‘Crazy!!’: How Labor Statistics staff reacted to Trump firing
commissioner after dismal jobs report
[August 13, 2025]
By JOSH BOAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — “Depressing.”
“CRAZY!!”
That's how staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics reacted after
President Donald Trump fired its commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, after a
dismal jobs report issued Aug. 1 undermined the White House's claims of
an economic boom.
The emails obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of
Information Act suggest an agency with little of the corrupting
partisanship that Trump had claimed. He called the report “phony” and
“rigged” after it indicated a paltry 73,000 jobs were added in July and
after downward revisions that showed 258,000 fewer jobs were added in
May and June than previously reported.
After the commissioner's firing, BLS employees talked about the
importance of accurate numbers and professional integrity in producing
data that is foundational for measuring the economy and holding elected
officials accountable for how the nation performs.
Officials at the agency sought to rally morale by focusing on their task
at hand at a time when outside economists wondered if Trump had
compromised the credibility of reports on jobs, inflation and other key
economic indicators. The president has said without evidence that the
numbers were meant to make him and other Republicans look bad — his
latest effort to interfere with the functions of executive branch
agencies, including the Federal Reserve.
“This news is sudden, but our mission is unchanged — to provide high
quality data to the nation,” William Wiatrowski, the acting
commissioner, told the staff in an email. “Thank you for all the good
work you do.”
One assistant commissioner told staff to persevere just as a ship's crew
might after losing its captain.
“We may have lost our captain but the ship will not go down,” the
assistant commissioner wrote. “We will neither hit an iceberg and sink
to the ocean floor, nor run aground on a low-lying shoal. We are not
rudderless. We remain ... guided by our mission to provide gold-standard
statistics the public can trust.”
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Part of an email to Bureau of Labor Statistics employees from
William Wiatrowski, obtained by The Associated Press, is
photographed Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
For her part, McEntarfer stayed stoic in her email to staff,
choosing not to dwell on her firing by the president. Instead, she
thanked BLS employees for the importance of their work.
"Our data moves markets because it is some of the most timely and
accurate information on economic conditions that businesses and
policymakers have," she wrote. “BLS data impacts the decisions of
the Fed, the President, Congress, and millions of businesses and
households. The work of this agency is vital to the US economy.”
The White House maintains that McEntarfer was removed because the
size of the revisions suggested that the monthly jobs report was
flawed. As part of each jobs report, the BLS revises the prior
months' data two times. It also issues an annual benchmark revision
after getting more complete survey information, an effort that is
meant to balance being timely with being accurate.
Trump announced Monday that he would nominate E.J. Antoni, chief
economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to lead the BLS.
Antoni told Fox News Digital in an interview before the announcement
that the BLS “should suspend issuing the monthly job reports”
because of inaccuracies and offer quarterly updates instead.
When asked at Tuesday's White House briefing whether the monthly
jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline
Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.
“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.
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