𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Pressure inside the White House has risen once again as Donald Trump erupted, sacking the head of the US statistics agency after they released data about the nation’s weakening jobs market.Trump claimed that the latest jobs report was “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”, leading to him to axe the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Erika McEntarfer.

Despite zero evidence that any data was tampered with, the Joe Biden appointee was sent packing. On his social media site Truth, he posted: “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY.”

“She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”

The BLS is meant to operate outside political influence, producing monthly jobs reports on consumer habits, producer prices and other data to help inform decision makers and investors.

Trump’s fury on Friday came just hours after the July jobs report published by the agency found employment growth had drastically slowed in the past three months, with the last two months of data being updated after finding new data.

He seemed to try to justify the move by saying the findings that only 73,000 jobs were added to the US in July were a “shock”.

And after the new data caused downward changes to the previous months, he said that move was a “major mistake”.

His brash move has triggered concerns for bankers and markets around the world, who believe Trump may now interfere in the publishing of financial stats and reports that decide the prices of a wide variety of assets.

Ajay Rajadhyaksha, global chair of research at Barclays, told the FT: “The single most important piece of news today is the BLS firing. If you can’t trust the data, I don’t know how investors make decisions.”

Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, added: “The notion that Trump will take the hatchet to officials who produce data that are not to Trump’s liking will only undermine confidence in the data and the agencies that produce them.”

The sacking continues the president’s rampage against America’s institutions, having been in a public row with the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jay Powell, after calls that Powell should cut interest rates to reduce the cost of government borrowing.

It also resulted in an awkward moment last week when the two were at the Fed headquarters in Washington, going back and forth with each other during an interview.

After announcing the firing, Trump wrote: “The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be ‘put out to pasture’.”