August 3, 2025

The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics from President Donald Trump’s first term is panning his Friday firing of Erika McEntarfer, who oversaw a July jobs report that rankled the president and suggested a slowdown in the economy.

Bill Beach, who Trump tapped for the top job at BLS in 2017, said Sunday that the president’s suggestions that McEntarfer had rigged the jobs report betrayed a misunderstanding in the data collection and reporting standards at the bureau, which compiles statistics on critical economic factors including inflation and employment.

“There’s no way for that to happen,” Beach told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.” “The commissioner doesn’t do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn’t see the numbers for until Wednesday before they’re published. By the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they’re all prepared.”

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