Kevin Hassett defends Trump firing labor statistics chief in NBC trade

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Director of the White Home Financial Council adviser Kevin Hassett fired again at NBC host Kristen Welker on Sunday because the host pressed Hassett on President Donald Trump 's determination to fireplace the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner.

"Isn’t this the very definition of capturing the messenger?" Welker requested, after studying a statement from William Beach, the previous BLS commissioner, who mentioned it was setting a harmful precedent.

Trump announced in a Fact Social put up on Friday that he instructed his group to fireplace Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the BLS, accusing her of "faking" job numbers.

"No. Completely not," Hassett mentioned, arguing that he was working on the BLS and had an enormous, politically essential revision popping out than he would have additionally launched a prolonged report as to why it occurred.

Kevin Hassett repeatedly defended President Trump when pressed on his determination to fireplace the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. (NBC/MeetThePress)

"I might have a protracted report explaining what occurred, and we didn’t get that. We didn’t get that. Proper now, Goldman Sachs, folks on Wall Road are questioning, ‘The place did these revisions come from and why do they preserve occurring?’ And what we'd like is a contemporary set of eyes on the BLS," he mentioned.

The BLS reported on Friday that 74,000 jobs were added in July , nicely under the 110,000 estimate of economists polled by LSEG. The report additionally revised job development in Might and June downward. Might's good points had been pared again by 125,000 to only 19,000 jobs created, whereas the June figures had been revised down by 133,000 to only 14,000 jobs added that month.

In accordance with the BLS, the final time a revision was down greater than 133,000 was in March 2021, when it was revised down by 146,000 one 12 months into the COVID pandemic.

Welker repeatedly pressed Hassett on whether or not there was "laborious proof" that the roles report was "rigged," as Trump had argued.

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President Donald Trump boards Air Pressure One on August 1, 2025 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs)

"The revisions are laborious proof. For instance, there was a 818,000 revision, making the Joe Biden job report a lot worse after he withdrew from the presidential marketing campaign. There have been a bunch of patterns that would make folks marvel, and I believe a very powerful factor for folks to know is, it’s the president’s highest precedence that knowledge be trusted and to resolve why the revisions are so unreliable," Hassett mentioned.

Welker additionally mentioned the president was glad to just accept the roles report numbers once they had been favorable to him earlier than asking, "Is the president ready to fireplace anybody who stories knowledge that he disagrees with?"

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"No. Completely not. The president needs his personal folks there in order that once we see the numbers they're extra clear and extra dependable, and if there are massive adjustments and massive revisions, we count on extra massive revisions for the roles knowledge in September, for instance, and we need to know why, we wish folks to elucidate it to us," he responded.