The White House has sent paperwork to the Senate to withdraw the nomination of E.J. Antoni as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The withdrawal comes after CNN’s KFile reported earlier this month that Antoni had operated a since-deleted social media account that featured sexually degrading attacks on Kamala Harris, derogatory remarks about gay people, conspiracy theories, and crude insults aimed at critics of President Donald Trump. According to a person familiar with the matter, GOP Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski had declined to meet with Antoni, which likely raised concerns about the nomination’s viability.
A White House official issued a statement praising Antoni, saying he is a “brilliant economist and an American patriot” and that President Trump is “committed to fixing the longstanding failures at the BLS that have undermined the public’s trust in critical economic data.” The Heritage Foundation, where Antoni serves as chief economist, also said he would continue in his post there and keep “calling for that reform.” Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee with jurisdiction over the BLS nominee, noted that Antoni’s confirmation hearing had not been scheduled, a sign that the nomination was not moving forward.
The Politicization of Economic Data
This is not the first time the administration has been accused of politicizing the BLS. Trump nominated Antoni in August after firing the previous commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, whom he accused, without evidence, of rigging jobs data. The ouster came after the July jobs report showed weak growth, with significant downward revisions to the May and June reports. The BLS, which was established in 1884, is an independently operated body within the U.S. Department of Labor, and its reports are among the most-watched indicators of the health of the world’s largest economy.
The revisions that angered Trump were large, but they were not unprecedented in the BLS’s history. For example, the May jobs total was revised lower by 120,000 jobs, and the June total was revised down by 133,000 jobs. The BLS has been tracking these revisions for decades and has found that the average monthly revision since 2003 is 51,000 jobs. These revisions are a normal part of the process, as the initial reports are based on incomplete survey data.
Author’s Opinion
This episode highlights a crucial and dangerous trend: the politicization of government institutions that are meant to be non-partisan. The attempt to install a controversial figure to lead the BLS, after ousting his predecessor for inconvenient data, shows a clear effort to undermine the public’s trust in objective facts. While the withdrawal of the nomination is a small victory for institutional integrity, it does not erase the broader political agenda. The BLS, and other similar agencies, are now on the front lines of a new kind of political warfare where data itself is a battleground, and the fight to preserve the independence of these institutions is more important than ever.
Featured image credit: Trump White House Archived via Flickr
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