President Donald Trump announced Monday that he planned to nominate E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, as the new commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that "E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE."
Antoni’s planned nomination comes after Trump fired former commissioner Erika McEntarfer hours after a weaker-than-expected jobs report on Aug. 1. Trump said, without evidence, that the jobs report for July was “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”
Antoni did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment Monday.
Steve Bannon, a senior adviser to Trump in his first term, had been pushing hard for Antoni’s nomination. Antoni, a contributor to the Project 2025 policy rubric, has been a longtime skeptic of BLS data. On Bannon’s podcast last week, Antoni called for McEntarfer to be fired shortly before Trump pulled the trigger.
As chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, Antoni has written a number of pieces for the think tank that are highly complimentary of the Trump administration. One of his recent reports said that the June jobs report, before it was revised, was a “home run” for the president.
Multiple former BLS commissioners said after McEntarfer's firing that the head of labor statistics does not have a role in compiling the jobs report and is only briefed on its figures shortly before it is released to the public.
In that report, the BLS reported that the U.S. economy added just 73,000 jobs in July. The agency also said it had revised the May and June numbers and that they turned out to be lower than previously announced, by more than 200,000 jobs.
The BLS routinely revises economic data such as the jobs report, gross domestic product figures and inflation data. Due to the scale of the U.S. economy and response rates to BLS surveys, there can often be lags in data collection. But that lag does not imply any wrongdoing or manipulation.
The data that the bureau produces is massively important to businesses, policy makers and government agencies because without it, the true condition of the U.S. economy might be harder to determine.
The accuracy of the data that BLS produces is "built on a foundation of trust," JPMorgan's chief U.S. economist said last week. Economists widely warned that firing of McEntarfer could pose a risk to global markets, financial stability and the overall U.S. economy because so much rests on the integrity of the agency's data.
The BLS data and that of other U.S. statistics agencies have so far been considered the gold standard globally because historically those government entities have been allowed to operate with little to no political interference.
Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House under President Barack Obama, said Monday that "E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS commissioner. He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant experience."
"He would be a break from decades of nonpartisan technocrats," Furman added in a post on X.
Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, called Antoni “whip smart, passionate, and committed to excellence — three qualities that will turn the BLS from an agency that’s apparently still playing catch up with accurate data to one which is transparent, reliable, and correct.”
Many previous commissioners served across administrations, such as Trump's nominee to the agency during his first term. William Beach, nominated in 2019, served through March 2023. Keith Hall, nominated by President George W. Bush, took up the commissioner role in January 2008 and continued until January 2012 under President Barack Obama.
President Joe Biden nominated McEntarfer in July 2023. She was confirmed by the Senate in a 86-8 vote in January 2024. Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, cast one of the votes in her favor.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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