett said he also supported McEntarfer\u2019s dismissal. \u201cI think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

But former treasury secretary Larry Summers told ABC\u2019s This Week that McEntarfer\u2019s firing was \u201cway beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did\u201d, alluding to the late former president who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.<\/p>\n

Summers said Trump\u2019s claim that the poor job numbers were \u201cphony\u201d and designed to make him look bad \u201cis a preposterous charge\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals,\u201d Summers said. \u201cThere\u2019s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number. The numbers are in line with what we\u2019re seeing from all kinds of private sector sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summers placed McEntarfer\u2019s firing, Trump\u2019s pressure<\/a> on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to lower interest rates, and the strong-arm tactics that the administration has aimed at universities, law firms and media institutions in the same bucket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism,\u201d Summers said. \u201cFiring statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms that defend clients that the elected boss finds uncongenial. This is really scary stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump administration officials fanned out on Sunday\u2019s US political shows to defend the president\u2019s policies after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-315696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114967326708785543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}