White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett defends Trump’s firing of labor statistics head

The economic adviser of the White House, Kevin Hassett, defended the decision of President Donald Trump on Sunday to dismiss the head of the work statistics office, as well as the assertion of the president that the weaker than expected job reports were “rigged”, but have produced no evidence in support of Trump’s complaint.

“What we need is a new set of Eyes on BLS,” said Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, at NBC News “Meet The Press”.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a monthly job report which included lower figures than expected for July, as well as major decline in May and June figures.

On Friday, in an article on Truth Social, the president said that the job numbers were “fake” and that he had asked his team to dismiss the BLS commissioner, Erika Mcentarfer.

“We need specific employment numbers. I ordered my team to dismiss this named Biden policy, immediately. She will be replaced by someone much more competent and qualified. Important figures like this must be just and exact,” Trump wrote.

In another social post, the president added: “In my opinion, today’s employment numbers were faked in order to ensure that the Republicans, and I have gone wrong.”

Hassett has thrown a similar doubt about the accuracy of the employment numbers on Sunday, stressing the past revisions that were made to job reports after the president of the time, Joe Biden, stopped showing up at the re -election last year.

“There have been a bunch of models that could make people wonder. And I think that the most important thing that people know is that it is the highest priority of the president to which the data is reliable and that people reach the bottom of the reason why these revisions are so unreliable,” said Hassett to “Meet The Press” the moderator Kristen Welker.

He later added in the interview that the Trump administration’s objective was to understand why there was such a considerable revision of the job numbers in recent months.

“The main thing is that there were people involved in the creation of these figures. And if I directed the BLS and that I had a number that was a huge politically important revision, the biggest since 1968 in fact … So I would have a very long report explaining exactly what happened. And we did not understand,” said Hassett.

It is not uncommon for job reports to be revised in the months that followed their release, but Hassett stressed on Sunday that the July revision was one of the greatest he has seen in decades.

On Friday, Trump faced criticism from democrats and republicans in the congress when he decided to fire Mcentarfer, several Republican senators wondering if the dismissal would really help Trump administration to improve future jobs.

“We need to look for objective statistics somewhere. When people who provide statistics are dismissed, it is much more difficult to make judgments which, you know, statistics will not be politicized,” Senator Rand Paul, R-KY., NBC News on Friday.

“I’m going to examine it, but the first impression is that you cannot really make the figures different or better in dismissing people who make the count,” he added.

Hassett said on Sunday that the installation of Trump’s own “own people” will help make “transparent and reliable” job reports in the future.

“The president wants his own people so that when we see the figures, they are more transparent and more reliable. And if there are great changes and major revisions – we expect more important revisions for job data in September, for example – so we want to know why we want people to explain it,” he said.

Later Sunday, Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Joined “Meet The Press” and accused the president of trying to “arm” the work statistics office for his own program.

Padilla also said that the Senate would evaluate the “independence” of a new BLS commissioner when the time comes to confirm a new one.

“This is the big question for the members of the Congress who will have to confirm, the members of the Senate, who must confirm anyone replace Trump,” Padilla told Welker. “The confirmation hearings are supposed to be on” will it be someone who will maintain the independence of the work statistics office “, like so many other departments and agencies which must have the independence of the political pressure of the White House to do their work reliably.”

“When [Trump’s] Trying to arm the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tells you about their insecurity on the economy and the state of economic affairs, “added Padilla later.

Hassett also talked about the President -evolved tariff agenda.

Last week, Trump formalized trade agreements with countries such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom and imposed radical prices on some of the largest American trade partners, such as Canada, which is now faced with a 35% rate rate on goods not covered by the Canada-UX-Mexico Trade Agreement.

Hassett echoed Trump’s statements on NBC News from the week on Sunday, indicating that there was still room to conclude trade agreements for nations that had not yet concluded negotiations.

“For transactions that are not yet ready. They will soon get the reciprocal prices, and then we would expect him to be negotiations with these countries,” he told Welker.

Hassett also questioned the idea that higher prices on consumer goods could lead to inflation, as economic analysts have been predicting for months.

Instead, Hassett blamed inflation to Biden administration.

“Each inflation measurement, if you conduct it, if you look at the upper line numbers, is lower than it was in five months,” he said, adding later: “Inflation has therefore dropped. And inflation has fallen for many reasons, but I think that the main reason is that we no longer indicate money and sent it to people like Bidens.