Happiness is Doing Your Own Report Card
Trump moves to purge and intimidate the BLS and its siblings to provide data to his liking.
Definitely fake grades!! I gave myself an A+
The decision to fire the head of labor stats at the BLS after a bad jobs report starts the next stage of shenanigans for Team Trump. Trump’s bragging about the greatest first six months in history for a President tends to make job reports like today’s a problem for the political story line:
Employment July 2025: Negative Revisions Make a Statement 8-1-25
The headlines blared when Trump fired the BLS data head and threw around accusations of favoring Biden. The noise was in part anger over his grand plan being off to a slow start but was also part intimidation given the clear risks around where the macro numbers might be heading. The BLS and BEA deliver the most critical data that is used by the Fed (jobs and inflation) and will set the story line on the very aggressive stance his team has taken on tariffs. From that standpoint, this action is as subtle as a mushroom cloud.
From Project 2025:
When we were looking through Project 2025 back during the election season, the easy conclusion to draw was that there would be an attempt in the post-election period to consolidate control of economic information and data to make sure the “reviews” and “report cards” were the way Trump wanted to see them written and presented to the nation and media. That assumption meant control of the information flows from beginning to end.
We have to say it was not hard to see this move by Team Trump coming.
From last summer:
From Payroll June 2024: The Race Gets Confusing (7-5-24)
“Under Project 2025 (see Chapter 21 of that authoritarian-friendly tome), the Trump team is seeking to roll up and consolidate more aggressive, direct control of all Department of Commerce data, so this will not be a problem in the future. I guess the game plan might be the months for the Biden administration will likely be restated. They will be retroactively added to 2019 to help generate the “jobs boom” that did not happen. Fraudulent numbers will be ok. After all, it is an “official duty” to lie through your teeth.
From JOLTS June 2024: Countdown to FOMC, Ticking Clock to Mass Deportation? (7-30-24)
“Market watchers and analysts should be thinking about what Project 2025 plans to do with Dept of Commerce (Census, BEA, and BLS data etc.) as the extreme, controlling elements seek to avoid accountability (and accuracy) by eliminating/downsizing qualified staff and consolidating control under centralized sharpie holders and “like minded” staff.
Meanwhile…back to today.
Enter the Project 2025 playbook...
Below we cut and paste a few select lines from Project 2025 tome’s Chapter 21, on the game plan for the Bureau of Economic Analysis within the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. It does not take too much thought to handicap the game plan:
“The Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau, as well as the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, should be consolidated into a more manageable, focused, and efficient statistical agency.” (Source: Project 2025)
Our translation: Consolidate control of information under one umbrella headed up by loyalists. Seek opportunities to purge career professionals and insert loyalists who will obey. If the data does not look good, undermine it and discredit the experts.
“As the office charged with providing policy direction and oversight for BEA and the Census Bureau, new leadership should take an early and active role within both bureaus.” (Source: Project 2025)
“A new Administration should also study the feasibility of merging all statistical agencies (Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.) under one bureau to increase efficiency and better coordinate cross-departmental issues.” (Source: Project 2025)
Our translation: Consolidate it, centralize it, control it, and put like-minded people in all the decision-making roles. They will produce what we demand.
Bottom line: The approach for financial data fits in with the much bigger plan around consolidating control of institutions and/or neutralizing and intimidating institutions that could be threats to the top-down story line or checks on the administration’s veracity, competence or effectiveness.
Such motives fit with what we have seen to date:
Deny elections and scream fraud and political treachery only if you lose.
Attack the media. Increase access to friendly media outlets and channels.
Purge the military. Insert loyalists.
Insert loyalists in all aspects of justice and law enforcement.
Threaten the wealthiest to get on board. Coopt them early and often.
Attack judges who oppose policies.
Attack higher education and isolate the intellectual community to reduce credibility with the broader public. Call them elitists and accuse them of whatever is needed (“radical Marxists,” etc.)
Threaten states with economic damage and make them challenge you in court (SCOTUS as an ace in the hole).
Rewrite history from the Smithsonian to the libraries.
The ill will and bad faith will continue, but we need to keep in mind that Trump is jeopardizing the reliability of economic data. This coming from someone who still says he collected hundreds of billion in tariffs from selling countries in Trump 1.0 (i.e., he collected zero from selling countries).