Republican senators rip Trump for firing Labor Statistics boss

Several Republican senators are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to fire Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just hours after the latest jobs report was released.

The issue

The controversy centers on speculation that McEntarfer was dismissed due to unfavorable economic data. The latest jobs report revealed the U.S. labor market has been significantly weaker in recent months than previously reported — numbers Trump has publicly rejected. Trump defended the firing by calling the report’s data “phony,” and without offering evidence, accused McEntarfer of releasing favorable jobs numbers prior to the election to aid former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republicans speak out

Multiple Republicans expressed concern about the implications of the firing. Senator Cynthia Lummis said the move was premature and potentially unjustified. She argued that if the data is untrustworthy, the public ought to know. However, firing the commissioner without confirming whether the numbers are inaccurate is “kind of impetuous.” Said Lummis, “If the president is firing the statistician because he doesn’t like the numbers but they are accurate, then that’s a problem. … It’s not the statistician’s fault if the numbers are accurate and that they’re not what the president had hoped for.”

Further GOP backlash

Senator Thom Tillis criticized Trump’s decision, saying, “If she was just fired because the president or whoever decided to fire the director just did it because they didn’t like the numbers, they ought to grow up.” Senator Rand Paul, who learned of the firing during an interview, questioned the logic behind the move. “We have to look somewhere for objective statistics. When the people providing the statistics are fired, it makes it much harder to make judgments that you know, the statistics won’t be politicized,” Paul said. “I’m going to look into it, but first impression is that you can’t really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting.”

Democratic response

Liberals also condemned the firing, framing it as a dangerous power grab. Senator Bernie Sanders called it “the sign of an authoritarian type.” Clarified the progressive Independent, “What that means is, I think the American people are going to find it hard to believe the information that comes out of the government, because Trump will always want it to be great news, and when that happens, it’s hard for us to deal with the problems, because we don’t know what is going on.” Senator Brian Schatz went even further, calling the removal “the stuff of fascist dictatorships.”

The post Republican senators rip Trump for firing Labor Statistics boss appeared first on Knewz.