Washington DC [US], August 4 : US President Donald Trump, while talking to reporters on Sunday (local time), said that his administration will announce a new statistician in the coming days.
Whoever the president nominates to be the new commissioner would need to be confirmed by the Senate, as per CNN.
"We'll be announcing a new statistician sometime over the next three, four days. We had no confidence. I mean, the numbers were ridiculous, which she announced, but that was just one negative number. All of the numbers seem to be great. In my opinion, it's just an additional scam," Trump said before boarding Air Force One in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Earlier on Sunday, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended Trump's decision to fire Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming the president "wants his own people there," as per CNN.
Last week, a weaker-than-expected jobs report proved to be a sore spot for the economy and the president. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly jobs report on Friday showed the US economy added just 73,000 jobs in July. The monthly totals for May and June were also revised down by a combined 2,58,000 jobs.
After the report was released, Trump posted to Truth Social that "today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad." Trump later announced he was firing McEntarfer, CNN reported.
Hassett did not provide evidence that the report was incorrect, saying that the "revisions are hard evidence" that the jobs data was rigged.
"What we need is a fresh set of eyes over the BLS," Hassett said.
Hassett said that if he ran the BLS and had "the biggest downward revision in 50 years, I would have a really, really detailed report explaining why it happened." He claimed without evidence that there are "partisan patterns" in the jobless data and that "data can't be propaganda," CNN reported.
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