The Media Research Center was annoyed that the Trump administration would be asked to justify its firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics head Erika McEntarfer for apparently not rigging data to make Trump look good. Jorge Bonilla huffed in an Aug. 3 post:
Today’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Depressed saw Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council, berated by host Kristen Welker, who repeatedly demanded Hassett provide “hard evidence” to justify the recent dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[…]What more evidence did Welker want, besides the constant revisions of jobs data under two presidential administrations? It is unclear, but she continued to press Hassett for it as if he were sitting on a trove akin to the White House tapes.
Bonilla offered no evidence that data revisions are a justifiable excuse to fire McEntarfer.
Joseph Vazquez similarly raged at criticism in An Aug. 4 post:
If there’s anyone who is least qualified to kick up a stink over anybody initiating a so-called “war on facts,” it’s New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.
[…]Baker was up in arms over President Donald Trump’s firing of Biden-appointed Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer, after an abysmal July jobs report that saw hundreds of thousands of jobs evaporate from prior reports in a supposedly massive error. It is worth noting that this is the same person who oversaw another massive mistake in 2024 when the BLS conceded it grossly over-estimated job growth under former President Joe Biden by 818,000 jobs. Baker had an excuse for that one: “While revisions of job creation estimates are normal, [Trump administration officials] argued without evidence that recent ones indicated a problem.” Um, what? For the egomaniacal correspondent, Trump firing McEntarfer was giving off “authoritarian echoes.” Oh please.
Vazquez also offered no actual evidence of wrongdoing by McEntarfer beyond routine data revisions.
Bonilla returned to play whataboutism:
NBC Nightly News was the ONLY legacy nightly newscast to report tonight on the decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi to order a grand jury investigation into the Russia Hoax document drop, pursuant to a criminal referral by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. But they didn’t actually report anything.
Instead, the story was used as an example of a “distraction” from President Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor statistics:
[…]The report would then shift to the dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after Friday’s jobs report which contained multiple downward revisions of previous reports and a slew of revisions in the final year of the Biden administration. The grand jury order served as little more than a narrative device for NBC, a “distraction” from the real important issue of the day. Fox News reported on this a little more seriously:
Of course Bonilla would think a right-wing outlet like Fox News would treat right-wing narrative “a little more seriously.”
Craig Bannister served a slab of propaganda from his CNSNews.com ghetto, parroting claims that “Errors in employment estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BSL) have been four times greater in recent months they were in previous years.”
Bonilla whined again in an Aug. 7 post:
The Trump-deranged fever swamp currently known as MSNBC is at it again. In an insane segment on All In With Chris Hayes, a guest actually compared President Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to Hitler.
Back in the day, when someone said “with all due respect”, you could bet your bottom dollar that some disrespect was on the way. Such is the case with Professor Jason Stanley at The University of Toronto and his “I don’t mean to compare Hitler to Trump.”
Bonilla didn’t dispute the basic claim, however.
Bannister served up more propaganda in an Aug. 12 article, citing BLS data to claim that “Inflation in July was unchanged from the previous month and below analysts’ expectations” — but failing to explain why BLS data should be trusted given the firing of McEntarfer a week or so earlier.